Jewish Portal of
Teacher Education
The online resource of pedagogical and academic content on teaching and Jewish education
Section archive - Trends in Jewish Education
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491 items
211
Since the release of the Pew study in 2013, there has been much hand-wringing in the Jewish community, with some calling this, again, a time of crisis. There is fear of increasing rates of assimilation and growing disaffiliation from traditional institutions. This was especially apparent in the recent statement, Strategic Directions for Jewish Life: A Call to Action, signed by many respected colleagues. We do not accept this doom and gloom picture of a dying Jewish community, and we think the analysis and recommendations in the document are too limited. As leaders of Jewish social justice initiatives, we see instead an incredibly exciting moment in Jewish life, in which Jews of all generations are experimenting with new modes of practice, diving into learning, creating new Jewish cultural expressions, and drawing on Jewish wisdom and our Jewish traditions to inspire engagement with the world. Rather than mourning the changes in modes of affiliation, we should celebrate this moment and determine how the many different parts of our community might respond expansively and creatively. We want more new voices at the table and more ideas for next steps to be shared.
Published: 2015
Updated: Nov. 11, 2015
212
This study is the first comprehensive assessment to examine the religious upbringing, college experiences, and current attitudes and practices of millennial children of intermarriage. This is the first cohort born after the intermarriage rate in America crossed the 50 percent threshold and currently comprises half of the young adult Jewish population. Based on a survey with nearly 2,700 respondents (ages 19-32) and interviews in four cities, the study finds that college Jewish experiences can have a profound impact, with the potential of closing the gap between children of intermarriage and children of inmarriage on many measures of Jewish engagement.
Published: 2015
Updated: Oct. 28, 2015
213
Marking the 2nd anniversary of the release of the 2013 Pew Research Center’s Portrait of Jewish Americans, a highly diverse group of thought leaders from all around the United States has framed a “Statement on Jewish Vitality,” advocating strategic responses to respond to the challenges to the Jewish future. American Jewry now stands at a crossroads. Our choices are stark: we either accept as inevitable the declining numbers of engaged Jews, or we work to expand the community and improve the quality of Jewish life going forward. Despite the evidence of deeply disturbing population trends, the community is bereft of any sense of crisis.
Published: 2015
Updated: Oct. 15, 2015
214
Jewish Studies professors are challenged by a diminishing job market and small but noticeable declines in enrollment in Jewish Studies classes in North America. These are among the key findings emerging from a world-wide survey of Jewish Studies professors, graduate students, researchers and other academics sponsored by the Association for Jewish Studies, and conducted by Professor Steven M. Cohen of HUC-JIR and funded by the American Academy for Jewish Research. The study draws upon an online survey of more than 2800 professors, graduate students, scholars, and teachers of Jewish Studies, conducted in 2014. The respondents constitute 60% of the AJS membership, an unusually high response rate. The survey report contains findings about course enrollments, salaries, retirement projections, productivity, time on the job market, careers outside of academia, and popular specializations.
Published: 2015
Updated: Oct. 07, 2015
215
This article proposes a theoretical framework for understanding the possibility of Talmudic stories (as well as other narratives and scenes of interactions among two or more characters) to nurture the growth of the moral imagination as it is expressed in two related but distinct ways. At the intersection of work by educators, literary critics, and Talmudists, the approach suggested in this article offers a foundation for a Talmud pedagogy that provides a sophisticated, nuanced, and morally imaginative engagement with the text that is not restricted to technically or linguistically advanced students, and is independent of the subject matter of the text and other curricular goals.
Published: 2015
Updated: Sep. 24, 2015
216
What if learning Hebrew in public schools was as common for Jewish students as studying French or Spanish? With that in mind, in April, 2015, JUF established a first-of-its-kind foundation focusing exclusively on promoting the study of Hebrew and Israeli culture in the public schools. Its goal: to make Hebrew education as easy as aleph-bet . SAFA: Foundation for Promotion of Hebrew Language and Israel Culture in Public Schools, named for the Hebrew word for 'language,' hopes to maximize the number of students taking Hebrew language classes. While efforts will begin locally, the ultimate goal is to expand the foundation's work nationally.
Published: 2015
Updated: Sep. 21, 2015
217
This paper employs the provisions of international human rights law in order to analyse whether and how liberal states should regulate Haredi educational practices, which sanctify the exclusive focus on religious studies in schools for boys. It conceptualises the conflict between the right to acceptable education and the right to adaptable education in international human rights law, and analyses four case studies of Haredi education that exemplify different socio-legal approaches towards this conflict. The case studies show how education laws are transformed along the cogwheels of education policy, in which there are plural normative orders and many agents who implement them
Published: 2015
Updated: Sep. 21, 2015
218
The aim of this qualitative study is to describe teachers’ perceptions and roles in prayer education in TALI day schools in Israel, using in-depth oral interviews, written questionnaires and written materials of the schools’ network. Two educational ideologies were identified: Belonging to the Jewish collective and personal-spiritual ideology. While participants perceive the aim of Jewish education as enhancing students’ belonging to the Jewish collective, prayer education introduces a personal-spiritual aspect that was not typically a part of teachers’ discourse on Jewish education.
Published: 2015
Updated: Sep. 21, 2015
219
The context for this study is the increased focus on school-community partnerships in the United States. With limited research having been conducted on high-achieving schools, this is a case study of one of America’s top 100 high schools, a Jewish day school; this article reports on its school-synagogue partnership. Like most research on school-community partnerships, this study is based on the theories of capital reproduction. Yet, it is aligned with those claiming religious institutions as producers of capital, finding that these partnerships are effective at harnessing capital when explicitly designed for school members to experience the partnering institution’s religious life.
Published: 2015
Updated: Sep. 21, 2015
220
Gleanings is the ejournal of the William Davidson Graduate School of Jewish Education of The Jewish Theological Seminary. In this issue of Gleanings we look at the concept of 'meaning' - how people use it, what it might denote, and what the implications of these ideas are for our work in Jewish education. The articles in this issue of Gleanings are part of a larger collection that The Davidson School sourced from over 20 leaders in Jewish education as part of a conference convened in June 2015 at JTS around the term 'meaning' with support from the Lippman Kanfer Foundation for Living Torah.
Published: 2015
Updated: Sep. 21, 2015