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Bookjed Digest 164
NETWORK*LEARN*GROW
Bookjed Digest is a service of the Lookstein Center for Jewish Education, Bar-Ilan University |
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Israel’s National Library has launched an online database aggregating tens of thousands of digitized Jewish manuscripts belonging to collections from across the globe.
The National Library partnered with some of the largest collections of Jewish manuscripts, including the British Library, Parma’s Palatina Library and the Vatican Library, in an effort to bring the nearly 100,000 known texts under one digital roof.
http://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-national-library-launches-digital-manuscript-archive/
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1. Book reviews:
Cultures and Contexts of Jewish Education
Authors: Barry Chazan, Robert Chazan, Benjamin Jacobs
Reviewed by Menachem Hecht
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Behind a dry title, the slim Cultures and Contexts of Jewish Education offers the reader an excellent concise review of Jewish history from the Bible to the present. The authors draw on their respective areas of expertise to situate Jewish educational models over time within broader patterns of Jewish society and close with a surprising indictment of 20th century American Jewish education along with an optimistic educational proposal for the uncertain Jewish future of those “most engaged with modernity and its challenges” (p. xxii).
Following educational theorist Jerome Bruner and historian Lawrence Cremin, the authors Barry Chazan, Robert Chazan, and Benjamin M. Jacobs, prominent Jewish academics and thought leaders (disclosure: I graduated from NYU’s Education & Jewish Studies doctoral program, founded by this group) maintain that education is not exclusively-- or even primarily-- about schooling. Education is comprehensive, relational, and occurs in all settings in day-to-day life. It is the cultural linchpin, what holds societies together, and what animates lives with meaning. The authors use and return to the term paideia as shorthand for this overarching vision of the relationship between education and society. In short, a history of Jewish education can only be a history of Jewish societies and communities.
To condense an already tightly condensed work: Pre-modern Jewish society, from the biblical period up to about the year 1800, was conditioned on faith in a God who created and sustains the world. The bible taught a unique covenantal relationship between Israel and God, attended by divine reward for adherence and punishment for nonadherence. The prophets extended the biblical message through the Jewish experience in the homeland under the Assyrian, Babylonian, and Persian world empires. As the Temple center weakened and ultimately was destroyed by the Romans, the rabbis took the lead to clarify in great detail the demands of Israel’s divine covenant, updating (primarily by introducing foci on Torah study and synagogue ritual) for new diaspora realities facing Jewish communities. Pre-modern Jews, whether in the homeland or the diaspora, tended to live in semi-autonomous and self-governing communities underneath larger gentile polities, and so the Jewish leaders who articulated communal and covenantal responsibilities for the people carried real authority and coercive power. Through vast spans of time and place, the premodern Jewish paideia was remarkably stable.
Then came modernity. By 1800, 90% of Jews lived in Christian Europe. In the nineteenth century, following the spread of Enlightenment ideas, Jews were emancipated in European country after country and were introduced for the first time to the possibility of full citizenship under Christian states. Jews were transformed, at least in principle, from a disadvantaged religious minority debilitated by legal circumscriptions into equal citizens of egalitarian societies. Traditional Jewish covenantal truths rapidly lost plausibility and Jewish central authorities lost coercive power. Jews now had the choice to assimilate or acculturate into the surrounding society, and Jewish communities fragmented into multiple alternate directions, beliefs, attitudes, and denominations.
In emancipated Europe, Jews were expected to identify both politically and ethnically with their host countries and to associate with Judaism exclusively as a religious community; ethnic or national notions of Jewish identification were rarely tolerated. America was different. Though heir to a legacy of Christian thinking, it was a country of immigrants. As a rising world power it lacked a history of homogenous ethnicity and religion, and it committed itself to the division of church and state. Uniquely welcoming to Jewish immigrants, America came to offer its citizens a stunning diversity of life options and Jewish options. By the 1920s, over two and half million Jews had emigrated. Jews adjusted to the open American society. They spread throughout the country, grew affluent, and integrated into American business, cultural, educational, social, and political life while maintaining Jewish affiliation as a private ethnic, religious, and cultural choice.
Immigrant Jews in the twentieth century flocked to public schools, which had grown to become the perceived ladder to American integration and upward mobility. Among Americanizing Jewish families, the home lost its place as the solid center of Jewish values and practices, and little-loved supplementary schools sprung up in Jewish communities everywhere to fill the gap. In the second half of the 20th century, private Jewish day schools became an increasingly popular alternative for Jewish families aiming to raise children fully American and fully Jewish. The denominationally affiliated supplementary and day schools, along with synagogues and federations of social service agencies, became the backbone of American Jewish communal life.
