Shalom Rosenberg wants to make Jewish education as fun as summer camp. This coming school year, he will find out if he can pull it off.

Rosenberg is the director and lead educator of Edah, a new after-school program launching this fall at Congregation Netivot Shalom in Berkeley. The Edah education model includes group activities, music, art, sports and cooking.

There’s also a “kickoff” retreat planned, as well as special “school’s out” daylong programs for when public schools have a vacation day.

The program will be for kindergartners through fifth graders, but the maiden effort will be starting with kindergartners only (probably about 12). Although being held at a Conservative synagogue, the program is open to families of all denominations and affiliations.

The four-day-a-week program will feature age-appropriate study of Jewish books, Jewish values, prayer, Hebrew, holidays and rituals.

“It’s not like anything else,” said Rosenberg, 29, a longtime Jewish educator who moved to the Bay Area a year ago. He notes that the program will employ several education models, yet keep them all separate.

“What we’re trying to do is an experiment,” Rosenberg said. “There is constructivist learning, project-based learning and also a big focus on Hebrew immersion.”

In Hebrew, “Edah” roughly translates as “community of learners.” The Edah classroom will not look like the typical grid of chairs and desks. Instead, learning centers will give students free choice in terms of areas of focus.

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