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When the Hatikvah International Academy Charter School in East Brunswick, the first Hebrew language charter school in New Jersey and only the fourth in the country, opens its doors next September, Hebrew language and Israeli culture will fill the classrooms and the halls.

As a public school, however, Hatikvah is prohibited from teaching religion. A new after-school program, JUMP (Jewish Upbringing Matters Program), seeks to fill that void for Jewish students enrolled at the school.

Modeled after JUMP in Hollywood, Fla., which began in Fall 2008 after the first Hebrew language charter school, Ben Gamla Charter School, opened in Fall 2007, the East Brunswick incarnation will offer a daily after-school Judaic studies curriculum and is open to students of all backgrounds and affiliations, including those who are unaffiliated. A second JUMP was founded in Plantation, Fla. after another Ben Gamla campus opened this school year.

"The program gives students an opportunity for Judaic learning to students of all different backgrounds in an enjoyable and meaningful way," said Rabbi Shlomo Landau, a teacher at Moshe Aaron Yeshiva High School in South River who is helping to bring the program to central New Jersey.

Unlike its Florida counterparts, JUMP of East Brunswick also plans to establish a before-school program, where students will have the opportunity to daven and learn before classes begin.

The benefit of the program, Landau noted, is that since students are receiving instruction in Hebrew language during the day at school, the curriculum of JUMP can focus on other areas of Jewish learning. "The brilliance of the program is that it not only supplements what they've been learning at school, it complements it," he said.

The school is tentatively planned to open next door to the Hatikvah Academy and, like its neighbor, will begin with kindergarten through 2nd grade, and add one new grade each year until reaching 8th grade.

While the program is specifically geared toward students of the Hatikvah Academy, Landau stressed that JUMP will have no formal ties to the school since, like any other public school, Hatikvah must maintain "the separation of church and state."

"I do not plan on stepping a foot in the charter school," Landau added.

Landau said that since the Florida programs have established a successful model, the East Brunswick version will not have to "reinvent the wheel," but rather "just tweak" the curriculum to fit the needs and interests of students and their families who enroll at Hatikvah.

In the kindergarten program, according to the JUMP curriculum, students are introduced to the Jewish calendar and the customs, songs, and meanings of the holidays. Students also become familiarized with the basic storyline of the Torah through arts and crafts projects, songs, and acting.

In the 1st and 2nd grades, students continue to learn about the holidays, but begin to focus on the weekly Torah portion. Students are also introduced to the basics of the morning prayers, the Shema, and blessings.

JUMP in Florida has been "very successful," Rabbi Yaakov Lyons, the director of the program in Hollywood and Plantation, told The Jewish State.

While the exact number of Jewish students at the Ben Gamla schools cannot be confirmed since the schools are open to all students irrespective of their religion, Lyons estimated that approximately half of the Jewish students enrolled also attend his program.

"We can provide a convenient program right next door to the schools and it's a goldmine of an opportunity to provide Jewish education to people who would not otherwise get a Jewish education," Lyons said, noting the large number of families whose children attend the school and do not belong to a synagogue.

Landau said that the program will charge a "nominal fee," which has yet to be determined. In Florida, the program costs $100 a month.

He expects that this program, like those in Florida, will be attractive to students who cannot necessarily afford the tuition of Jewish day school or "aren't ready to make the plunge" of enrolling their child in a day school.

According to Landau, the East Brunswick program will hire teachers who have full-time teaching jobs and are "young, energetic, spunky teachers who have a tremendous commitment to Jewish education themselves."

A child can sense if a teacher is passionate about what he or she teaches, Landau explained, and that the goal of JUMP was to find teachers whose enthusiasm for Jewish education "will hopefully be contagious."