So much for the past. Where are we now? The authors point to a twentieth century grassroots entrepreneurial educational “counterculture” that developed alongside mainstream, denominationally-based Jewish schooling and grew to include summer camps, community centers, youth groups, museums, and heritage travel programs. In the twenty-first century, “post-everything age,” organized Jewish life has deteriorated and many Jews no longer tend towards communal affiliation or alignment with denominational or other traditional categories. Affiliation has become complex, conditional, and individualistic; Jews live in more diverse areas in the country, some without easy access to traditional forms of organized Jewish life. American Jewish households increasingly include non-Jews. Yet the authors are optimistic. As the counterculture swallows the culture, hundreds of innovative Jewish startups have sprung up, characteristically “grassroots, experiential, episodic but intensive, accessible, portable, and responsive to the interests and needs of learners” (p. 134). This raft of initiatives aims to provide educational alternatives that enable young Jews to “participate organically in Jewish civilization” (p. 135) without having to actually affiliate or join the traditional infrastructure of the Jewish community.
The book concludes with an unexpected epilogue. The authors posit that twentieth-century Jewish education, facing an immigrant population seeking upward mobility, built edifices and organizations, but had no overarching mission or vision. In addressing the “what” but not the “why” of Jewish education, it lacked meaning, relevance, and significance, often seeming like a “hollow vessel bobbing at sea” (p. 143). It had no paideia. Millennials, concerned with meaning-making, ask the core questions about Jewish life and the human condition their parents and grandparents could not afford to ask. They demand a new paideia, which has not yet been provided by the rabbis, educational leaders, lay leaders, and field-guiding nonprofit leaders, who lack either authority or educational expertise. Inchoate as it is, the twenty-first century paideia can yet emerge from a nascent network of outstanding academic scholars, Jewish curriculum specialists, foundation professionals, and reflective practitioners.
All interested in developing richer language and more robust analytic tools for considering the challenges of contemporary Jewish education will benefit from reading this slim book. The authors’ compelling analysis situates twenty-first century American Jewish societal shifts as natural outgrowths of the 19th century erosion of European Jewish communal and religious authority, and the they consistently draw out key motifs from the vast story of the Jewish people with specificity, insight, and economy. On the occasion that in the interest of brevity (the book is under 160 pages, index, footnotes, and bibliographies included) a section attenuates or veers into a shorthand “greatest hits” mode, the reader seeking a deeper cut can head to the bibliography that accompanies each chapter to learn more--a neat touch.
This reader happens to not be compelled by the book’s closing resolution against twentieth-century Jewish education. I imagine others as well, whether as scholars, practitioners, or alumni, might have cause to dispute its inexplicably monolithic characterization of a century wholly lacking in paideia. The book’s proposition for the future likewise seems underdeveloped; the authors limit their consideration to contemporary movements that dive especially deep into the “post-everything” world and do not dwell on the twenty-first century potential of movements that face modernity while re-engaging sources of Jewish authority, such as Zionism, Chabad, and the oft-bemoaned Modern Orthodox “slide to the right.” But inviting this kind of discourse is surely what the authors intended through this valuable work, and through their life’s work as well. We are in their debt.
Cultures and Contexts of Jewish Education is available at http://www.springer.com/la/book/9783319515854
Rabbi Menachem Hecht, PhD is the director of Israel education at YULA Girls High School in LosAngeles. He was the founding director of Bnei Akiva affiliated Moshava Ba’ir summer camps in New Jersey and Toronto and the director of Moshava California.
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A Concise Code of Jewish Law for Converts
By Michael Broyde
Reviewed by Lawrence Kobrin
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Conversion to Judaism, once relatively rare, has now become something encountered in many circumstances and families. There has been considerable “politicization” and controversy concerning the process and requirements. In all of the controversy, the needs and strivings of the sincere individuals who seek conversion are sometimes overlooked. Historically, some works for this purpose were published, but are primarily in Hebrew and not generally available. It is to the needs and concerns of contemporary converts that a fascinating recent book is to addressed.
Rabbi Michael Broyde’s work, A Concise Code of Jewish Law for Converts is what its title suggests, but much more. Drawing on many years of experience in the process and procedures of conversion in the United States, R. Broyde sets out for the reader, rules for halachic behavior of converts, as they become Jewish. He organizes this initial material in an interesting way, by following the categories of organization of the Shulchan Aruch, and relating specific discussion to the specific relevant section of the Shulchan Aruch.
The nature of the questions raised will mean that no convert can make use of the work without the guidance of some experienced and knowledgeable advisor. In any of the instances for which statements are made, historic development of the halacha in this area necessarily requires that the author note that there are variant or opposing views and not necessarily one definitive position.
The book, however, goes far beyond the details of religious or ritual performance for a convert. In both the footnotes and in supplemental essays, it includes extensive analysis of some of the issues surrounding the conversion process from a historic and halachic perspective. As a result, it should be of interest not only to converts and their rabbinic advisors, but for others interested in the halachic process itself.
