ShalomLearning

ShalomLearning is the values-based Jewish education curriculum used by more than 300 synagogues and a small but growing number of Jewish homeschooling families. It is the closest thing to an off-the-shelf K-7 Judaic curriculum available to American homeschoolers.

Last updated: 2026-04-24 · Every Homeschool Editorial Team

At a glance

Method	Online academy / traditional / values-based Judaic
Worldview	Jewish (pluralistic; used across Reform, Conservative, and pluralistic settings)
Grades	K-7
Formats	Digital lesson plans, slides, videos, songs; Shalom LinkED live classes
Cost tier	Budget
Parent intensity	2
ESA-common	No
Accredited	No
Established	2011
Website	shalomlearning.org

Our scoreboard (1-5)

Criterion	Score	One-line reason
Academic rigor	3	Solid Judaics; Hebrew rigor varies by tier
Ease of teaching	4	Lesson plans, slides, songs ready to deliver
Content quality	4	Curriculum-grade Judaic content from a credentialed team
Flexibility	4	Modular by year; can be paced to family rhythm
Value for money	4	Synagogue-tier pricing translates to affordable family use
Worldview scope	1	Specifically Jewish; not designed for non-Jewish use
Visual/design	4	Modern slides and video; not flashy
Support resources	4	Live-class option, teacher training, song library

Who the publisher is

ShalomLearning was founded in 2011 as a values-based Jewish education curriculum aimed initially at supplemental religious schools, the Sunday-and-Wednesday programs that meet at synagogues to provide Judaic education to children whose primary schooling is secular public or private. The founding team came out of the Conservative Jewish education world and built the program to address two complaints synagogue educators had been making for decades: that traditional Hebrew-school curricula were textbook-bound and disengaging, and that values education was treated as soft material rather than a core organizing frame.

The platform is widely adopted within the synagogue space. ShalomLearning reports that more than 300 synagogues across the United States and Canada use the program, spanning Reform, Conservative, Reconstructionist, and pluralistic Jewish settings. The Orthodox world generally uses different curricula (typically published by Behrman House, Lehrhaus Press, or yeshiva-network resources), but ShalomLearning's pluralistic framing makes it usable across the broad center of American Jewish life.

The curriculum is structured around seven Jewish values, teshuvah (return), achrayut (responsibility), b'tzelem Elohim (created in God's image), gevurah (strength), koach hadibbur (the power of speech), l'olam va'ed (eternity, and stewardship of creation), and hakarat hatov (gratitude), each treated as a year-long anchor with associated content in Bible, holiday observance, history, and Hebrew language. ShalomLearning Shalom LinkED is the live-class extension: students from multiple participating settings join a virtual classroom for synchronous instruction, which homeschool families can use to provide their children peer interaction in a Jewish learning environment.

The core pedagogy

ShalomLearning teaches Judaics by anchoring each year in a Jewish value and building the year's content around it. A second-grade student in the achrayut (responsibility) year encounters Bible stories selected for their themes of responsibility (Cain and Abel, Noah's stewardship, Abraham's hospitality), holiday observances framed through the same lens (Yom Kippur as accountability, Pesach as collective responsibility), and Hebrew vocabulary connected to the themes. The mechanism is integrative: rather than parallel tracks of Bible, Hebrew, holidays, and history that occasionally cross paths, ShalomLearning weaves them around the year's value anchor.

Scope and sequence runs across seven years, K-7, with each year carrying a value as its organizing frame. Hebrew language instruction is offered in three tiers for students grades 3-7 to accommodate varying entry levels: Hebrew Through Movement for prayer-Hebrew foundations, modern Hebrew for conversational and reading fluency, and a tier for students preparing for a bnei mitzvah in two or three years. Lesson plans are delivered as PowerPoint slide decks the parent or teacher walks the student through, supplemented by short videos, original songs, and printable activity pages. Live-class students through Shalom LinkED join a Zoom-based classroom of children from multiple synagogues or homeschool families, taught by a ShalomLearning-trained instructor.

Signature mechanics: (1) Value-anchored years. Each year carries one of the seven Jewish values, and most material connects back to it. This is unusual among Judaic curricula and gives ShalomLearning a coherence that subject-organized programs lack. (2) Three-tier Hebrew. Recognizing that Jewish homeschool and supplementary-school students arrive with wildly varying Hebrew backgrounds, ShalomLearning offers placement into three different Hebrew tracks rather than a single sequence. (3) Live-class option. Shalom LinkED is the single largest factor distinguishing ShalomLearning from competitor curricula in the homeschool context; few values-based or denominational Judaic curricula offer a real live-class option for homeschool families.

A day in the life

A fourth-grade Jewish homeschool student using ShalomLearning's gevurah (strength) year-three content sits down with her parent at 10:00 on Tuesday morning. Today's lesson is a Bible study unit anchored on the David and Goliath narrative, explored as a story about courage in the face of disproportionate odds, with the parent walking the student through the slide deck (twelve slides, fifteen-minute video segments embedded), a discussion guide, and a printable activity. The student also has thirty minutes of Hebrew on the Tier 2 modern-Hebrew track that meets twice weekly via Shalom LinkED. Today is not a Hebrew day, so total time on ShalomLearning content is about forty-five minutes. On Hebrew days, total time is about ninety minutes.

A family using only the asynchronous curriculum without Shalom LinkED follows a similar rhythm, but Hebrew instruction relies on the platform's recorded video content and the parent's involvement, which adds parent-prep time before each lesson. Families with strong existing Hebrew (a parent fluent in Hebrew, or a child enrolled in supplementary Hebrew elsewhere) often use ShalomLearning for the Judaics-and-values track and source Hebrew separately, perhaps from Tal Am, Hebrew Time, or Mango Languages Hebrew.

