Family Matters: Jewish Education in an Age of Choice

Wertheimer, Jack

doi:10.26812/9781584656357

Cited by 18 publications

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“…The statement was intended to stir thought and deliberation, with the hope that some of its ideas would be picked up and further developed by other concerned Jewish leaders. The statement also demonstrates how the community is mobilizing to take over responsibility for Jewish socialization as Jewish families become less capable of doing so in an age of choice (see Boyarin 2013: 149;Wertheimer 2007).…”

Section: A K I N G J E W S : T H E C a L L F O R A J E W I S H P U mentioning

confidence: 99%

The Specter of Dwindling Numbers: Population Quantity and Jewish Biopolitics in the United States

Kravel-Tovi

2020

Comp Stud Soc Hist

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Over the last three decades, the organized American-Jewish community has preoccupied itself with sociodemographic concerns regarding maintenance of a viable Jewish life in the United States. In this article, I study a key dimension of this preoccupation with population trends: the quantity of the Jewish population, that is, the number of Jews. I show the centrality of this dimension in shaping a cluster of anxious discourses and interventionist engagements directed toward stemming numerical decline. Analyzing this policy world in terms of a “Jewish biopolitics,” I assess how the voluntary nature of American Jewry has shaped a distinct biopolitical field, reliant on “making Jews” by both biological and cultural reproduction, enmeshing dimensions of quantity and quality. Juxtaposing this Jewish biopolitical engagement with the one exercised by the Israeli state, I flesh out broader considerations and contributions, and introduce the exploratory concept of “minority community biopolitics.” The article is grounded in an anthropological study of policy, including fieldwork, interviews, and a review of the flurry of archival and public materials related to the topic.

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Section: A K I N G J E W S : T H E C a L L F O R A J E W I S H P U mentioning

confidence: 99%

The Specter of Dwindling Numbers: Population Quantity and Jewish Biopolitics in the United States

Kravel-Tovi

2020

Comp Stud Soc Hist

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“…10 Research on pedagogy has followed a similar approach, tending to emphasize what teachers ought to know or how they ought to approach their practice rather than seeking to understand how people learn and then developing appropriate pedagogies to suit those modes of learning. 11 Perhaps the largest body of literature in the field of research in Jewish education has focused on the impact of site-specific educational experiences including families, 12 day schools, 13 summer camps, 14 heritage tourism, 15 supplementary schooling, 16 b'nai mitzvah, 17 and "experiential education. " 18 Each of these scholarly responses to the question of how to educate American Jews emphasizes a different modality for doing so, but they have done so without attending to the question of learning in any sustained way.…”

Section: What We've Learned About Learning In Jewish Educationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Reform and Conservative scholars and educators after the Second World War assumed leadership in spreading the program of study. 12 Mussar introduced a now familiar set of Jewish valueshumility, generosity, kindness, thankfulness, order, empathy, holiness, community, and others-as the object of study, meditation, and practice. The most visible contemporary leaders among the non-orthodox are Alan Morinis and Ira F. Stone.…”

Section: Weekly and Daily Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Some researchers have initiated systematic analyses of actual Havruta learning in Haredi and orthodox yeshivas. For example, Menahem Blondheim and Shoshana Blum-Kulka 12 have provided fine-grained descriptions of Havruta discussions among young learners from a National-Religious yeshiva, that demonstrate how learners successfully handle disagreements in interaction. These descriptions are instructive, but they focus on novice students within the mainstream education system who have not yet mastered the techniques of Havruta learning.…”

Section: Research On Havruta Learningmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…11 There are several other trends these literatures tell us about the relationship between learning and identity development. From Nasir and others, 12 we learn that when youth can make connections between their personal identities and what they are doing, they engage better and learn more. They do not, however, always recognize the connections between what they are doing and the things we might want them to learn; they need help in doing that.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

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Advancing the Learning Agenda in Jewish Education

Levisohn¹,

Kress²

2018

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Introduction: What the "Learning Agenda" Is and Why It Matters on lernen-a Yiddish term which is typically Anglicized to "learning" but which, unlike the standard usage of the word "learning" as an achievement term, actually signifies the process of reading and discussing classical texts. Baruch Schwarz believes, however, that we have a lot to learn from how haredim engage in lernen in yeshivas, especially in terms of the positive valuation of argumentation and the cultural conditions that support high levels of self-motivation for study.The contemporary liberal Jewish summer camp is about as far from the traditional haredi yeshiva as one can imagine. But just as Schwarz brings the perspective of the learning sciences to bear on the latter, Joseph Reimer brings that perspective to bear on the former. And what he sees, when he does so, is an educational opportunity that is not fully realized-in part because it is not well conceptualized. His particular focus is on Shabbat at camp. Kids learn to do Shabbat, which is unlike anything they know from home, over time, through a process that looks a lot like Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger's "legitimate peripheral participation." 2 But then their learning trajectory flattens out. Reimer argues that David Perkins' concept of "whole game learning" 3 provides a more compelling framework, not just for understanding what does happen when kids learn to do Shabbat at camp, but for imagining about what could happen if we were to think about this process more ambitiously.The last chapter in this section turns to Holocaust education as a location for thinking about learning. Simone Schweber begins by admitting that we may be averse to trying to learn from an extreme case like Holocaust education, but persists in her inquiry nonetheless. She avoids the standard approach, which is to emphasize the moral lessons of the Holocaust. Instead, she finds other important lessons about learning-about appreciating the "messiness" of real lives and real moral quandaries, about the ways in which contexts shape our thinking, and most generally, about a desired outcome of Jewish education that she calls "reasonable Jews. "The third and final section of the book, "Conceptualizing Learning Outcomes," includes four chapters that tackle the question of learning outcomes directly. Of course, this distinction is somewhat artificial, because other chapters also propose ways of thinking about what we want students or participants to learn. Dorph and Schunn, for example, proposed "Jewish learning activation" as an outcome. Kolodner focused on fostering a self-conception of

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Jewish Education in a New Century: An Ecosystem in Transition

Woocher

Woocher²

2013

American Jewish Year Book

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Family Matters: Jewish Education in an Age of Choice

Cited by 18 publications

References 0 publications

The Specter of Dwindling Numbers: Population Quantity and Jewish Biopolitics in the United States

The Specter of Dwindling Numbers: Population Quantity and Jewish Biopolitics in the United States

Advancing the Learning Agenda in Jewish Education

Jewish Education in a New Century: An Ecosystem in Transition

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