Thus, following the Shulchan Aruch list, essays are included of broader issues related to converted Jews: may they serve as dayanim, how is lineage determined, just who may a Kohen marry, and the history and dynamic of the so-called identity berachot which we recite each morning.
It is the inclusion of these essays and sources that prompts the suggestion of the use of the work “off label,” so to speak. Just as medical practitioners may often prescribe or use a drug beyond the purpose for which it was originally intended or marketed, this book can be an interesting addition to the works which a teacher of the halachic process may find useful. (For that reason, a review in Bookjed seems appropriate.)
In the essays, Rabbi Broyde demonstrates how competing lines of understanding and interpretation develop and how the poskim seek to reconcile them or reach a consensus conclusion. This kind of process is one which students often find difficult to understand and which this book illustrates in several cases. The reports of halachic development carry the reader down to contemporary times (even included footnoted recent personal conversations with recognized authorities) and for many students counter the notion, sometimes or not expressed, that there is little development or change in halachic psak today.
There is relatively little work in English which provides detailed halachic analysis. The periodic essays by Rabbi David Bleich in Tradition serve as an outstanding exception, and other online postings by Eretz Hemdah or occasional articles in Hakirah may provide such material, but these are usually focused on specific topics. It is for that reason that a well written and authoritative work such as this might be considered by teachers for use in illustrating and teaching the halachic process as we now experience it.
The book can be obtained from its publisher Urim Press, or is available through Amazon.
Lawrence Kobrin is a practicing attorney in New York, active in various Jewish organizations and an occasional contributor to Lookjed.
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2. Online book reviews:
It’s Our Challenge: A Social Entrepreneurship Approach to Jewish Education
By Jonathan Mirvis
Reviewed by Aliza Mazor
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http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/bWTmX3qAvvXvbGWt2Yrc/full
An excerpt:
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This book makes many important contributions to an emerging field. Dr. Mirvis offers us a taxonomy for innovation and entrepreneurship in Jewish education that is clear and straightforward. This is particularly helpful because there has been a tendency to overuse and conflate terms. Dr. Mirvis carefully distinguishes between innovation and social entrepreneurship, between adding social value and engaging in social enterprise. One of the most important distinctions he draws is around the ways in which social entrepreneurship is different from commercial entrepreneurship. Business concepts are applicable to educational entrepreneurship, but they also need to be adapted. Adjustments must be made for critical differences in context. Dr. Mirvis draws several very helpful distinctions. First he distinguishes between “sustaining innovation” and “disruptive innovation.” All Jewish educators should be engaged in sustaining innovation—questioning assumptions, tweaking endeavors, and promoting a culture of constant improvement. When the model itself is broken, we must engage in “disruptive innovation.” All educators should be innovators. Disruption should be saved for our most puzzling and intractable challenges. Dr. Mirvis also distinguishes between “social need entrepreneurship” and “social vision entrepreneurship.” Social need entrepreneurship responds to immediate and pressing needs. Social vision entrepreneurship looks beyond what exists to what might be. Both are needed in Jewish education.
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A City in Its Fullness
By S.Y. Agnon
Reviewed by Sarah Rindner
https://www.ou.org/jewish_action/09/2017/s-y-agnon-orthodox-reader/
An excerpt:
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An even greater obstacle in the way of American Orthodox appreciation for Agnon’s work may be a matter of linguistic accessibility. Over the past decades, selections of Agnon’s work have been translated into English. However, nothing has approximated the ambitious recent project of The Toby Press division of Koren Publishers, spearheaded by Rabbi Jeffrey Saks, to make nearly all of Agnon’s writing available and accessible in annotated translation. The nature of this project has additionally served to frame Agnon as not only the domain of academics or literature buffs, but as required reading on a Modern Orthodox bookshelf alongside other Koren classics. By making many of Agnon’s later stories available to English readers, The Toby Press invites a new generation to consider the relevance of Agnon to their own religious Jewish lives.
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Online Biblical Keywords and Lexical-Literary Analysis Tool
AlHaTorah.org is pleased to share a new online tool which will be of great help to Bible scholars, especially those engaged in literary analysis. Access it at: http://mg.alhatorah.org/Keywords and simply choose your desired Biblical unit using the dropdown menus. The data table produced will allow you to readily identify the words which play a central role in your particular passage and to compare their relative frequency here with their usage in the rest of the Bible. The data table can be sorted in multiple ways and filtered for custom analysis. Or, for a pictorial representation of the data, click on the cloud icon. A brief demo can be viewed at: http://mg.alhatorah.org/Keywords_Guide.
The Keywords tool is part of a growing array of scholarly resources freely available at AlHaTorah.org's customizable online Mikraot Gedolot and main site (http://alhatorah.org). To stay updated as new resources go live, subscribe at: http://alhatorah.org/Subscribe.
Hillel Novetsky
Editor, AlHaTorah.org
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