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Chitrik Academy to Help Students with Gemara

A new online video library was created in memory of Reb Tzvi Hirsch Chitrik, OBM, with the goal of assisting students both young and old achieve greater understanding and knowledge in Gemara.

The video library is being dubbed ‘The Jewish Khan Academy,’ due to its similarities to the popular tuition-free “school” on YouTube by that name.

Rabbi Chitrik served as the Rebbe’s shliach to Brazil during the early years. In later years, he moved to Crown Heights and was very active in community affairs.

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15 Comments

  • At Last

    what an amazing project!!
    the Chitrik Academy is the start of a new era
    it will help so many of our children who struggle in school

  • Great Idea!

    What a great idea to use the kahn model for Jewish studies. This will chnage learning forever.

  • Great Idea!

    What a great idea to use the kahn model for Jewish studies. This will chnage learning forever.

  • Shlome Seldowitz

    Let’s live with the times.

    I suggest that the library be located at a web site. Each lesson could be downloaded and reviewed by the student.

    Many other Chabad web sites do this, such as chabad.org, ohrtmimim.org, and tiferes.org – to name a few.

  • Educator and parent..

    first of all thank you for putting this together, so I don’t get attacked for my comment this is not a judgement but an observation, I work at a school where Kahn Academy has been used profusely and gemara has bean taught on ipads for the last number of years. The beauty of Khan Academy is the ability for a student to observe the breakdown and more importantly the skill set that goes into a solving an equation. What I feel is missing from the video tutorials is the skill building or tools that are so drastically overlooked when teaching gemara to our children, we must become the guide on the side rather than sage on the stage, placing the emphasis on the what and how our children are learning rather than what we are teaching. We must equipped our children with the skills and tools necessary to become independent learners, we must invest our money into the elementary schools, rather then into programs for our students later on in life when they have become products of a failed system.

  • jargon = fluff

    “ The beauty of Khan Academy is the ability for a student to observe the breakdown and more importantly the skill set that goes into a solving an equation. ”Pardon? Please translate for us ordinary folks (Temimim anyone?) into unimpressive sounding non collegiate English. what is a skill set, which equations are you referring to, this is Gemara, not math.

  • jargon = fluff

    “ The beauty of Khan Academy is the ability for a student to observe the breakdown and more importantly the skill set that goes into a solving an equation. ”Pardon? Please translate for us ordinary folks (Temimim anyone?) into unimpressive sounding non collegiate English. what is a skill set, which equations are you referring to, this is Gemara, not math.

  • Educator and parent..

    In response to Jargon=fluff wrote: I see you are being sarcastic, I imagine you are better than that. To simplify what I am trying to say is; Gemarah learning requires a very specific skill set, for example, key phrases, structure, systems, and patterns that are used consistently throughout. Without being taught the ‘method’ of Gemarah learning we are setting up our children to fail. In most schools Gemarah is introduced by going straight to the content rather than the skill. Teachers take for granted that student will ‘pick up’ the process as they go along. Unfortunately those students are in the minority, leaving many Bochrim feeling inadequate when it comes to being able to learn on their own. I am suggesting that we spend a year or two focusing on the skills, investing in them when they are young, rather than when they are older when it is often too late.