Abstract: Jewish education is at a critical juncture. The experience of Covid-19 has shaken and tested our schools, youth movements and our communal infrastructure. As a community, we have risen to the enormous challenges across the sector.
The question facing educational leaders is how do we ‘build back better’? In June 2021, LSJS and UJIA convened an on-line symposium for Jewish educational leaders, providing a collaborative space to consider that question and develop long-term strategic solutions. Headed by Joanne Greenaway (Chief Executive, LSJS) and Mandie Winston (Chief Executive, UJIA), a steering group from across the Jewish educational sector led this project (see
appendix one).
Drawing on current international research on post-pandemic recovery and opportunity, we shared ideas and emerging models of success, captured learning from our lived experiences and considered how to use them to drive change. We started a critical process which we have subsequently built on to set a new, bold agenda for Jewish education, which crucially, has brought together both the formal and informal education sectors working with up to 25 yearold Jewish young people.
We addressed the unique aspects of Jewish education, in which the interplay between home, school and community is so critical to success. We also needed to understand unique opportunities, like the potential role of our active youth movements and how best to harness it.
Our focus has been twofold. First, we have been considering what is the best Jewish educational response to the cost of Covid, with its psychological impact on our young people and learners. It has placed an enormous stress on teachers, informal educators and all who work with young people in our community. Meanwhile, we have also addressed the lost learning experiences, including two summers of limited engagement and no school Israel trips or Youth Movement Israel Tours.
Second, how do we create opportunity out of the crisis? How might we re-envision our educational organisations? How can we harness the opportunities afforded by new technology and what are its limitations? How have we been impacted by greater global connectedness? How have our young people’s attitudes to learning shifted and what does that mean for the way in which we teach and engage them? How do the informal and formal education sectors
complement or duplicate each other? Are we best supporting and valuing the teachers and educators we entrust with our children and what status do they have in our community?
Abstract: Since the COVID-19 pandemic first began, the JPR research team has focused its efforts on trying to understand how it is affecting Jewish life in the UK and around the world, and has generated a series of reports sharing our insights as they evolve. In this research and policy briefing, we draw together the findings from much of the work that has been done, and consider their implications for the future of Jewish communal life.
The report touches on multiple themes, including the economic needs of disadvantaged households, how best to maintain the Jewish charitable sector, the importance of supporting local synagogue communities and Jewish schools, how to address the potential harmful effects of the pandemic on the community’s informal educational infrastructure, health measures that should be considered to help protect lives, intracommunal relations, and issues around the use of technology to help support and bolster Jewish life.
In addition, it considers how the pandemic has impacted data collection work, for good and for bad, and makes important recommendations about the research that needs to be undertaken to support Jewish life going forward.
As well as making specific recommendations, the paper is designed to be a trigger for discussion among community leaders, philanthropists and members, and we welcome feedback from readers.
Abstract: The fight against antisemitism through the means of education should begin from as early an age as possible. Various informal, educational projects exist that work towards this goal, using a number of different methods. However, these projects often operate separately and on an ad hoc basis in educational institutions, hence they lack an overarching concept or idea for the students. This makes the projects less efficient, and their short and long term impact becomes more difficult to evaluate. Generally speaking, Jewish history and religion are not part of the national curriculum in secondary schools. In the rare cases when aspects of Judaism are taught, the main focus is on the Holocaust, which often has a negative and counterproductive effect. For this reason, the main objective of the New World project was to educate students on topics such as Hungary’s role in the Holocaust (which is still not fully accepted by Hungarian society), prejudices, radicalisation and Jewish identity.
With the professional leadership and support of the Tom Lantos Institute, a complex educational project was realised. Its components build on each other, following a single line of thought: it incorporates the performance of the play New World, a subsequent drama-based pedagogical session and finally, 2-3 weeks later, an informal educational class led by the Haver Foundation. Each step of the programme was evaluated using a variety of methods such as mini-interviews, participants’ reports and questionnaires. Following a short literature review, this report intends to give a summary of the concept, structure, conclusions and results of the project. The report is dedicated to participants and leaders of similar initiatives, as well as to a wider audience of individuals interested in the topic.