What they do exceptionally well

Coherent values frame across years. Editorial view: ShalomLearning's value-anchored design produces a more thematically integrated Judaic education than the subject-by-subject approach most Hebrew-school curricula take. A child completing seven years has spent significant time engaging with seven distinct Jewish values and developing language for thinking about them; the residue is real.

Pluralistic-but-substantive framing. ShalomLearning manages a difficult balance, material is substantively Jewish, drawing on Bible, rabbinic tradition, holiday observance, and Hebrew language, but not denominationally tied to Reform, Conservative, or Reconstructionist particulars. This makes the curriculum usable across the broad center of American non-Orthodox Jewish life and unusable for Orthodox families who require fuller halakhic specificity.

Shalom LinkED for homeschool peer connection. Homeschool Jewish families often face a real isolation challenge: most synagogue Hebrew schools are designed around children whose primary education is secular school. Shalom LinkED gives homeschool children a virtual Jewish classroom of peers, taught by a Jewish educator, in a way few alternatives provide.

What they do poorly

Not designed for primary Jewish day-school replacement. ShalomLearning is built around the supplementary-school model, three to four hours weekly of Judaic content alongside whatever the student is doing as primary education. A homeschool family looking for a full-time Jewish day-school equivalent (six to twenty hours weekly of Judaics plus full secular subjects integrated) needs additional curriculum, not ShalomLearning alone. Families pursuing this fuller integration typically combine ShalomLearning with Tal Am or Bonim B'Yachad for deeper Hebrew, plus a primary secular curriculum.

Hebrew rigor varies by tier and by family commitment. The three-tier Hebrew structure is a real strength for placement flexibility but a constraint on uniform academic outcome. A student in the entry tier emerges with prayer-Hebrew foundations; a student in the upper tier emerges with conversational fluency and Bible-reading capacity. Families should be clear-eyed about which tier their child is in and what outcome it will produce.

Limited material outside Judaics. ShalomLearning is a Jewish-content curriculum. It does not teach math, science, or English language arts. Homeschool families need a complete secular curriculum elsewhere. This is not a flaw, it is the program's design, but it is worth flagging to families coming from all-in-one Christian curricula who may expect comparable scope.

Who it fits / who it doesn't

• Pick ShalomLearning if: the family identifies as Reform, Conservative, Reconstructionist, or pluralistic Jewish; you want a values-based Judaic curriculum the parent can deliver without rabbinic credentials; the live-class peer experience matters and Shalom LinkED schedule fits; the child is K-7 and Hebrew placement options serve real range; the family is content to pair ShalomLearning with separate secular curricula.

• Skip ShalomLearning if: the family is Orthodox and requires halakhically specific instruction (consider Behrman House or yeshiva network materials); the child is in eighth grade or older and ShalomLearning's K-7 scope ends before high school work; the family wants a full Jewish day-school replacement and not a supplementary curriculum; the family prefers a Hebrew-immersion program to the values-anchored framing (consider Tal Am for Hebrew-first instruction).

Cost honest assessment

ShalomLearning's homeschool pricing is offered through individual family subscription rather than the synagogue licensing model. The family curriculum subscription runs roughly $200 to $400 per child per year as of April 2026, depending on tier and whether Shalom LinkED live-class participation is included. Hebrew-tier add-ons run additional fees in some configurations. Synagogue-licensed students access the program at no incremental cost beyond synagogue membership and Hebrew school tuition.

Compared to Behrman House workbook-based Judaics curricula at roughly $20 to $40 per workbook per year, ShalomLearning is more expensive but delivers integrated multi-media content rather than print workbooks alone. Compared to Tal Am Hebrew-immersion at roughly $400 to $600 per year per child, ShalomLearning is comparable for the live-class option and cheaper for the asynchronous option. Compared to private Jewish day-school tuition (commonly $10,000 to $30,000 per year), ShalomLearning is dramatically less expensive but covers Judaics only.

A realistic family budget using ShalomLearning for one child K-7 with the live-class option: $300 to $400 per year. Without live class: $200 to $300 per year.

ESA eligibility notes

ShalomLearning has limited presence on US state ESA marketplaces, the curriculum is designed primarily for synagogue rather than ESA distribution, and most state ESA programs that approve religious-content curricula concentrate their approved-vendor lists around the larger Christian publishers. Some states with more permissive marketplaces (Arizona ESA, Florida Step Up For Students) have approved religious-curriculum reimbursement on a case-by-case basis when families submit documentation, but ShalomLearning is not a routine approved vendor. Families using ESA dollars should verify with their specific state program before subscribing. Some state ESA programs explicitly restrict religious-content materials, which would disqualify ShalomLearning regardless of marketplace listing.

Alternatives

• Behrman House, a family would pick Behrman House over ShalomLearning for a more traditional textbook-and-workbook approach to Judaics, denominationally diverse offerings, and lower per-volume cost without subscription.
• Tal Am, a family would pick Tal Am over ShalomLearning for a Hebrew-immersion approach where Hebrew language is the primary medium of Jewish content delivery, used widely in Jewish day schools.
• Bonim B'Yachad, a family would pick Bonim B'Yachad over ShalomLearning for a homeschool-tailored Jewish curriculum specifically designed for families educating outside the synagogue and day-school structures.

How we verified this

Our editorial team reviewed shalomlearning.org, the family-subscription pages, the Shalom LinkED program description, and sample lesson materials in April 2026. We cross-referenced founding history, synagogue-adoption claims, and curriculum structure against the publisher's published About page, the Shalom LinkED FAQ, and Jewish-education industry resources from Jewish Education Project. Pricing for the family-subscription tier verified April 2026 from the publisher's pricing page.