There is something deeply problematic about the ways that Jews, particularly in America, talk about “Jewish identity” as a desired outcome of Jewish education. For many, the idea that the purpose of Jewish education is to strengthen Jewish identity is so obvious that it hardly seems worth disputing—and the only important question is which kinds of Jewish education do that work more effectively or more efficiently. But what does it mean to “strengthen Jewish identity”? Why do Jewish educators, policy-makers and philanthropists talk that way? What do they assume, about Jewish education or about Jewish identity, when they use formulations like “strengthen Jewish identity”? And what are the costs of doing so?
This volume, the first collection to examine critically the relationship between Jewish education and Jewish identity, makes two important interventions. First, it offers a critical assessment of the relationship between education and identity, arguing that the reification of identity has hampered much educational creativity in the pursuit of this goal, and that the nearly ubiquitous employment of the term obscures significant questions about what Jewish education is and ought to be. Second, this volume offers thoughtful responses that are not merely synonymous replacements for “identity, ” suggesting new possibilities for how to think about the purposes and desired outcomes of Jewish education, potentially contributing to any number of new conversations about the relationship between Jewish education and Jewish life.
Зміст
Contents
1. Introduction
Jon A. Levisohn and Ari Y. Kelman
2. Taking Jewish Identity Metaphors Literally
Eli Gottlieb
3. You are Jewish if You Want to Be: The Limits of Identity in a World of Multiple Practices
Samira K. Mehta
4. On the Origins and Persistence of the Jewish Identity Industry in Jewish Education
Jonathan Krasner
5. Identity and Crisis: The Origins of Identity as an Educational Outcome
Ari Y. Kelman
6. Regarding the “Real” Jew: Authenticity Anxieties Around Poland’s “Generation Unexpected”
Katka Reszke
7. Re-Thinking American Jewish Zionist Identity: A Case for Post-Zionism in the Diaspora (Based on the Writings of R. Menachem Froman)
Shaul Magid
8. Jewish Educators Don’t Make Jews: A Sociological Reality Check About Jewish Identity Work
Tali Zelkowicz
9. Beyond Language Proficiency: Fostering Metalinguistic Communities in Jewish Educational Settings
Sarah Bunin Benor and Netta Avineri
10. Where is the Next Soviet Jewry Movement? How Identity Education Forgot the Lessons that Jewish Activism Taught
Shaul Kelner
11. Jewish Education as Initiation into the Practices of Jewishness
Jon A. Levisohn
12. Jewish Sensibilities: Toward a New Language for Jewish Educational Goal-Setting
Lee Moore and Jonathan Woocher, z’’l
Про автора
Ari Y. Kelman is Jim Joseph Professor of Education and Jewish Studies, Stanford University.
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