JEWISH EDUCATION IN MOROCCO AND THE FORMER SOVIET UNION: COMPARATIVE NOTES FROM THE FIELD ABOUT SEPHARDIC AND ASHKENAZIC SCHOOLING

Over the Past several years, a new and unprecedented challenge has been thrust upon professionals in the field of Jewish communal service—the development of effective instrumentalities to absorb into the American Jewish community masses of Soviet Jews. Jewish educators have grappled with the difficulties and frustrations of this task along with their colleagues in the other disciplines of Jewish service. Yet if the influx of these new Russian settlers presents the organized Jewish community with unique and seemingly intractable problems, it also offers Jewish educational agencies—and more particularly central Bureaus and Boards of Jewish education—with an unparalleled opportunity to play a leadership role in this orchestrated communal effort. This essay purports to analyze this potential and to describe how one central agency, the Atlanta Bureau of Jewish Education, has endeavored to exploit it.     

Jewish Education,Past and Present: Israel Friedlaender Re-Visited

A century ago, Israel Friedlaender—scholar, communal activist, and educator—played a key role in such educational institutions as the Teachers Institute of JTS, the Bureau of Jewish Education, the Menorah Society, Young Israel, and Young Judea. A JTS professor and prolific writer, Friedlaender has been described as “the teacher of the Jewish youth of that generation.” Yet, scant attention has been devoted to exploring his educational thought and action agenda. This retrospective focuses on Friedlaender’s activities and impact in advancing Jewish education and considers the relationship of his legacy to current directions in the field.     

EDUCATING THE SYSTEM

The purpose of this article is to offer a new planning perspective for the Jewish community based on a review of the nature of Central Agency activities within the larger Jewish communal context. The modified planning paradigm it suggests is intended to generate discussion and obviate unnecessary tensions. It can help us recognize that inevitable institutional tensions are generally conflicts between good and good, not good and evil. Applying this new paradigm should enable closer and more productive collaboration among Federations, Central Agencies, and other community institutions so we can move ahead together to improve the quality of Jewish life.     

JERUSALEM 3000 — EDUCATIONAL IMPLICATIONS & OPPORTUNITIES

There is a strong tendency in American Jewish education to promote the coordination of formal and informal Jewish education. This is not always possible for a variety of different reasons. One factor is the separate nature of the formal educational and informal educational organizations and their institutional goals and directions. Moreover, the formal educational agencies tend to hire staff that are not capable of dealing with informal education. They look at Jewish education as the transmission of cognitive skills; Jewish knowledge is viewed largely as a set of skills which demands long hours in classroom situations. On the other hand, informal educational institutions like the Jewish communal camps (in contrast to the ideological camps such as Camps Ramah, Morasha, Habonim Camps, Young Judea Camps, etc.) are generally social-work-oriented agencies. They do not always perceive themselves as the transmitters of Jewish culture nor as change agents in the complex process of Jewish identity. There is an unspoken tension between Federation-supported camping agencies and communal educational agencies.     

THE COMMUNITY THEORY AND THE JEWISH SCHOOL CURRICULUM

Almost no literature in the academic field of Jewish education exists that studies congregational rabbis as teachers of adults. This article seeks to contribute to filling the gap in the extant literature base. Using portraiture, the study describes and analyzes the aims of rabbinic teaching of adults in a synagogue setting. The findings suggest that regularly facilitating learners' intellectual and religious development, democratically guiding their communities' evolution through an emphasis on learning, and collaboratively joining their congregants in shaping the construction of personal and communal Jewish narratives are central aims of congregational rabbinic teaching of adults.     

Leading Jewish Educators of Blessed Memory

The popular image connoted by the term “Jewish education” is the teaching-learning process in the classroom of an all day school, yeshiva, and afternoon school. The students are typically children of elementary school age. As the image expands, it includes adolescents in the high school, college students in special courses, and adults in synagogue-sponsored adult education courses. Jewish education for professionals in Jewish communal service agencies has not been part of the public's perception of Jewish education. To be sure, the professional's primary concern is helping clients with their problems and his knowledge base is primarily geared toward that objective. The “Jewish” component in the preparation for professional practice has not been a primary concern of Jewish educators.     

THE CHALLENGE OF QUALITY PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

This paper argues that, notwithstanding a few major exceptions, the modern commitment to studying educational thinking and practice in premodern Jewish societies has not been particularly intense, despite widespread agreement as to the importance of education in premodern Jewish life. Some suggestions for this lacuna are discussed in this article. In particular, it is urged that a major part of the problem lies in the definition of Jewish education and that—were definitions of Jewish education altered—a much wider swath of research would be seen to involve important aspects of the premodern Jewish educational enterprise.     

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

“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.     

Diversity,Community, and Pluralism in Jewish Community Day High Schools

Students in “community” (nondenominational) Jewish high schools represent a diversity of denominational affiliations, including those who affiliate with more than one denomination and those that affiliate with none. These schools strive to create communities in which students with varying Jewish beliefs and practices are, at the very least, respected and comfortable. At the same time, schools work to avoid internal Jewish communal fragmentation. In this article, the approach to diversity in three such high schools is compared. Each school, in addition to presenting an approach distinct from the others, has created opportunities for communal Jewish engagement through the enactment of practices that are rooted in Judaism and in the ethos of the school, and allow individualization within universal participation. Further, the range of approaches to Jewish diversity exhibited raises questions about pluralism as it relates to the Jewish educational goals of these schools.     

