This author contends that Jewish educators need to provide alternatives to a narrow view of Jewish literacy by revisiting social practices that are characteristic of Jewish study, drawing from rich traditions of engagement in critical questioning of narratives and reanimating them so that students are able to push the boundaries of texts. By…

This paper focuses on the perceptions of four students with learning disabilities regarding their daily experiences within a Jewish day school. The paper grew out of a larger research study that was conducted as part of the requirement of the completion for the degree of Master of Education. It joins current efforts that aim to fill the gaps in…

"What is Jewish education [?] I have been trying for 32 years to find out what it is, but I am still looking." In 1931 these were humble words from the mouth of Samson Benderly, one of the leading thinkers and actors in American Jewish education of his time and of the twentieth century overall--someone whom one might presume had all of the answers…

In this article, the author focuses on these questions: why is American Jewish history worthy of being "taught"? And what purpose should such teaching serve? Philosophical questions such as these are important because topics of study are not self-justifying, and asking the questions--questions that must be pursued through conceptual inquiry,…

This paper traces the mainstreaming of American Jewish history and social studies in the American Jewish school curricula, a process which began in the 1920s and picked up momentum in the mid-late 1930s and 1940s. From the beginning, the "raison d'etre" for teaching American Jewish history and community studies was articulated in terms of…

Since 1993, Boston's Jewish community has supported "Sh'arim," a regional initiative in Jewish family education (JFE). This paper examines parents' perceptions of the impact of that initiative on their children, themselves and their families as a whole over the past 10 years. After briefly describing the initiative's original goals, approaches and…

Traditionally, the arts have been absent from Jewish day schools' curricula, and have been relegated to occasional visual art classes, choral music courses, or extra-curricular classes after school hours. Lately, along with a surge of new Jewish day schools, the arts are making their way back into the Judaic study curriculum. In this paper, the…

This paper presents data gathered as part of an evaluation study of a grant-making initiative undertaken by a national organization involved with Jewish day schooling. The initiative disbursed grants to 30 established Jewish day schools for use during the 2002-2003 school year. The goal of the initiative was to encourage and support day schools to…

The study of hermeneutics has been a growing focus of Jewish educational research in recent years. The significance of hermeneutics to Jewish education is its concern with how human beings read and respond to texts. Several scholars have addressed hermeneutic questions from a variety of different theory-to-practice perspectives. Many of their…