Teaching about the Holocaust is an emotional process that can be extremely difficult, especially without the proper resources. Most teachers spend one or two class periods on the Holocaust and usually cram the lesson into a unit on World War II. As a teacher, the author understands that time is short and that it is impossible to spend the…

This article explores how the role of educational leadership can significantly enhance adult Jewish learning experiences through an in-depth examination of the position of site director at the Florence Melton Adult Mini-School, a two-year program of adult Jewish learning operating at more than sixty sites across North America. Applying the…

As a lover of language and literature, as a serious yet secular Jew, and as a long-time educator in Jewish schools who strives to implement the best practices possible, the author found herself in an educational trap. Typically, even in liberal Jewish practice, Written Law, i.e. the Torah, and Oral Law, i.e. the rabbinic commentaries, are tightly…

Crime seriousness studies have consistently shown wide consensus regarding the high perceived seriousness of violent offenses. However, socio-cultural models suggest wide variability between social groups with regard to the seriousness of certain types of violent crime. This is particularly true in the case of male violence against female intimate…

This paper presents sociological analysis of the linguistic and cultural identity of two of Israel's most influential and high-ranked universities during their formative years, that were also the "de facto" formative years of the Israeli state-in-the-making (1924-1948). We argue that the influence of external universal factors on a…

The recent growth of Jewish day schools in the United States and United Kingdom has consistently been attributed to the declining appeal of public education among minority groups in general and the Jewish community in particular. In this article I review the interpretative heuristic that lies behind this claim, and ask whether this heuristic…

Ben-Avie and Comer describe how Jewish day schools and the Yale Child Study Center's School Development Program (SDP) share a common agenda regarding the aim of education. The foundational science of education is child development, advocates James P. Comer in such seminal works as "School Power" (1980) and "Waiting For A Miracle" (1998). SDP, the…

Jon Levisohn's perceptive study of the Fox, Scheffler, and Marom "Visions of Jewish Education" volume manages both to pay tribute to the book's enormous contribution and to raise a number of serious intellectual issues that call for further reflection and analysis. His clear writing and educational insight are to be applauded. By raising questions…

This article proposes to read events of the educational past not as history but as midrash. It juxtaposes an historical account of a watershed experiment in adult education (Franz Rosenzweig's Freie Judisches Lehrhaus) with an ethnographic account of a presently practicing elementary school teacher. These accounts are generically different and…

Objective: This study is the first in a comprehensive examination of therapeutic components and outcome of interventions in a public, nonresidential service for drug addicts in Jerusalem (SHALEM). Method: Data were gathered from 153 clients (35 women, 128 men; 35 Arabs, 118 Jews; median age = 39) using clinical data mining. Results: Men who had…

This article reports on two Mideast-themed schools which have attracted fierce controversy amplified in the news media and the blogosphere. A new public school with a focus on Arabic language and culture is set to open in New York City this week, after being assailed for months by opponents who claim it will be a taxpayer-funded Islamic school…

Background: Before 1999, there was little research on teachers and apartheid aside from some biographical sketches. "A Mother and Her Daughters" is part of an ongoing oral history project of teachers who fought apartheid. It is contextualized through the literature on Jews and apartheid in South Africa and joins the growing literature on…

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…

Although some researchers argue that a generation of feminist innovations and changes in American Jewish life has produced an egalitarian generation in which gender differences among Jewish children and adolescents are insignificant, this article argues that the salience of gender differences is a factor of the kinds of questions that children are…

This study explores narratives of female teacher educators in Israel--Israeli-born Jews and Jewish immigrants--within the framework of critical discourse analysis. The oral narratives were obtained through personal in-depth interviews with six female teacher educators who work at two teacher education colleges in Israel. The findings reveal that…