Learning About Learning: Conversations with Scholars of Jewish Education

Reports from research centers and in the media make it clear that overt antisemitic incidents have surged on college campuses since October 7. But what about those subtle forms of antisemitism, which are much less likely to be reported and documented? Yael Silverstein and her colleagues asked university students, faculty, and staff about overt and subtle antisemitic experiences, and they found tha...

What, if anything, can be considered “best practice” in Israel education? What are the challenges of learning about Israel in every stage of life? In this session, we explore what a team of scholars learned about research and practice in Israel education through a process of carefully sifting through the existing literature in the field. Through conversation, these experts share what their experie...

The heart of Jewish education, it seems, is the study of the Jewish textual tradition, or what insiders call “learning Torah.” There are good reasons to think about Jewish education that way. But there are also some reasons to question that assumption, based on the history of Jewish textuality and the history of Jewish culture. In this session, Jon A. Levisohn discusses a recent book chapter , whe...

In this session, we explore insights into how Israel educators from Jewish high schools across the denominational spectrum approach teaching modern Israel in response to the "you never told me" phenomenon: graduates expressing disillusionment that criticisms of Israel were not covered in their high school education. Benji Davis discusses his recent study and share how educators intention...

What does the latest research in teaching and learning in Jewish day schools reveal about what’s going on in classrooms today? For this webinar, respondents Daniel Held (UJA Federation of Greater Toronto), Amanda Pogany (Luria Academy of Brooklyn), and Tali Zelkowicz (The Wexner Foundation) brought their questions to Teaching and Learning in Jewish Day Schools , a new publication focused on presen...

In a time of continued war and exhaustion, how are teachers in Israel teaching, and what do they prioritize in their classrooms? In a longitudinal study , scholars Ziva Hassenfeld and Hadar Fisher asked these questions of 41 teachers in Israel, beginning just three weeks after October 7 and continuing with a group of 12 for another two years. In this session, they share insights into these teacher...

Two years after October 7, that date seems to mark a watershed in Jewish life around the world, including in North America. In this session, we explore how American Jewish educators and Jewish educational institutions have responded, how the changed environment has affected their work, and how they might need to think differently about the work of Jewish education in the days and years to come. Pa...

Spiritual formation has long been considered an important part of theological education for seminary students in Christian contexts, but what about students in Jewish seminaries? In a recent study of Jewish seminarians' perspectives of their formation needs, scholars learned that rabbinical students at a progressive seminary seek training in areas such as mental health, diversity, and social...

What issues in the contemporary world matter most to Jewish children, and how do children make sense of these issues? How do educators make sense of children’s ideas and their implications for the work of Jewish education? American Jewish 4th and 5th graders have concerns about many important world issues—climate change, homelessness, the Russia-Ukraine war, the Israel-Hamas war, political polariz...

In this special event, authors from a themed issue of Journal of Jewish Education discuss their articles on antisemitism on college campuses since October 7. The issue spotlights cutting-edge research to broaden and deepen our understanding of antisemitism and anti-Zionism by analyzing their contemporary manifestations and implications for Jewish education and learning. This webinar features the f...

Recent years have witnessed an impressive outpouring of important new work in contemporary Jewish theology. In this Spotlight Session, we gather four leading scholars, each of whom has recently produced an important work of Jewish theology, to think together about the implications of their ideas for Jewish education.  This webinar features the following panelists in discussion with Jon Levisohn (B...

Traditionally-Jewish fraternities and sororities are not often considered sites of Jewish community. In this session, Jenny L. Small discusses findings from interviews with fraternity and sorority life (FSL) educators, revealing their perspectives that students in these organizations bear distinctly gendered burdens around Jewish heritage and continuity. The educators in this study lacked a strong...

The field of Jewish education has now been split into two sub-fields, referred to as “formal” or “informal” (or “experiential”) education. But this division is artificial and proving profoundly limiting, distorting, and even harmful. What might be the ultimate potential of the field were we able to employ a balanced and integrated use of the full range of educational competencies, across all setti...

In her article, " When a Yarmulke Stands for All Jews: Navigating Shifting Signs from Synagogue to School in Luxembourg ," Anastasia Badder asks: How do congregational school students experience moments in which they were confronted with Jewishness outside of the classroom, in their secular schools and public spaces? And taking a material approach, how does the presence (and absence) of...

Habits of creative thinking have sustained the Jewish people through centuries of crisis and opportunity. How might the enterprise of Jewish education reclaim and teach creativity? Weaving together a wide range of theory and research, including affective neuroscience, Jewish philosophy and education, and studies of creativity and arts education, Miriam Heller Stern discusses a framework for foster...

The attack on October 7th, the ensuing war, and the changed environment in the US have all led to questions about how American Jewish educational institutions have responded, and how they should. What do we know about the impact of the last year on schools, synagogues, camps, Israel trips, and other initiatives? How have educators been affected? How have children? What new trends are emerging? In...

In his recent book , Shaul Kelner recounts the compelling stories of heroism that helped to free Soviet Jews. In this session, he discusses how this activism reached Jewish educational spaces — through bar and bat mitzvah twinning, school field trips to rallies, summer camp programming, and much more — and reshaped the Jewish American experience from the Johnson era through the Reagan-Bush years....

There is a growing consensus that successful and holistic Israel education demands a sophisticated and nuanced engagement with critical questions within Israel, and in particular, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This feels especially pressing in a post October 7th world. Despite this critical need, many educators continue to express reticence about conflict education. In this session, Keren Frai...

How do educators from differing pedagogical orientations learn, undertake, and ultimately improve the work of teaching Israel? In this conversation, Teaching Israel: Studies of Pedagogy from the Field editors Sivan Zakai and Matt Reingold discuss the complex issues facing those who teach about Israel, along with respondents Lisa Grant (Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion) and Alex Po...

In this special event, authors from a recent themed issue of Journal of Jewish Education discuss their articles on race, ethnicity, and immigration in Jewish education. The issue spotlights the experiences of underrepresented individuals and serves as compelling testimony to the diverse array of Jewish experiences and identities, challenging prevailing norms about how Jewish educational spaces are...

What happens when students of classical Jewish texts encounter visual representations of those texts, not just words? In her recent study Reconsidering Religious Gender Normativity in Graphic Novel Adaptations , Talia Hurwich learned that students often respond in deeply personal ways to visual representations of topics that may otherwise be suppressed by social norms around Jewish texts and pract...

For over a generation, many American Jewish young adults have spent a year between high school and college in Israel—the “gap year.” How does the gap year contribute to North American Jewish education? How does it complicate that work? What does it mean for young adults to go from “here" to “there" to participate in this important educational experience? What do we know about the spiritu...

Over the last two decades, talk of Yiddish as an alternate path of engaging with Jewishness comes up in the Jewish press almost cyclically — a journalistic evergreen. In this session, historian and Yiddish podcaster Sandra Fox explains how Yiddish became culturally significant, why young people are flocking to learn Yiddish in larger numbers than ever before, and what the growth of Yiddish says ab...

Like other immigrants, many Israeli expatriates find themselves asking how they can maintain their culture on American soil. But what happens when their children learn their heritage language in American educational settings? In this session, Hannah Kober  discusses the surprising finding from her recent research that the long-held narrative about Israeli-Americans as producers of Hebrew language...

How and why does the ability to navigate ideological differences within classrooms matter to Jewish education — and beyond? In this session, Esther Friedman  discusses her recent study on the lived experiences of Orthodox teachers who teach Bible in pluralistic community schools and the institutional-level challenges they face. Originally recorded: 12/7/23 At the Mandel Center, we are committed to...