JCHS Journeys

The JCHS Journeys combine learning with a multi-day experiential adventure designed to teach life lessons on the road.

At JCHS, our four-year Journey program is designed to guide students through their development as individuals, while it fosters a sense of community as a grade. Lastly, students reflect on their role within the Jewish People and their connection to the wider World.

Check back in November of 2025 for updates on Journeys for the 25-26 School Year

9th Grade Journey 2025

Building the Class of 2028 | Camp Newman in Santa Rosa

The 9th Grade Journey, “Making Our Machaneh: Creating Our Camp,” focuses on building community in an exciting and educational setting. This journey brings the 9th grade to Camp Newman in Santa Rosa, CA, where we will create a “camp community,” through four days of team-building, adventure, and fun.

JCHS students and teachers enjoy group challenges and team games, practice wilderness skills, and learn about what goes into a Machaneh: inclusiveness, respect, communal responsibility, and a deep sense of purpose. This four-day adventure will bring the class closer together while also challenging each participant to grow as an individual.

  • What does it mean to discover my “Emet” – my inner truth, and how might I handle obstacles that stand in the way of that discovery?
  • How can I work with my grade to build a community inspired by Gemilut Chasadim –acts of kindness and compassion, one that supports each individual – who they are, as they are? 
  • What is the power of Kavannah, setting a vision for what type of person, student, and community member we want to be?
  • What is the unique identity of our grade?
  • What does this community give to me and what can I give back to it?

This four-day journey is a vibrant mix of adventure, community building, and personal growth set in the beautiful outdoors. Participants will enjoy a variety of activities including hiking, ropes courses, group games, and special evening programs like scavenger hunts, animal encounters, and campfires. With time for reflection, bonding in small groups, and exciting off-site experiences like sea kayaking, the trip offers a rich balance of challenge, fun, and connection to nature and community. It’s an unforgettable opportunity to unplug, explore, and create lasting memories.

10th Grade Journey 2025

The Magic of the Canyons : Discovering Our Authentic Self in Nature  | Zion Canyon National Park

JCHS 10th graders continue the four-year journey curriculum with the 10th Grade Journey to Zion National Park: “The Magic of the Canyons: Discovering Our Authentic Self in Nature.” They experience not only the joy and community that comes with walking together on trails, but also dive into new challenges: working together as teams to overcome outdoor obstacles, learning to trust senses other than sight, appreciating the stillness and peace that comes with solitude, and embracing the power of “deep silence.” In their sophomore year, the journey to Zion National Park picks up those ideas and adds the element of “sacred place,” a natural setting with which we can form connections and within which powerful bonds can develop. 

  • How can nature help us discover not only our authentic, individual selves and our B’tzelem Elohim (shared humanity), but also the connection and responsibilities we hold, L’dor V’dor — to our ancestors & descendants?
  • How can a journey and the concept of “positive risk” help our grade to build a Kehillah Kedosha (inspired/holy community) — connecting in new and deeper ways?
  • What role can a special place (“HaMakom HaZeh”) have in helping us grow, transform, and evolve – and what might that teach us as we begin to imagine ourselves in the next chapters of our lives: as students, as young Jewish adults, and as a community?

JCHS works with Zion Mountaineering School (ZMS), a Utah-based outdoor outfitter as the group hikes, rock climbs, and canyoneers through the canyons surrounding Zion National Park. ZMS is a recipient of the Trip-Advisor certificate of excellence, and their guides have eleven years of experience in leading groups through canyon/rock excursions. Their managers are AMGA Certified Rock Guides. ZMS and JCHS Professional Community members guide students through activities designed to develop knowledge and skills, to open the senses, and to form new friendships and foster grade-wide bonding.

In addition, 10th graders learn from their classmates’ wisdom through student-led divrei Torah, daily experiences in Tribe Groups and games that they design and lead. The journey asks our 10th graders to reflect on the following essential questions: how can nature help us discover our authentic selves? How does a journey help us remove our masks? What power can an inspiring place have in helping us grow and transform?

11th Grade Journey 2025

Journey Toward Service  | New Orleans, Louisiana

On the Journey to New Orleans, students investigate how culture can be a force of strength and resilience in times of adversity. They also explore how one creates an authentic connection with a new community. With new perspective on themselves and the world, the grade reflects on their “universe of obligation,” learning how they can best be of service to the world, and learning how to build and rebuild a community in an inclusive and ethical way. Students graduate having examined the world in wider and wider circles, and with deeper and nuanced insight about their own identities. 

The New Orleans Journey is focused on the following essential questions: 

  • In the face of adversity, how can culture be a force of strength and resilience? 
  • How can I forge an authentic connection with a community that is not my own? 
  • When learning about the history of a place, where should the story begin? How does the past shape the present? And how does the present affect how we read the past?
  • For diaspora communities, how might transmitting and preserving cultural practices (mesorah) be a source of meaning-making and resilience?

This spring the Class 2026 will travel to New Orleans to consider what it takes to deeply encounter new communities. New Orleans is one of the most culturally rich cities in the country: the birthplace of jazz, a culinary capital, and host to many celebrations including the annual Mardi Gras Festival. It also faced an epic disaster that has changed the city forever, Hurricane Katrina. What does it take for the culture and people of a city to survive? Through meeting with community leaders, activists, and youth as well as experiencing live music, hands-on service projects, the historical French Quarter and the swamp-laced landscape of this incredible city, we will explore how a city can change in a way that is sustainable and inclusive. All the while, we will be reflecting on what it means to have an authentic connection to a new place, as a traveler rather than as a tourist.