A Survey of Jewish Day Schools in America

It is Only in recent years that the systematic study of Jewish educational systems, particularly in a global context, has become a subject of serious concern. Since 1945 a succession of education conferences and surveys provides evidence of an awareness that the future of World Jewry—in Israel as well as the Diaspora—is inextricably linked with the future of its educational institutions. The World Conference on Jewish Education in Jerusalem in 1962 and the subsequent formation two years later of the World Council on Jewish Education are but two examples of this awareness. The establishment of a Center for Jewish Education in the Diaspora at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem marks a further practical step toward attaining some form of coordination on the part of world Jewry.     

PLANNING FOR THE FUTURE

The American-Jewish communal environment is complex and changing. It has both a historically unique voluntary nature and a multitude of educational providers. This combination creates many operational and perceptual challenges for Central Agencies for Jewish Education (CAJEs or BJEs). Among these challenges are to:

? interpret conclusively why current central agency activities are appropriate and necessary; and

? to project what central agency roles and responsibilities ought to be in the future.     

Definitions of Integration Can Be Misleading

The discussion in this paper departs from a fundamental premise: that in the foreseeable future local central agencies for Jewish education will not be receiving from their parent Federations the degree of increase in allocations which will enable them to significantly expand — let alone sustain at the current levels — the array of services which they deliver. This situation can be traced to a number of factors. To begin with, in many communities the ability of the Federation to raise funds through its annual campaign has leveled off. As a result, the total amount of money available for distribution to all Federation constituencies, including local bureaus of education, is no longer increasing in step-function fashion. Secondly, other Federation beneficiaries are staking claim with ever greater determination to their perceived share of the community dollar. Over the years most central agencies for Jewish education have become inured to this sort of competition for Federation funds from such sister agencies as the Jewish community center, the local Jewish home, and the like. But in recent years, allocations to local Jewish Day Schools have climbed to record levels, often making these institutions prime “competitors” with bureaus of Jewish education for community funds, more particularly with that portion of the total pie which has been allotted to education. This places bureaus in a difficult dilemma: On the one hand, they must support — indeed, encourage — increased funding for Jewish day school education. At the same time, bureaus are confronted with the uncomfortable fact that each community dollar allocated to day school education is a dollar which, potentially, might have been assigned to the central agency.     

哈尔滨犹太宗教生活及背景综述

犹太民族有着自己悠久的文化传统,共同的宗教信仰和生活方式使他们拥有强烈的宗教和民族认同感。哈尔滨犹太族群曾组建过远东地区规模最大的犹太宗教公会,尽管哈尔滨犹太人来自不同国家,但在相同的宗教信仰影响下形成了共同的、富有特色的社团文化生活。     

IN MEMORIAM

The following are reflections on my service as Superintendent of the Board of Jewish Education of Metropolitan Chicago, 1976-1987, and my observations of communal agencies for Jewish education during my current service as President of the Hebrew College of Boston.     

Magnes,the Champion of Justice

Introduction

In years past, Jewish supplementary education has been the basis of religious growth for thousands of youngsters. Congregational and communal schools throughout the country have touched the lives of many Jewish youth.     

THE JEWISH FAMILY IN SOCIOEDUCATIONAL PERSPECTIVE

In considering the Jewish family from a socioeducational perspective — more particularly from a Jewish socioeducational viewpoint — we must focus on two interrelated challenges.     

Intercultural learning in graduate studies at an Israeli college of education: Attitudes toward multiculturalism among Jewish and Arab students

The purpose of the present study is to investigate the factors which affect attitudes towards multiculturalism among Jewish and Arab graduate students who experience intercultural learning in an Israeli-Jewish academic college of education. In Israeli society, it is in higher education institutions where young people from different ethnic groups first encounter the ‘others’. This is due to the structure of the Israeli elementary and secondary education system, which is divided into Jewish and Arab segregated sub-systems. In contrast, the country’s higher education institutions are open to everyone. The research population was composed of first and second year graduate students, all of whom were practicing teachers or involved in other educational work. Participants completed questionnaires and a smaller sample was also interviewed. All of the students are practicing teachers or involved in other educational work. Everyone perceived the college’s socio-cultural climate as an open and multicultural one in both years of study. However, these positive feelings characterized Jewish students to a larger extent than Arab students, while the socio-cultural aspect as well as the quality of the academic experience had a positive impact on multicultural attitudes primarily among Arab students. Thus, a multicultural climate is not enough to effect a positive change in entrenched attitudes toward multiculturalism. Multicultural education policy should also be reinforced through a formal academic curriculum, so as to set an example for ongoing social change which will further encourage graduate students—majority and minority alike—to implement their multicultural positive experiences in their own schools in the future.     

Religion and attitudes of college preservice teachers toward students with disabilities: implications for higher education

The study examined attitudes toward school inclusion of students with disabilities of 1,145 prospective teacher trainees from six national/religious groups in eleven colleges in Israel: The groups were secular, religious and ultra-orthodox Jews and Muslim, Christian and Druze Arabs. Participants responded to the “Opinion Related to Inclusion Scale”. Trainees in all six groups supported the principle of inclusion while simultaneously recognizing the need for segregated special education placements. Several significant group differences were found on the total score and the factor scores. The most supportive group of inclusion (i.e., the strongest rejection of segregation and the least concern about behavior problems) was the Jewish secular group followed by the Jewish religious group. The least support for inclusion was found for the ultra-orthodox Jewish group and the Arab groups. Implications for the preparation of educators in institutions of higher education were discussed.     

A CALL FOR POLICY DISCUSSION ON TEACHER TRAINING PROGRAMS

Beyond any doubt, Israel has become in recent years the world's leading center for all levels of Jewish Education in the Diaspora. These activities have indeed gained ever-growing popularity among Jewish educators and have succeeded in attracting communal support but, strangely enough, the educational orientation and rationale of many of them have rarely been addressed publicly.