Most writing about Jewish education has been preoccupied with two questions: What ought to be taught? And what is the best way to teach it? Ari Y Kelman upends these conventional approaches by asking a different question: How do people learn to engage in Jewish life? This book, by centering learning, provides an innovative way of approaching the questions that are central to Jewish education specifically and to religious education more generally. At the heart of Jewish Education is an innovative alphabetical primer of Jewish educational values, qualities, frameworks, catalysts, and technologies which explore the historical ways in which Jewish communities have produced and transmitted knowledge. The book examines the tension between Jewish education and Jewish Studies to argue that shifting the locus of inquiry from “what people ought to know” to “how do people learn” can provide an understanding of Jewish education that both draws on historical precedent and points to the future of Jewish knowledge.

This book is aimed at Improving contemporary educational practice by rooting it in clear analytical thinking. The book utilizes the analytic approach to philosophy of education to elucidate the meaning of the terms: ‘education’; ‘moral education; ‘indoctrination?; ;’‘contemporary American Jewish education’’; ‘informal Jewish education?; ’‘the Israel experience’; and? Israel education?. The final chapter of the book presents an educator’s credo for 21st-century Jewish education and general education. Barry Chazan is Professor Emeritus of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Research Professor at the George Washington University Graduate School of Education and Human Development.

The Bible has played a critical role in the story of Judaism, modernity, and identity. Penny Schine Gold examines the arena of children's education and the role of the Bible in the reshaping of Jewish identity, especially in the United States in the 1920s and 1930s, when a second generation of Eastern European Jews engaged the task of Americanizing Jewish culture, religion, and institutions. Professional Jewish educators based in the Reform movement undertook a multifaceted agenda for the Bible in America: to modernize it, harmonize it with American values, and move it to the center of the religious school curriculum. Through public schooling, the children of Jewish immigrants brought America home; it was up to the adults to fashion a Judaism that their children could take back out into America. Because of its historic role in the development of Judaism and its cultural significance in American life, Gold finds, the Bible provided Jews with vital links to both the past and the present. The ancient sacred text of the Bible, transformed into highly abridged and amended "Bible tales," was brought into service as a bridge between tradition and modernity.Gold analyzes these American developments with reference to the intellectual history of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Europe, innovations in public schooling and social theory, Protestant religious education, and later versions of children's Bibles in the United States and Israel. She shows that these seemingly simple children's books are complex markers of the pressing concerns of Jews in the modern world.

The International Handbook of Jewish Education, a two volume publication, brings together scholars and practitioners engaged in the field of Jewish Education and its cognate fields world-wide. Their submissions make a significant contribution to our knowledge of the field of Jewish Education as we start the second decade of the 21st century. The Handbook is divided broadly into four main sections: Vision and Practice: focusing on issues of philosophy, identity and planning –the big issues of Jewish Education. Teaching and Learning: focusing on areas of curriculum and engagement Applications, focusing on the ways that Jewish Education is transmitted in particular contexts, both formal and informal, for children and adults. Geographical, focusing on historical, demographic, social and other issues that are specific to a region or where an issue or range of issues can be compared and contrasted between two or more locations. This comprehensive collection of articles providing high quality content, constitutes a difinitive statement on the state of Jewish Education world wide, as well as through a wide variety of lenses and contexts. It is written in a style that is accessible to a global community of academics and professionals.

Entries from thousands of publications whether in English, Hebrew, Yiddish, and German on all aspects of Jewish education from pre-school through secondary education. This book contains entries from thousands of publications whether in English, Hebrew, Yiddish, and German—books, research reports, educational and general periodicals, synagogue histories, conference proceedings, bibliographies, and encyclopedias—on all aspects of Jewish education from pre-school through secondary education

The images of Zionist pioneers in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries--hard working, brawny, and living off the land--sprang from the ascendent socialist Zionist movement in Palestine known as "Labor Zionism." The building of the Yishuv, a new Jewish society in Palestine, was accompanied by the rapid growth of Zionism worldwide. How did Zionism take shape in the United States? How did Labor Zionism and the Yishuv influence American Jews? Zionism and Labor Zionism had a much more substantial impact on the American Jewish scene than has been recognized. Drawing on meticulous research, Mark A. Raider describes Labor Zionism's dramatic transformation in the American context from a marginal immigrant party into a significant political force. The Emergence of American Zionism challenges many of the prevailing assumptions of Jewish and Zionist history that have held sway for a full generation. It shows how and why American Labor Zionism--"the voice of Labor Palestine on American soil"--played such an important role in formulating the program and outlook of American Zionism. It also examines more generally the impact of Zionism on American Jews, making the case that Zionism's cultural vitality, intellectual diversity, and unparalleled ability to rally public opinion in times of crisis were central to the American Jewish experience.