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MOFET JTEC Portal Newsletter
We are delighted to send you the latest issue of The MOFET JTEC Portal resource listing.
The current bulletin contains Information items about educating towards Jewish Identity, teacher education for Ultra-Orthodox education, research on Jewish Summer camps, successfully integrating technology in Jewish education and much more, selected from journals and other Jewish education publications.
We are happy to publish an article by Ariel Tal about The Tefilla Project, his new and proven approach to integrate meaningful Tefilla in Jewish Day Schools.
We invite you to join us for the third summer meeting of MOFET's International Forum of Teachers of Hebrew as an Additional Language to be held in Hebrew at the MOFET Institute, Tel Aviv on Tuesday, July 19, 2016. Participation is FREE, but requires advance registration. For those of you who cannot physically make it to the event, but wish to 'taste a small bite' of it, you are invited to sign up here to the ONLINE session "Upgrading Practice: Form, Meaning and Use" to be conducted by Rachel Lerner Moore from Argentina. See the full program here.
Wishing you interesting and enjoyable summer reading,
Reuven Werber
The MOFET JTEC Portal Team
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Please note: a complete list of recent additions to the portal follows the Featured Items.
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 On the Origins and Persistence of the Jewish Identity Industry in Jewish Education
“Jewish identity,” which emerged as an analytical term in the 1950s, appealed to a set of needs that American Jews felt in the postwar period, which accounted for its popularity. Identity was the quintessential conundrum for a community on the threshold of acceptance. The work of Kurt Lewin, Erik Erikson, Will Herberg, Marshall Sklare, and others helped to shape the communal conversation. The reframing of that discourse from one that was essentially psychosocial and therapeutic to one that was sociological and survivalist reflected the community’s growing sense of physical and socioeconomic security in the 1950s and early 1960s. The American Jewish Committee and its Division of Scientific Research offers an enlightening case study of this phenomenon. Jewish educators seized on identity formation, making it the raison d’être of their endeavor. But the ascent of identity discourse also introduced a number of challenges for the Jewish educator—conceptual, methodological, political, and even existential.
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 When Bible and Science Interact: Teachers’ Pedagogic and Value Challenges in Teaching Religious Minority Students in Higher Education Settings
The integration of highly religious minority students into institutions of higher education poses significant pedagogical and value challenges for students and teachers alike. We offer a framework for analyzing such challenges, distinguishing between practical concerns, identity issues and value conflicts. By contrasting a deficit perspective to ‘Diversity as resource’, we argue that the latter enables teachers to utilize a collaborative knowledge model in class, surmounting some of the value challenges involved. We present the case of ultra-orthodox students (UO) in Israel who have recently entered the gates of higher education for the first time in this society's history.
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 Reforming Ultra-Orthodox Education — One Teacher at a Time
In November of last year, Beit Berl, a teachers college in Kfar Saba, north of Tel Aviv in Israel, held a graduation for bachelor of education students. The ceremony was unremarkable but for the students it honored: All 63 of them were ultra-Orthodox Jews. They were the first cohort in a new program to educate better teachers in Haredi schools. Because Beit Berl is a secular institution — usually shunned by ultra-Orthodox, or Haredim — these men were pioneers of sorts.
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 As Camps Prepare for 2016 Season, New Greenbook Gives Jewish Funders the Big Picture on Jewish Camping
Jewish Funders Network has released a new Greenbook providing everything grantmakers need to know about funding Jewish overnight camp. Greenbook, Volume 4: Funding Jewish Overnight Camp offers a survey of past, present, and possible initiatives to extend the reach and effectiveness of Jewish overnight camps, and a menu of opportunities to leverage investments in the field of Jewish overnight camps. Topics covered include growing camps’ capacity; organizational sustainability; capital funding; affordability; leadership development; enhancing Jewish impact; and more.
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 From Altnueland to Tel Aviv 2016: Vision, Reality, Tomorrow
8We are pleased to announce that the World Zionist Organization is holding another professional development seminar in Israel in the area of Israel Education for educators from abroad who wish to enhance their expertise in the field and deepen their personal understanding of contemporary Israel. The seminar will run from July 18-27, 2016 (9 nights) and is aimed at educators committed to the importance of Israel in the development of Jewish identity who are working with ages 13 and up in both formal and experiential settings. The itinerary will incorporate a rich variety of interactive field experiences around the country, engagement with colorful Israeli personalities, and practical workshops during which particpants will have the opportunity to conceptualize curricula and develop lesson plans taking advantage of the wealth of materials available at the Herzl Museum and Educational Center and other lsrael-based educational institutions.
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