The effectiveness of outside experts in professional development in Jewish schools has been questioned in light of scholarly critique of this approach. This case study examines the sociocultural context of one such long-term project aimed at school improvement through early childhood (EC) curriculum development. The research identifies cultural…

This case study describes and analyzes a Jewish high school program that sought to integrate Judaic and general studies. The research focused on the question of how educators at the "Keshet" School understood curricular integration. Administrators and teachers ascribed a range of meanings to this topic. Administrators articulated a vision of…

Given that all schools solicit parent participation, an important question is whether and how this varies by school. I draw on observation and interviews with parents, teachers, and administrators at a Jewish day school and Catholic school to identify forms and patterns of participation. I found that communicating and volunteering were similar at…

This article takes up categories from literature on political and civic engagement to help make sense of data collected from interviews with 40 American Jewish day high school students about what they think and feel about Israel. Viewed through a set of lenses that distinguish between the manifestations and motivations of political and civic…

Jonathan Woocher opens his clarion call for a new paradigm in Jewish education with a nod to Samson Benderly, founding executive of the Bureau of Jewish Education in New York (BJENY), who at the beginning of the 20th century set out to design a communal system built upon the twin pillars of progressive educational theory and practice and cultural…

Mentoring is a powerful and often effective tool in supporting the work of new and experienced teachers. It can also be a means of attracting and retaining talented teachers in schools which face challenges in staffing and turnover. In this article we describe and analyze the first 2 years of a mentoring program designed to support teacher…

This article analyzes the career commitments and retention patterns among graduates of the DeLeT program (Day School Leadership Through Teaching) who were prepared for day-school teaching at Brandeis University and Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion. Employing t-tests to analyze survey responses, we identify factors that shape and…

Teaching Israel is a complex endeavor in today's world where the founding myths of Israel no longer appear to capture the hearts and minds of American Jews as they did a generation ago. As a result, a new way of speaking about and conceptualizing Israel education is evolving among researchers, program providers, policy makers, and many teachers.…

This essay reviews the Applications section of the "International Handbook of Jewish Education" published in 2011. Because of the variety of contexts in which Jewish education research can be applied, this section comprises a large number of diverse chapters that are not all explicitly theoretically or thematically linked. The scope of this…

The Naphtali Herz Imber Jewish Day School proudly proclaimed its commitment to Israel, yet many of its students experienced profound ambivalence toward the Jewish State. Why? The school was committed to a series of contradictory values which surfaced in its approach to Israel education. This article outlines three distinct yet interrelated…

David Schoem reflects on his research study from 30-plus years ago, published as "Ethnic Survival in America: An Ethnography of a Jewish Afternoon School" (1979, 1989). Schoem points to the continuing importance of giving greater focus to meaning-making, relational identity, and deep community. Schoem argues that through a renewed focus on…

Jewish day schools offer many experiences meant to foster the Jewish development of students. However, these experiences are at risk of being disconnected from one another, complicating a comprehensive approach to addressing issues of identity. This article uses a constructivist approach to identity development to frame the challenges posed by…

What are North American Jewish day schools doing when they engage in Israel education, what shapes their practices, and to what ends? In this article, we report on a multi-method study inspired by these questions. Our account is organized around an analytical model that helps distinguish between what we call the vehicles, intensifiers, and…

In the last issue of the Journal (volume 75, number 4), we read about our esteemed colleague Israel Scheffler's love affair with Hebrew. In this issue, we continue the conversation about Hebrew as part of a series of articles by distinguished senior colleagues who bring the wisdom earned by a lifelong career in Jewish education. Many of us share…

Fundamentalists and modernists seem, at times, to work in contrapuntal interdependency. While the fundamentalist's rhetoric markets its image as celebrating the renewal of an authentic past identity in modernity, modernists state the need for and possibility of adapting a cherished past to modern assumptions. Yet, it seems as if it is the…