Section archive - Trends in Jewish Education

Rosenak’s Teaching Jewish Values (1986) is perhaps his most accessible book about Jewish education. After diagnosing the “diseases” of Jewish education, he endorses “teaching Jewish values” as the curricular strategy most likely to succeed given the chasm which divides traditional Jewish subject matter and the milieu in which Jewish education takes place—e.g., the values of home and peer group. A close analysis of the book reveals cracks in his commitment to Jewish values, and I explore alternatives to values education he himself presents, such as acquisition of norms or learning the “language of being Jewish.”

In this essay, dedicated to Mike [Rosenak]’s memory, I propose to bring him just such an issue of current concern in the philosophy of Jewish education and to consider the response that he might offer—or, rather, that he did offer, directly and indirectly, in his book, Tree of Life, Tree of Knowledge: Conversations with the Torah. The question I have pertains to Jewish leaders and teachers (for example, campus Hillel rabbis) who are committed (a) to the strengthening of Jewish life in their communities and beyond, and (b) to the strengthening of the Jewish lives of individual Jews (students, for example) but are committed no less (c) to a vision of Judaism and Jewish life that crosses ideological and denominational boundaries. How can such leaders and teachers, speak cogently and forcefully about Judaism to Jews and in particular to emerging Jewish adults, or varied conviction and direction?

The thoughts of Mordecai Kaplan and Michael Rosenak present surprising commonalities as well as illuminating differences. Similarities include the perception that Judaism and Jewish education are in crisis, the belief that Jewish peoplehood must include commitment to meaningful content, the need for teachers to teach from a position of authenticity, and the importance of developing the inner life. The differences lie primarily in their divergent understandings of what in Judaism obligates, of the importance of reckoning with the Schwabian “milieu” when educating, of the acceptable boundaries of textual interpretation, and of the need to engage with families when educating children.

In what is a first in the Philadelphia area, three synagogues are joining forces to create a combined supplementary educational program for their students in kindergarten through sixth grade. The congregations, all located along the Old York Road corridor, include two Conservative synagogues — Beth Sholom Congregation and Adath Jeshurun — and Reform Congregation Keneseth Israel.