12th Grade Journey 2025

The Mosaic of Ancient and Modern: Exploring Histories, Communities, and Diaspora | Mexico City, Mexico

12th graders will explore multicultural histories, communities, and identities in Mexico City, while also immersing themselves in the city’s rich arts and culture. They will visit synagogues, palaces, castles, museums, and pyramids, as well as explore bustling markets and discover local crafts. Additionally, 12th graders will have the unique opportunity to meet with 12th graders from a local Jewish high school, fostering cross-cultural exchange and connection.

This journey will focus on these essential questions: 

  • How do the diverse Jewish communities in Mexico City deepen our understanding of history, identity, and diaspora?
  • What are shared and unique aspects of Jewish life in different parts of the world?
  • How does the blending of culture, history and art reflect the evolution and layering of ancient and modern life in Mexico City?
  • What do spaces and places teach us about communities and their values?

This enriching journey through Mexico blends history, culture, and community, offering a deep dive into the country’s Mesoamerican roots, vibrant city life, and dynamic Jewish heritage. Highlights include a guided exploration of the ancient city of Teotihuacán, visits to iconic landmarks like the Zócalo and Museo del Templo Mayor, and immersive experiences with the local Jewish community through synagogues, cultural centers, and school visits.

Throughout the trip, participants will encounter Mexico’s artistic legacy through murals by Diego Rivera and other renowned artists, explore world-class museums, and enjoy the natural beauty of places like Chapultepec and Xochimilco. The experience is rounded out with meaningful Shabbat celebrations and plenty of opportunities to connect, reflect, and engage with both the past and present of this diverse and vibrant country.

The Israel Journey

As juniors, the grade journeys to Israel, experiencing the power of a national homeland as a place to explore individual identity. Whether they have visited before, or are seeing it for the first time, JCHS students are forever shaped by their encounter with the land of Israel on the Junior Journey. 

Toward Connection and Peoplehood  | Tel Aviv & Jerusalem, Israel
(Israel)

Our hearts remain very much focused on Israel. On the plight of the hostages. On the devastation to surviving families. By the resilience of a people united in purpose. As we foreshadowed last month when the war began,  because of the uncertainty inherent in planning a trip to Israel early next year, we regret to announce that the Class of 2025 and Class of 2026 will not be going to Israel.

We continue to hope for a resolution to the on going conflicts, and look forward to returning to Israel with our students.

The most impactful and tangible portion of our Israel curriculum is our 11th Grade Journey—Toward Connection and Peoplehood which takes the 11th grade students to Israel. Here they come face-to-face with Israel’s rich, diverse, complex society, meeting the people who live there and exploring the physical landscape first-hand. They experience the challenges of building a modern state and developing an energetic, expressive, and modern culture informed by ancient themes, contemporary Hebrew, and the rhythms of Jewish life. 

Identification with the State of Israel plays a central role in the mission of the Jewish Community High School of the Bay, which strives to shape a strong Jewish identity in its students. We seek to forge connections between each student and Israel that are positive, lasting, and personal.

Through the four-year experience at JCHS, we want our graduates to understand the interconnection of the Jewish people in Israel and the Diaspora, and to develop a sense of personal responsibility for the continuation and strengthening of Klal Israel(Jewish Peoplehood). We provide the means to create this understanding and ongoing relationship with Israel through the academic study of Israeli history, both ancient and modern, politics, current events and culture, Hebrew language and literature, as well as through experiential activities.

In many ways, Israel is the ideal proving ground for the pluralism and diversity of the Jewish people. This two-week journey of our junior class is an encounter with contemporary Israeli society exploring three different regions and themes: 

– In the North student explore youth and responsibility, the spirit of conservation and development, security and Jewish values and economic development.

– In Tel Aviv students experience the dichotomy of rich and poor, of creating a modern Hebrew culture and cosmopolitanism. They meet the Israeli “left” and consider issues of social justice.

– In Jerusalem students investigate diversity, the verge between religion and politics, secular and religious, borders and boundaries. They learn about the legacy of the Six-Day War and engage the Israeli “right.” 

After only two weeks, our students bring back from their journey a more profound understanding of Israel’s rich, diverse, and complex society. They have expanded their knowledge of Israeli politics and wrestled with the complexities confronting modern Israel. And through the experience of the physical land and forging personal connections with Israeli peers, our students have developed a meaningful relationship to Israel and discovered first-hand the role it has played in shaping the identity of the Jewish people. 

The experience engages these young adults with Israel and its culture in a way that supports the deepening of their own Jewish identities. Using guided reflection, they emerge with a broader perspective about the role of Israel in American Jewish life and the skills necessary to advocate for Israel on their college campuses.

JCHS graduates have gone on to study at Hebrew University, intern at Jewish Voice for Peace, make aliyah, work with J Street on social issues, and serve in the IDF, forever shaped by their encounter with the land of Israel.

Journeys artwork created by Joshua Miller ’24