This article provides an overview and analysis of a relatively new phenomenon: congregational schools that have altered the conventional grammar of schooling, either through their structural arrangements or through their curricular approaches. Five pre-bar/bat mitzvah models are discussed: family schools, schools as communities,…

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…

The author summarizes current thinking about signature pedagogies in "learning to profess" and explores the extent to which these ideas apply to Jewish education. Three signature pedagogies for Jewish education are proposed: the d'var Torah, "chevruta", and pedagogies of argumentation ("machloket"). (Contains 1 figure.)

Little empirical research is currently available on Jewish distance learning, a nascent but growing field of practice. By way of qualitative case study methodology, this research explored the learning experience of a group of adult learners participating in a Jewish education Master's degree program that is offered by way of videoconferencing…

This article presents the author's response to Joseph Reimer's article titled, "Beyond More Jews Doing Jewish: Clarifying the Goals of Informal Jewish Education." Reimer's essay on the goals of informal education is a welcome contribution to discussions about whether and how Jewish education may contribute to the continuity of Jews and Judaism…

This article presents the author's response to Joseph Reimer's essay titled, "Beyond More Jews Doing Jewish: Clarifying the Goals of Informal Jewish Education." Joseph Reimer states that the challenge for informal education is to move beyond socialization to clarify and achieve "deeper" educational goals. Distinguishing between socialization and…

This article presents the author's response to Joseph Reimer's essay titled, "Beyond More Jews Doing Jewish: Clarifying the Goals of Informal Jewish Education." The author focuses his response on Reimer's notions of challenging advocates of informal Jewish education to "go deeper" into the learning processes they envision. The author's comments…

Why has it been so difficult to define the goals of Jewish informal education? Often informal educators define their work in terms of the goals of Jewish socialization. Those terms have worked to attract funders' support, but also limited the educational creativity of this field. This article argues for a dual defining of goals: socialization and…

Informal Jewish education can and must put greater focus on the goals of education. While socialization is a key component, it is not its sole goal. Informal Jewish education must make more central deep, serious Jewish learning in which learners can experience moments of transcendence, connection, and transformation. A key to reaching this goal…

This article presents the author's response to Joseph Reimer's essay titled, "Beyond More Jews Doing Jewish: Clarifying the Goals of Informal Jewish Education." The author considers herself as the embodiment of an informal Jewish education practitioner now responding to Reimer's educational theory about the work she has spent her adult life…

This article presents the author's response to Joseph Reimer's article titled, "Beyond More Jews Doing Jewish: Clarifying the Goals of Informal Jewish Education." In his article, Reimer laudably seeks to concretize the often ambiguous goals of informal Jewish education. To build his case, he points to the work of Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi to…

This article presents the author's response to Joseph Reimer's article titled, "Beyond More Jews Doing Jewish: Clarifying the Goals of Informal Jewish Education." The author discusses the "role" of teacher, which includes: engaging students in an academic subject each teacher has mastered, mentoring a particular small group of students about the…

This article presents the author's response to Joseph Reimer's essay titled, "Beyond More Jews Doing Jewish: Clarifying the Goals of Informal Jewish Education." Learning from experience, Joseph Reimer maintains, lies at the heart of informal Jewish education. Learning, Reimer explains, entails "going deeper": becoming immersed in the activities,…

This article presents the author's response to Joseph Reimer's essay titled, "Beyond More Jews Doing Jewish: Clarifying the Goals of Informal Jewish Education." In his essay, Reimer has presented an approach to understanding informal Jewish education. He drives home the point that many formal educational theorists have posed regarding the validity…

In this article, the author shares a few points of clarification to amplify the argument he puts forth in his article titled, "Beyond More Jews Doing Jewish: Clarifying the Goals of Informal Jewish Education." The author argues that socialization and education are two social processes that often overlap and reinforce one another. The purpose of…