Abstract: Jewish social justice education is an active and growing field of practice, encompassing a diverse range of agendas and practices: teaching Jewish texts and values around issues of refugees, human rights and environmental justice; organising members of the Jewish community to oppose the occupation of the Palestinian territories and support the Israeli Left; advancing gender equality and LGBT+ inclusion within the community through informal education and training; engaging Jewish students in volunteer service-learning projects to alleviate poverty in the developing world; building inter-faith coalitions to work on local agendas such as housing, crime and healthcare; encouraging a culture of charitable giving and volunteering among Jewish young people; and mobilising Jews in the national and international political arenas around issues such as gun violence, climate change, immigration, hate crime and antisemitism. Yet Jewish social justice education remains an under-researched and under-theorised phenomenon. This theoretical lacuna has practical implications for the thousands of educators and activists across the world who are attempting to achieve social justice ends through the medium of Jewish education but have no well thought-out rationale as to what this might mean and, consequently, cannot know if it has any chance of success. This thesis explores possible theoretical foundations for Jewish social justice education by creating a hermeneutical dialogue between Freirean critical pedagogy, Catholic models of social justice education, Jewish social justice literature and interviews with thinkers and practitioners who consider themselves to be part of the Jewish social justice education enterprise. After drawing out and analysing the philosophical, political and educational themes that emerge from this dialogue, I propose three possible directions a coherent normative theory of Jewish social justice education could take: ‘Jewish politics in a renewed public sphere’, ‘Jewish education for relational community building’ and ‘Jewish critical pedagogy for cultural emancipation’.
Abstract: Informal Jewish educational settings are places that both affect Jewish Identity and transmit Jewish knowledge (Chazan, 1991). For instance, Jewish youth movements provide young people with social, cultural, and informal educational Jewish experiences outside of the classroom setting (Reisman, 1991). Chazan (1991) explained informal education as ‘an activity that is freely chosen by a person and that is very dependent on that person’s active involvement and positive motivation. It is not effected in any special place, but may happen in a variety of settings and venues’. Hence, informal education is not based on the fixed curriculum or grading systems which are characteristic of schools, although, it should reflect a well-defined set of goals, contents, and programmes (Chazan, 1991).
Abstract: This dissertation is an exploration of the ways in which Jewish youth movements create, recreate and re-envision wider Jewish communal norms relating to authenticity, or what it means to be a `real' or `legitimate' Jew. The culmination of thirteen months participant observation fieldwork within one Jewish youth movement, as well as interviews with other youth movement leaders and archival research of one prominent British Jewish newspaper, I argue that the modem Orthodox Jewish Establishment in the United Kingdom has a strong grip on the concept of authenticity. The stakes for maintaining control over the boundary between the authentic and the inauthentic are high, as British Jewry is shrinking rapidly and education has been identified as the primary means by which to secure communal continuity. Consequently, Jewish formal education often supports particular (Orthodox) interpretations of Jewish authenticity, specifically in relation to communal pluralism, appropriate gender identifications and relationships with Zionism. However, these Orthodox expectations of authenticity are often incompatible with how many young British Jews today lead their lives. Youth movements are key sites in which the battle for continuity is being waged; British Jewish youth movements aim to create informal education agendas that inspire young people to create lifelong affiliations with Judaism. I contend that informal education has the necessary flexibility to disrupt (and thus redefine) the boundaries of Jewish authenticity. Specifically, the very pillars of Orthodox authenticity (pluralism, gender and Zionism) are beginning to be (re)- constructed in new and innovative ways by some movements. It is in this space, created through the negotiation of a movement's ethos and its simultaneous obligation to, or disregard for, communal (Orthodox) expectations, that the validation of `alternative' performances of Judaism is possible. In turn, such validation helps to associate authenticity with a fluid and context- dependent belief system that is more likely to secure communal continuity than the exclusive Orthodox system currently so predominant.
