Yael Smooha came to Maharat with nearly two decades of teaching under her belt in both Jewish Day Schools and NYC public schools and an MA in Childhood Education from Teachers College, Columbia University. Yael’s passion for deepening Jewish spirituality drives her to facilitate meaningful connections among her students through personal reflection, discussion, and artistic expression, as Director of the Jspace Family Hebrew School program at the Bayit, as intern at the Mt. Freedom Jewish Center in Randolph, NJ, and currently as a middle school educator at Kinneret Day School in Riverdale, NY.