2021 Jewish Digital Homeschool Summit Speakers

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2021 Jewish Homeschool Summit

Malkie Swidler

Malkie Swidler, co-founder of Ani VeAmi and co-creator of its Torah Adventure, is the mother of a tween, teens and an adult who has been homeschooling for close to 20 years. She encourages parents to see their children’s strengths. Malkie lives in Raanana, Israel with her family.


Sara Rayvych

Sara Rayvych, MSEd, has her master’s in general and special education. She has been homeschooling for over 10 years in Far Rockaway. She is a weekly columnist whose articles focus on parenting and education in the Jewish community. Sara can be contacted at RayvychHomeschool@gmail.com.


Saifan Man

Saifan Man is a homeschooling mom from upstate NY, a Parent Coach and the founder of My Hebrew Playground, Inc.

She was born and raised in Kfar-Saba, Israel and has over 10 years of experience working with children and families both in formal and informal environments in Israel and in the United States. 

She graduated from Beit Berl College in Israel and specialized in teaching Hebrew, Math and Art. 

Saifan is also a certified Yoga instructor for children, and a PBL teacher.


Bethany Mandel

Bethany Mandel is a homeschooling mother of five children (two of whom are school-aged) and a follower of the Charlotte Mason philosophy of education (she is the creator and admin of the Facebook group Jewish Charlotte Mason Homeschooling, and she has a Jewish Charlotte Mason blog and YouTube channel). She is a contributing writer at Deseret News and an editor at Ricochet.com. A freelance writer, her work has appeared in the New York Times, New York Post, New York Daily News, the Atlantic, Newsweek, the Forward, JTA, the Washington Post, the Washington Examiner, and more.


Yehudis Eagle

Still going strong, Yehudis and her youngest are figuring it out and having fun! Headed into her (pause) 30th year of home education, entering this new “tekufa” contains all the trepidation, excitement and dreaming she experienced back at the beginning.


Tamar Nussbaum

Tamar Nusbaum has been teaching all grade levels for the past thirty years and specializes in structuring scope, sequences and strategies to utilize classroom time to maximize student learning opportunities. She possesses both the technical know-how for curriculum development as well as the critical skills for classroom integration. Her pedagogic approach ensures that each individual child and the class as a whole are engaged in a process of learning and growth. Tamar has written the L’Havin U’Lehaskil Chumash Series and the Ani Tefillah Program

Amy Bodkin

Amy Bodkin is an Autistc Adult, School Psychologist, and Homeschool Mom to her two Autistic kids. She consults primarily with homeschool families as the Special Needs Consultant at A Charlotte Mason Plenary. She works with families who have experienced chronic health conditions, disabilities, trauma, asynchronous development, etc. Her practice is guided by Charlotte Mason’s idea that “Children are born persons” and makes it her goal to see each child as an individual, not a diagnosis.

Amy has recently started a new venture at amybodkin.com to provide a home to her advocacy work and her new podcast “Special Needs Kids are People Too!”


Ophira Levant

Ophira Levant has been a middle school teacher for more than twenty years, focusing on Math and English, with a minor in Mandarin Chinese.  Upon graduation, she spent three years teaching English in China.  She has taught math, English, and Mandarin at private schools in Canada and Los Angeles. She has been a homeschooler for six years. 


Rivkah Harper

Rivkah Harper and her husband, Yehuda, live in Dallas, TX and have 4 boys (ages 12-20). They have been homeschooling for over 15 years. As much as she has homeschooled her boys, Rivkah feels that it is really she that is being homeschooled and considers herself a Homeschooled Mom. Life is all about ups and downs and insides and outsides and no two children learn the same. Aside from learning how to come up with (hopefully) fun math games and/or challenges mid-sentence, she tells her boys they don’t have snow days, but instead, they enjoy taking spring and summer days off of school. She has a BA in Music with a minor in Physics. In her spare time, she enjoys painting and getting back into music and learning a new instrument. With just one boy home to teach now, she is transitioning from a love of teaching her children to her other passion of helping other women have amazing marriages. You can follow her at: http://atorahlife.com/blog


Nechama Laber

Nechama Laber is an educator, author and certified life coach. She is the founder and director of the Jewish Girls Retreat  and Jewish Girls Unite global community for girls and women. She is the proud mother and grandmother of 11 children KH.


Sarah Rudolph

Sarah Rudolph is a Jewish educator, writer, and editor who has been sharing her passion for Jewish texts of all kinds for over 20 years, with students of all ages. Sarah’s essays have been published in a variety of internet and print media, including Jewish Action, OU Life, Lehrhaus, TorahMusings, Tradition, Times of Israel, Kveller, 929 English, and more. Sarah lives in Cleveland with her husband and four children but is privileged to learn with students all over the world through the affiliate sites www.TorahTutors.org, which she directs, and www.WebYeshiva.org. She also serves on the editorial committee of Tradition and is Editor-at-Large at Deracheha: womenandmitzvot.org


Yehudis Litvak

Yehudis Litvak, co-founder of Ani VeAmi and co-creator of its Torah Adventure, has been homeschooling for thirteen years. She is passionate about giving every child an opportunity to thrive socially, emotionally, and academically in a homeschool environment. Yehudis loves to read and write living books, and she is the author of a Young Adult historical fiction trilogy, as well as numerous short stories. Yehudis lives in Los Angeles with her family.