Yoga Teacher’s Training for Jewish women to be held in Jerusalem

A 200-hour Intensive Yoga Teacher Training Program, claimed to be the “first yoga training in the world to cater to Jewish women” is being launched in Jerusalem in July, with a follow-up starting in September.

Organized by Toronto based Kinneret Yoga, whose tagline is “move and be moved”, it will not hold classes on Shabbat or Jewish holidays. It is; however; open to women of all faiths and backgrounds.

Kinneret Yoga seems to appeal “to a broader international Jewish community of women who share a passion for practicing yoga”; where “mindfulness” is understood from Jewish teachings and courses “are taught using Judaic-oriented sources, philosophy, mindfulness, metaphors, dialogue, and ethics”. It claims that classes and programs are comfortable for Jewish women. It also coaches women online courses on “Yoga and Judaism”, “Creating Curriculum for Kid’s Yoga in Jewish Schools”, etc. Kinneret Dubowitz is the General Director.

Hindu statesman Rajan Zed, in a statement in Nevada today, welcomed Yoga Teacher’s Training catering to Jewish women to be held in Jerusalem.

Yoga, referred as “a living fossil”, was a mental and physical discipline, for everybody to share and benefit from, whose traces went back to around 2,000 BCE to Indus Valley civilization, Zed, who is President of Universal Society of Hinduism, noted.

Rajan Zed further said that yoga, although introduced and nourished by Hinduism, was a world heritage and liberation powerhouse to be utilized by all. According to Patanjali who codified it in Yoga Sutra, yoga was a methodical effort to attain perfection, through the control of the different elements of human nature, physical and psychical.

According to US National Institutes of Health, yoga may help one to feel more relaxed, be more flexible, improve posture, breathe deeply, and get rid of stress. According to a recently released “2016 Yoga in America Study”, about 37 million Americans (which included many celebrities) now practice yoga; and yoga is strongly correlated with having a positive self image. Yoga was the repository of something basic in the human soul and psyche, Zed added.