Jewish Portal of Teacher Education

Source: Meorot Journal

Yeshivat Chovevei Torah Rabbinical School is proud to announce the online publication of Meorot - A Forum of Modern Orthodox Discourse. Formerly known as The Edah Journal, the journal has become one of the most widely-read and influential publications in the Jewish world. The Tishrei 5770 edition of the Journal is dedicated to Modern Orthodox Education.

Many of the issues discussed in these pages are ones which the Modern Orthodox community has grappled with in the past, while others have risen to the surface more forcefully in recent years.

The issue is divided into three sections.

• The first is a symposium on a broad range of issues that affect the Modern Orthodox high school and post-high school (i.e.,year-or-more in Israel) educational system. The editors sent a series of ten questions to prominent men and women educators in both Israel and the United States for their responses and comments, understanding that not all these questions could be analyzed directly in the space allotted to each participant. The eleven responses received are included in the symposium.
• The second section contains a study by Dr. Moshe Sokolow describing the knowledge, attitudes and skills that an ideal graduate of a yeshiva high school should have upon completion of his/her studies. This essay was also sent to a number of thoughtful educators for their comments, and their responses follow Dr. Sokolow’s essay. The section also contains two articles on the economics of Jewish education that dominates much of the day school discussion today, plus probing essays by Jack Nahmod on striving for cognitive excellence and by Tamar Biala on teaching modesty (tsini’ut) in Modern Orthodox schools.
• The last section contains a review essay on a recent curriculum, "Intimacy and Life Values", which has been published and is already being used in some Modern Orthodox day schools.