Jonathan Krasner

Jewish Education and American Jewish Education, Part III

This is the last in a series of articles exploring the history of Jewish Education magazine, later known as the Journal of Jewish Education, with a particular emphasis on its intersection with the history of American Jewish education and, more generally, American Jewish life. Major themes and issues that preoccupied the magazines editors and writers are isolated and analyzed as to how their discourse sheds light on their individual aims, values and philosophical outlooks, as well their collective efforts at educational reform. Particular attention is paid to how Benderlys disciples sought to reinterpret their mentors vision in a changing American Jewish environment and why this vision was, at best, only partially realized. Jonathan Krasner is Assistant Professor of American Jewish History at Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion in Cincinnati. 1The author would like to thank Samuel Dinin, Gil Graff, Carol Ingall, Cherie Kohler-Fox, Sara Lee, Alvin Schiff, Susan Shevitz, and Jonathan Woocher for their willingness to share their memories and offer their perspectives on American Jewish education in the twentieth century. He would also like to thank Jonathan Sarna, Carol Ingall, and Michael Zeldin for reading earlier drafts of the articles in this series and providing invaluable comments and suggestions.

On the Origins and Persistence of the Jewish Identity Industry in Jewish Education

ABSTRACT “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.

Jewish Educationand American Jewish Education, Part III

This series of articles explores the history of Jewish Education magazine, later known as the Journal of Jewish Education, with a particular emphasis on its intersection with the history of American Jewish education and, more generally, American Jewish life. Major themes and issues that preoccupied the magazines editors and writers are isolated and analyzed as to how their discourse sheds light on their individual aims, values, and philosophical outlooks, as well their collective efforts at educational reform. Particular attention is paid to how Benderlys disciples sought to reinterpret their mentors vision in a changing American Jewish environment and why this vision was, at best, only partially realized. This essay is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Elka Klein, medieval scholar, colleague, and friend who cared deeply about Jewish education.

“New Jews” in an Old‐New Land: Images in American Jewish Textbooks Prior to 1948

This volume, then, looks at Jewish education through the potentially powerful encounter of teacher, learner, material, context — whether in the Talmud class or the bat mitzvah program. It looks as well at the wide sweep of social and historical forces that shape individuals, institutions, and groups as evident in textbooks and other documentary evidence. It also includes writings that apply current approaches to research — whether teacher research using socio-cognitive analysis, narrative investigations, or multivariate analysis — to probe the meaning of the educational encounter. As you read these richly provocative papers, we invite you to note other characteristics that promote new understandings of Jewish education.

The New "Journal of Jewish Education" at Ten: An Appraisal.

This article documents the Journal of Jewish Education’s acquisition by the Network for Research in Jewish Education, in 2004, and evaluates the contribution of the re-launched Journal to the field of Jewish education. I explore how the Journal contributed over the past decade in three discrete yet often overlapping areas, thereby realizing its editors’ vision. First, the Journal of Jewish Education became the venue for conversations between researchers, practitioners and funders about the direction of Jewish education research and policy; second, it became an outlet for the sharing of research and other Jewish education scholarship; and third, it became a venue where scholars introduced research and theoretical constructs from the field of general education and sought to demonstrate their relevance to Jewish education. Finally, I suggest some reasons why the editors had less success in realizing a fourth goal for the Journal; that is, making it a forum for new ideas and the charting of new directions in research and practice.

Teaching and learning Jewish history

Jewish history is arguably the least theorized subject in the Jewish school curriculum. Whereas Bible, Rabbinics, and Hebrew language instruction have lately benefitted from professionalization and standardization initiatives—such as the Legacy Heritage Instructional Leadership Institute, the Mandel Teacher Educator Institute, and Hebrew at the Center—no such large-scale effort has been undertaken in connection to Jewish history and social studies. In the Spring 2016, the Jack, Joseph, and Morton Mandel Center for Studies in Jewish Education at Brandeis University took an initial step in addressing this lacuna by hosting a conference on Jewish Historical Understandings. Over two days, participants workshopped 10 works-in-progress on the teaching and learning of Jewish history in a variety of educational venues. The discussions were generative and thought-provoking. Some of the works underwent a thorough reframing while others benefited from constructive engagement with literature in cognate fields. Four of the papers that emerged in the conference’s aftermath appear in this volume. The first article in this suite, Benjamin M. Jacobs’ “Teaching and Learning Jewish History in the 21st Century: New Priorities and Opportunities,” offers a timely reexamination of the methods and desired outcomes of Jewish history education. Jacobs rightly points out the inadequacy of identity-based rationales for the teaching and learning of Jewish history. Rationales for Jewish continuity grounded in ethnocentrism and religious triumphalism are bound to fall flat in an American environment characterized by ethnic and religious hybridity. Organizing his article around the three commonplaces of curriculum—subject matter, learning, and teaching—Jacobs encourages us to pursue a series of reforms designed to make Jewish history more relevant and emotionally resonant, while rebalancing curricular emphases away from heritage transmission in favor of skills development. The reader who is conversant with the history of American school reform efforts in the areas of history and social studies will recognize that Jacobs is wading into a longstanding debate between traditionalists and progressives. Since the advent and popularization in the early 20th century of the New History, experts have been arguing about whether history and social studies education in American schools should privilege the traditional “heritage model” of history education, with its goal of instilling national pride and patriotism, or the skills-intensive “historical model,” which aims to teach students how to “think like a historian” and engage in reflective inquiry and problem-solving. Reading Jacobs’ article brings to my mind a series of articles by Leo Honor, an early proponent of the New History in American Jewish schools. Honor’s assertion in the waning years of the great Jewish migration to America and on the eve of the Balfour Declaration that interest in “the past for its own sake” must give way to a presentcentered, utilitarian history has its echo in Jacobs’ insistence that,

American Jews in Text and Context: Jacob Behrman and the Rise of a Publishing Dynasty

This article explores the career of Jacob Behrman (1921–2012) and the growth of Behrman House from a small Jewish bookseller to the leading publisher of Jewish religious school textbooks. Behrman’s success owed in part to his ability to appeal to the vast center, to gauge correctly his consumers’ needs and reflect their outlook and values, to eschew partisanship and play down ideological differences, and to swim with the tide. In addition, I make the case that Behrman House elevated the field of Jewish education by raising the quality of Jewish textbooks, and that through its ascendency played a role in redefining the goals of Jewish education and its undergirding ideological thrust. Behrman was not driven by a single model of Jewish education or a monolithic vision for the Jewish community, but rather, by business exigencies and a connection to Jewish peoplehood and culture.