Section archive - Trends in Jewish Education

This article explores the career of Jacob Behrman (1921–2012) and the growth of Behrman House from a small Jewish bookseller to the leading publisher of Jewish religious school textbooks. Behrman’s success owed in part to his ability to appeal to the vast center, to gauge correctly his consumers’ needs and reflect their outlook and values, to eschew partisanship and play down ideological differences, and to swim with the tide.

Many American Jews – third and fourth generation immigrants – carry within them the distant echo of their parents’ and grandparents’ Judaism. They know that there are stories to tell but can’t remember the major plot lines let alone the sacred details. They know that there was a Jewish song that guided and propelled, that healed and held for many generations, but they have no idea how to access the memory of that song. Our grandparents and great-grandparents came to Ellis Island clutching sacred books, memories, recipes and traditions. Their children tossed them overboard to become American, go to drive-ins and play baseball. But now many of us, uber-American, find ourselves wondering if there may have been anything in those forgotten books that could help us navigate life’s most challenging questions.

The first stage of Jewish education, connected to our minds, asked the question – “What do I know?” The second stage of Jewish education, connected to our hearts, asked the question – “Am I connected to what I know?” Both stages addressed the needs of their times, and yet both came with ‘shadow-sides’. We are now ready for the next step, for the third stage of Jewish education: educating for life. Educating to make us better people.

The present study is a comparative analysis of two Jewish educators, well known figures before the Second World War, who responded in opposite ways to the same historical reality of oppression by choosing different avenues of resistance. The first figure is the world-renowned educator, paediatrician and children’s book writer Janusz Korczak. The second is the Bible teacher, Hebrew and Yiddish poet, Yitzhak Katzenelson. This comparison touches the very essence of an educator’s identity; it forces us to ask ourselves how we view educators. Do we see them as civil servants who obediently transfer the commonly accepted knowledge of their society to future generations or do we expect them to resist evil and lead their society to a better reality?