Director of Education Dr. Stephen R. Simons has served Congregation Mishkan Tefila for more than twenty years.  Dr. Simons is the Supervisor of the Nursery School Director and the Youth Educator at Congregation Mishkan Tefila. He organizes family education and field trips for families of students in grades K-7.  He works closely with the Brotherhood and other auxilliaries to implement intergenerational programming.  Dr. Simons is also the coordinator of adult education at Mishkan Tefila where he teaches a Monday morning text course on issues in Jewish spirituality and a Thursday evening course in Talmud.

Prior to joining our community, he served as Educational Director of Temple Israel in Natick for four years, where he worked closely with Rabbi Harold Kushner. Dr. Simons is a Fellow of the National Jewish Educators Assembly. He is a past president of the New England Region Jewish Educators Assembly. Throughout the past thirty years, Dr. Simons has taught children, adults, and college students at Temple Beth El in Sudbury, Brandeis University, the Hebrew College and at Mishkan Tefila. He has taught Yiddish literature at the Center for Jewish Studies in Krakow, Poland. Dr. Simons has lectured on Hebrew and Yiddish literature, the History of Jews in Russia and Poland, the Holocaust, Jewish Self Defense Movements in Russia, Today’s Poland and the Jews, and the History of Jewish Education in Boston.

His Jewish education includes attendance at a congregational school in Philadelphia, graduation from the High School Department of Gratz College, five years of private study in Halakha with Rabbi Chaim Zvi Klein z”l, and B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. degrees from Brandeis University, in the fields of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies, Yiddish literature and the history of East European Jewry, Jewish Mysticism, Jewish Thought, Bible, and the history of American Jewish immigrants and immigration. He was a student at the Shappell Yeshiva in Kiryat Moshe, Israel, and studied painting at the Museum School of the Museum of Fine Arts and the Bezalel School of Art and Design in Jerusalem. Dr. Simons participated in the Council for Initiatives in Jewish Education Institute on Leadership and Vision for Jewish Education, under the auspices of Harvard Graduate School of Education’s Programs in Professional Education. Dr. Simons holds certification in Advanced Studies in Jewish School Administration from the Hebrew College Principals’ Center. He has served on various educational committees of the Combined Jewish Philanthropies, was a member of the Board of Directors of the Boston Bureau of Jewish Education, and is a former Board Member of Congregation Beth Pinchas in Brookline, MA where he is a congregant and a devotee of Grand Rabbi Levi I. Horowitz, Shlita. He attends the Daf Yomi class in Talmud at Beth Pinchas.

Dr. Simons continues to implement innovative ideas at Mishkan Tefila. Under his tenure, Mishkan Tefila has been awarded Solomon Schechter Awards in Elementary Jewish Education and in Special Education. Dr. Simons and staff formalized the CMT Adult Learners Institute, which serves more than fifty-five adult students and offers nine classes per semester. He works closely with the various committees and auxiliaries of Mishkan Tefila. He and Rabbi Pritzker conduct family education programs for Religious and Day School families. In November 2004, he presented, in cooperation with the Museum Committee and Youth Educator David Levy, a series devoted to the Golem of Prague. The series included the opening of the Museum Committee’s exhibit of the stone lithographs by Hugo Steiner-Prag, which were drawn to illustrate Gustav Meyrink’s German-expressionistic novel, Der Golem.  Wine and cheese were served at the opening, and Dr. Simons delivered a learned address on The Golem in Rabbinic and Kabbalistic Sources. Following the presentation, members of the CMT youth community viewed Frankenstein with Boris Karloff and Mel Brooks’ Young Frankenstein. The following evening, the series continued with a review of two contemporary novels on the Golem theme by CMT librarian, Mrs. Tova Sperber. This was followed by a review of the influence of the Golem theme on twentieth century cinema, presented by Variety correspondent and CMT member, Dan Kimmel. The concluding part of the series was a presentation by graphic artist James Sturm, author of the prize winning The Golem’s Mighty Swing.

Stephen Simons serves on the Academic Advisory Board of the National Center for Jewish films. He has provided English subtitles for Undzere Kinder, a post Holocaust film produced in Poland, Lyubovnik,  and Dem Khazns Zin, a musical romance depicting yearnings for the old shtetl on the part of young immigrants to America. It is a romantic comedy produced in the USA.