The Israeli state-religious-education system (SRES) held an unfavorable view of Mizrahi religiosity in the 1980s. Text analyses of religious-education heads' writings indicate that they saw Mizrahi religiosity as a primitive relic of the past and as a "low-level religiosity" and regarded Mizrahi students as uncommitted and compromising.…

Within Orthodox Jewish early childhood programs, gender roles of the Shabbat Party promote heteronormative gender expectations that contend with values about children, teaching, and Judaism. Interviews with 15 educators suggested tensions between gender flexible attitudes and beliefs that gender unfolds naturally. Pretend play was considered a…

Sacred teaching takes many forms across religious traditions, focusing on creation and sacramentality in Christianity, God's nature and creation of human beings in Judaism, and spiritual and social practices in both. At the heart of Jewish, Muslim, and Christian traditions are accents on the sacredness of life, creation in the image of God, and…

This qualitative research aims to explore the experiences of teachers in the implementation of prayer services in religious high schools for girls in Israel. Twenty teachers from three different schools were interviewed as part of this qualitative research study. Interviews were conducted during 2017-2018. The research focused on what teachers…

This paper examines Catholic RE curriculum documents from 2 jurisdictions to assess how well they present Jews and Judaism. It finds that their representations of Jews and Judaism rely on structures of thought, reinforced by normative Catholicism, that enable the conditions to reproduce supersessionist thinking and attitudes. Its conclusion argues…

This study considers whether and in what ways graphic novel adaptations of traditional Jewish Hebrew texts can encourage adolescent Modern Orthodox girls to adopt autonomous critical responses when encountering narratives that present women in unequal roles vis a vis men. According to scholars, Jewish literacy should teach students to read…

Living in a pluralistic society where groups are ethnically, nationally and religiously different and sometimes live in conflict with one another requires teachers to be prepared to deal with conflict-laden issues. In such societies, educational institutions in general and especially teaching colleges should not be ethnocentric but should…

A qualitative practitioner research study was conducted with 31 high school students studying religion contemporary Israeli society. The purpose of the study was to understand how using cartoons written and illustrated by the religious Jewish-Israeli settler Shay Charka challenged students to think about religion in Israeli society in new ways and…

Jewish education in Israel's non-religious state ("Mamlakhti") schools is intended to support an open-ended, pluralistic dialogue surrounding the question of Jewish identity. The distinct features of Knowledge Building Communities (KBCs) set them apart as a pedagogical approach that is particularly suitable for achieving this educational…

This article offers a detailed study of one child's relationships to Israel from kindergarten (2012-2013 academic year) through 7th grade (2019-2020 academic year). By tracing Avigail over the course of eight years, I argue that children do not develop "a relationship" with Israel but rather many different relationships over time. Using…

Faith schools may play an important role in reproducing ethnoreligious identities, yet research into Jewish schools has tended to overlook students' personalised conceptualisations of faith. Instead, it has regularly utilised restrictive 'indicators' of ethnoreligious practice in order to gauge these institutions' effectiveness in 'strengthening'…

With more investigation into the reception of evolution in non-Christian majority cultures, and the increased awareness that anti-evolution sentiment is a global phenomenon, new educational resources are being developed to meet newly understood needs. This article explores the situation in Israel regarding conceptions of the compatibility of…

The return of religion and religiosity, on almost all social, cultural, and political fronts, has informed the academic agenda of the last decade. It is marked by a growing scholarly use of the concept of the "postsecular." Against this background, this article brings the concept of the postsecular to bear on the transformation of…

There is a legal requirement that schools engage with the spiritual aspects of education, which encompasses pastoral care. This reflects the ethical sensibility that is present in individuals and underlies interactions with Others; and which should be part of the ethos of all educational institutions and especially schools. This is because…

A qualitative study focusing on arts-based learning in Israel education was conducted at a community Jewish high school in North America. Building on studies that have shown students are able to simultaneously love and critique Israel, the purpose of the study was to assess whether producing creative work led to creative solutions to contemporary…