Torah Aura Productions is a Jewish educational publishing company based in Los Angeles, California.
The company's main focus is on publishing educational materials (mostly classroom books) for Reform, Conservative, Reconstructionist and unaffiliated Jewish synagogue schools in North America.
[2] The actual “creation myth” of Torah Aura Productions goes like this:[3] In 1981 Alan was running the family business during the week and the P.A.
Joel, Alan, and some other camp friends moved into Jane's borrowed house and turned it into an animation factory.
Within a few weeks, they were sitting around Alan's dining room table, creating a new kind of Jewish educational company.
Over the next several months we will be sharing those conceptions with you, not to so much for the purpose of selling books, but to facilitate a national dialogue on core issues.
We want you to demand that other purveyors of educational Judaica make their assumptions and design philosophies equally clear.
The ability to perform prayers from the Siddur is an enabling skill, but not one that alone will lead students as they grow to use services as moments of personal connection with the divine.
[6]According to Torah Aura, Jewish schools spend a lot of time on Bible stories, but nowhere near enough on developing the skills of extracting meaning from the biblical text.
According to Torah Aura (especially co-owner Joel Grishaver), the second thing that leads to Jewish survival is a connection to the community.
Most of all, Torah Aura believes that no matter what kind of instruction its owners and employees envision, its reality will be in the hands of teacher and class as they interact.
They explain that they "strive to empower the teacher with challenging resources that lead them towards creating good Jewish educational experiences.
This list includes: Torah Aura has become well known for publishing sets of educational materials called "Instant Lessons."
Over the years, Torah Aura has published a variety of weekly, bi-weekly, and monthly newsletters for students and teachers.