After years of helping shape Jewish learning across Minnesota, Rabbi Yosi Gordon, known for his charismatic teaching style, is leading a new education endeavor. He’s introduced
Yosi’s School, an independent online Hebrew and Torah education program centered around his deep belief in excellent Jewish learning with substance and his ambition to rethink how supplemental Jewish education can support youth and adults in the Twin Cities and beyond.
Following 40 years at the former Talmud Torah of St. Paul as an executive director, principal, and classroom teacher, Gordon’s launch of Yosi’s School in 2024 created a new seat at the Jewish educators’ table for himself and a new learning pathway for adult and youth students 5th grade and up seeking supplemental Hebrew language education and Torah study.
“I just want the whole world to know Hebrew,” said Gordon, who views Hebrew not as a ritual requirement but as an artistic and cultural key. “Every culture has its art forms, and our medium is the word.” Through Hebrew, he witnesses how students connect to modern Israel and to more than 3,000 years of Jewish thought, debate, and storytelling.
At its core, Yosi’s School is simple: virtual classes, typically consisting of two to five students or private one-on-one classes, meeting twice weekly for 50 minutes for Hebrew and/or Bible study. But inside his Zoom classrooms, Gordon has built a curriculum from scratch, rooted in Hebrew comprehension and enlightening Torah study that engages students in critical analysis. He invites students to read Jewish texts and understand the meaning of each word and how it connects back to a bigger story.
Classes incorporate the contemporary Israeli textbook, First and Foremost, alongside videos, podcasts, visual storytelling, and music. Students learn conversational Hebrew and biblical language, gaining what he sees as a kind of dual literacy. The goal is fluency with meaning, in addition to pronunciation.
During Torah study, Yosi’s School students work with the original Hebrew text, using color-coded materials – verbs in dark red, prepositional phrases in purple, for example – to break down grammar and structure. From there, they translate collaboratively, and what emerges is not just comprehension, but conversation. He also uses over 70 creative Zoom backgrounds to set the scene in his lessons, all of which relate to sections of the Torah or Hebrew books being studied.
Gordon’s classes are intentionally designed to be a space where students are encouraged to question, challenge, and debate. A discussion of the biblical figure Gideon, for example, can quickly evolve into a broader conversation about doubt, belief, and what it means to engage with Jewish tradition on one’s own terms.
In the process of establishing his program, Gordon proudly reflects on how it’s created close-knit virtual communities of learners from across the country, including Minnesota, Wisconsin, Maryland, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and Washington state. “My students from different cities have become close friends – they share books they’ve read, their life situations, and they offer advice to one another,” said Gordon.
A mom of one Minnesota-based high school student who attends Yosi’s School describes Gordon as “kind, thoughtful, intuitive, creative and collaborative.” Her daughter attended Heilicher Day School through 8th grade (now named Harold and Mickey Smith Jewish Academy), and wanted to continue Hebrew as a foreign language, but it was not offered at her new high school. The family spent months researching, and struggled to find an available Hebrew education teacher. Through word of mouth, they eventually learned of Yosi’s School, and the high school supported the endeavor through project-based learning, allowing her daughter to earn high school language credit while studying with Rabbi Gordon during school hours three days per week.
“I’m so grateful we were able to come across his offerings – it’s a true class with a syllabus,” she said. “My daughter has full conversations in Hebrew and Yosi is really incredible at customizing the learning style for each student while teaching reading, writing, and intertwining Judaism and faith-based conversations.”
Yosi’s School serves a wide range of learners: bar and bat mitzvah students, middle and high school students seeking to deepen their Hebrew skills, teens looking to fulfill high school language requirements, college and graduate students preparing for advanced study, adults returning to Jewish learning later in life, and non-Jewish students studying Hebrew and Jewish texts. Some students arrive with strong Jewish backgrounds whereas others do not, and Rabbi Gordon strives to meet everybody where they’re at.
As for student outcomes, he says that after months of study, first-year students can translate verses together with growing independence, b’nai mitzvah students are able to both read and understand their Torah portion meaning in English with minimal assistance, students graduate ceremonies speaking Hebrew from notes rather than memorizing.
Yosi’s School has grown organically. Rabbi Gordon first experimented with a low-cost video series called “Talmud in Ten,” sending subscribing participants weekly 10-minute lessons over the course of 20 weeks. He had such a positive response that he extended the series to 40 weeks. Soon after, he began offering live classes. It is, in many ways, a return to what he has always loved most.
Born in Green Bay, Wis., Gordon was ordained in 1972 at the Jewish Theological Seminary after studying in Israel, where he says he “fell insanely in love with Israel and Jewish education.” His career took him first to Los Angeles, where he served as acting principal of a Hebrew high school, and then to St. Paul, where he helped lead Talmud Torah and played a role in opening the former St. Paul Jewish Day School.
Eventually, he stepped away from administration entirely, following his true calling of classroom teaching. In addition to teaching programs at both St. Paul and Minneapolis Talmud Torahs, he taught Introduction to Judaism and Jewish literature at the University of Minnesota, Hamline University and St. Olaf College earlier in his career.
Rabbi Gordon continues to expand Yosi’s School and looks forward to enrolling more students. This summer, he plans to offer two six-week adult courses centered on Why Is There Evil in the World?, a book by his longtime teacher and renowned Israeli Bible scholar and historian, Yisrael Knohl. The course will meet 60-minutes per week and explore the intellectual evolution of Judaism, including the development of monotheism and shifting understandings of God over time.
“Hebrew gives you the tools to make yourself into the kind of Jew you choose to be,” said Gordon. “It’s this great gift waiting for us and all we need to do is take it.”
To learn more about Yosi’s School program offerings, tuition cost and course registration, email [email protected] and follow @yosisschool on Instagram and Facebook.