October 30 | Jewish Portal of Teacher Education

Oct. 30, 2014

Dear subscriber,

MOFET JTEC Portal Newsletter

Dear Subscriber,

We are delighted to send you the October issue of The MOFET JTEC Portal resource listing.

The current bulletin contains research findings, educational resources, conference information, etc. selected from journals and other Jewish education publications. This month we have a number of listings dealing with the aftermath of this summer's Protective Edge operation in Gaza as well as some interesting opportunities to sharpen your Yiddish speaking skills.

The MOFET International online international conference Teaching Hebrew as an Additional Language, will take place on May 10-11, 2015. Please note: The academic committee of the conference has decided to respond positively to requests to postpone the deadline for submitting proposals until Sunday, November 30, 2014. Share your research and field work on Hebrew education with an international audience.

Wishing you interesting and productive reading,
Reuven Werber

The MOFET JTEC Portal Team

October 30, 2014

Jewish Portal of Teacher Education

Please note: a complete list of recent additions to the portal follows the Featured Items.

October 2014

Featured Items

The Global Day of Jewish Learning 2014 - November 16

The Global Day of Jewish Learning, a project of the Aleph Society and Rabbi Adin Steinzaltz, is one day a year in which over 500 communities will study a common theme. It reaches every corner of the Jewish world, with communities from over 40 countries on six continents participating and brings Jews of all backgrounds together in a day of study. We believe it is the largest world-wide community study of Jewish texts. This year’s Global Day is Sunday, November 16, 2014. This year’s theme ““Heroes and Villains, Saints and Fools: The People in the Book” explores biblical characters.

Computer-Mediated Communication and the Reduction of Prejudice: A Controlled Longitudinal Field Experiment among Jews and Arabs in Israel

The promise of computer-mediated communication (CMC) to reduce intergroup prejudice has generated mixed results. Theories of CMC yield alternative and mutually exclusive explanations about mechanisms by which CMC fosters relationships online with potential to ameliorate prejudice. This research tests contact-hypothesis predictions and two CMC theories on multicultural, virtual groups who communicated during a yearlong online course focusing on educational technology. Groups included students from the three major Israeli education sectors—religious Jews, secular Jews, and Muslims—who completed pretest and posttest prejudice measures. Two sets of control subjects who did not participate in virtual groups provided comparative data.

U.S. Jewish Young Adults React to the Gaza Conflict: A Survey of Birthright Israel Applicants

This study examines the reactions of a diverse group of young adults (applicants to Taglit-Birthright Israel) to the 2014 conflict in Gaza. The report compares their responses to the opinions of young adults in the U.S. The findings are based on a survey conducted in early August 2014 of a sample of U.S. based individuals who applied to the trip—both participants and nonparticipants--from 2011 to 2013. Survey questions focused on media consumption, opinions about Israel's and Hamas' action during the conflict, and support for Israel.

Mechon Hadar to House 'Project Zug' Connecting through Global Jewish Learning

In a move that will dramatically expand the number of Jews in Israel, the US and around the globe connecting one-to-one online through substantive Jewish content, Project Zug – an online learning start-up – is moving in-house to Mechon Hadar.The initiative will now be called: “Project Zug: Connecting through Global Jewish Learning, powered by Mechon Hadar.” Founded two years ago by American rabbinical student – Benjamin Ross – and an Israeli educator – Hagit Bartuv, Project Zug has achieved considerable start-up success, pairing more than 200 people of diverse backgrounds for weekly online learning sessions.

Atid Day School Innovation Challenge

The Atid Day Day School Innovation Challenge is an online platform designed to celebrate creative teachers and share their groundbreaking classroom ideas with the world. The platform, will serve as both a competition hub and a living archive of classroom innovations. For the originators of this project – the PresenTense Group, the Jewish Education Project, and the UJA Federation of New York – the long-term vision extends far beyond the challenge itself. Their mission is to foster systemic implementation of innovations and educational best practices within Jewish day schools in the NYC metropolitan area.

October 2014

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