Abstract: This thesis examines the issue of ethnicity and kinship and explores the advent of identity formation, specifically in a Reform Jewish context, via youth movement participation. Through the mediums of informal education, focus group discussion and individual semi-structured interviews, I engage in an exploration of identifying what it means to be Jewish, how youth movements augment and abet Jewish identity formation, and the boundaries that exist between young Jews and their host communities.
Youth movement youngsters are observed in situ and Grounded Theory (Strauss, 1987; Glaser, 1978; Glaser, 1992; Glaser, 1998; Glaser, and Strauss, 1968) is employed to elucidate their engagements and interactions. Three case studies (Stake, 1995) are then presented to illustrate the experience of youth movement “graduates”. Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (Smith, 2004; Smith and Osborn, 2003) is used to consider the dimensions of their relationship to Judaism, their youth movement and mainstream society.
I conclude that Jewish Identity is a combination of the Motivational and the Situational imperatives. The combined values of religion, culture and national affinity provide the motivational forces. Situational factors inducing Jewish identity amongst youth movement members are the ever wider boundaries they create for themselves and that are created for them. The first boundary of these youngsters that I identify is their movement loyalty relative to other Jewish youth movements; the next is their Reform Judaism within a wider Jewish context and the broader category is their “Jewishness” in a wider society. This “Jewishness” is expressed through the desire for Jewish Continuity (the future of the Jewish people) and the perpetuation of the feeling of “otherness”.
The final chapter charts my developing identity as a researcher. I pose and answer questions taken from throughout the thesis to illustrate my trajectory along the route of becoming a researcher and interpolating my Jewish roots and their significance in my identity development.
Abstract: This paper shortly summerizes the history of jewish religious education in Poland – from the beginning in the XV century on the Polish lands, its growth during the XIX period, its domination between First and Second World War and finally total destruction in 1968. It took 28 years before it was possible to open a Jewish secular elementary school in Warsaw (1996), thanks to the assistance from the Ronald Lauder Foundation. Four years later, on initiative of Jews in Wrocław the Lauder Etz-Chaim elementary school was founded in this city. Democratization of social life in Poland after 1989 contributed to the change in Jews attitudes to their national descent. For many, their ‘Jewishness’, which now can be spoken about openly, has become the object of profound interest, intellectual search or the way to stress one’s individuality. As a result, we can also observe the process of rebuilding Jewish religious life and forming sunday’s schools, cheders and “Talmud academies” at Jewish Community in Warsaw, Krakow, Lodz, Gdansk and Wrocław (rather as a part of informal education, non- orthodox, more or less religious and adapted to modern jewish life-style in European diaspora).
Abstract: In light of growing evidence of exogamy among Jews and diminishing levels of community engagement, the question of how to sustain and cultivate Jewish identity has become a major preoccupation in the Jewish world since the early 1990s. Among the numerous organisations, programmes and initiatives that have been established and studied in response, Limmud, a week-long annual festival of Jewish life and learning in the UK that attracts an estimated 2,500 people per annum and has been replicated throughout the world, remains decidedly under-researched. This study is designed to understand its educational philosophy. Based upon qualitative interviews with twenty Limmud leaders, and focus group sessions with Limmud participants, it seeks to explore the purposes of the event, its content, its social and educational processes, and contextual environment. It further explores the importance of relationships in Limmud's philosophy, and the place of social capital in its practice.
The study demonstrates that Limmud's educational philosophy is heavily grounded in the interaction of competing tensions, or polarities, on multiple levels. Major categorical distinctions drawn in educational philosophy and practice, and Jewish and general sociology, are both maintained and allowed to interact. This interaction takes place in a "hospitable and charged" environment – one that is simultaneously safe, respectful and comfortable, whilst also edgy, powerful and challenging - that allows the individual freedom to explore and navigate the contours of Jewish community, and the Jewish community opportunity to envelope and nurture the experience of the individual. The study suggests that the interaction of these competing forces, in the context of an intensive Jewish experience, may be an important feature of Jewish educational initiatives attempting to respond to the identity challenges described above. More generally, in detailing a contemporary educational model that sustains religious/ethnic identity whilst emphasising critical thought and openness to competing claims and ideas, it presents an approach that may be applicable in other religious and ethnic communities.
