In this article, we explore the transition from philosophical and theological manifestos to their practical and educational implementation as we analyze the official American Reform-Judaism discourse as curricular text. This analysis provides a tool for a discussion of the relationships between vision and its implementation particularly for…

In this article, the authors discuss a workshop they offer within their culturally diverse teacher education program in Israel. First, the authors introduce the context in which the workshop takes place. Then, they present the assumptions behind the workshop and describe how it works. In the next sections, the authors discuss the conditions…

This study compared behavioral (fulfillment of religious commandments), and motivational components of religiosity among 54 Jewish adolescents (aged 13-21 years) and 35 adults (30-60 years) with intellectually disability (ID) (IQ = 40-69). A special questionnaire was constructed. Results yielded similarities between the religious profile of…

While Holocaust related activities and educational programs around the world are growing in number, published reports on their impact are scarce, especially on the university level. The free responses of 94 Jewish-Israeli university students who took the course "Psychology of the Holocaust" yielded eight themes. The results reflect a…

The Jewish student population has received little attention on campuses and has indicated their disappointment with college administrators and faculty who do not understand their identity. Jewish undergraduates face many identity issues related to being Jewish, yet they have limited opportunities to learn about the impact of religion on their…

In this article, the author shares insights from three decades of teaching graduate students preparing to be Jewish educators or rabbis. In particular, she discusses the inspirations for her work, which has been grounded in the study of Jewish texts and a belief in the importance of vision and optimism.

Samuel Huntington is famous for having used the phrase "clash of civilizations." Many other observers of the geopolitical scene have suggested that the reality is more like a clash "within civilizations," and that the response to this should lie in discovering the resources within each cultural tradition that could inform a…

The current paper explores the salience and impact of ethnic and national identities for immigrants that are negotiating more than two cultures. Specifically, we were interested in the ways in which Jewish immigrant adolescents from the former Soviet Union integrate their Russian, Jewish, and American identities, and to what extent identification…

This in-depth case study explores a modern approach to education: the benefits of using film, technology and other creative, non-conventional pedagogical methods in the classroom to enhance students' understanding of literature. The study explores the positive effects of introducing a variety of visual-based (and auditory-based) teaching methods…

In a teaching context fraught with conflicts on religious and ethnic backgrounds, I decide as a teacher researcher to address these issues with Israeli-Arab middle school students in my EFL classroom. Picture books on religious diversity and minority issues are used as a springboard for providing spaces for students to discuss these issues orally,…

Pluralism is a notion that regularly appears in education literature regarding social injustice or teaching for democracy. Over the last decade, a new type of Jewish Day School has emerged, the Jewish Community School. These Jewish Community Schools distinguish themselves by adopting pluralism as one of their core values. What is unclear is how…

This article describes the journey that a family and community took to prepare Leon, a young man with autism, for his Bar Mitzvah. A positive behavior support (PBS) intervention was used to prepare Leon for this symbolic rite of passage into the Jewish culture. He had specific problem behaviors that needed to be addressed for him to participate in…

The activities of religious organizations have been the cause of numerous disputes first and foremost because it was only relatively recently that these organizations came to be involved as active agents in antinarcotics policy, and there is little if any unanimity of opinion as regards how "useful" or "harmful" they are in…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to measure the relative effect of relevant explanatory variable on smoking tendency and smoking intensity. Design/methodology/approach: Using survey data collected by the Israeli Bureau of Statistics in 2003-2004, a probit procedure is estimated for analyzing factors that affect the probability of being a…

Few academic debates are as contentious as those surrounding the Dead Sea Scrolls. These fragments of some 800 ancient documents include portions of all but one book of the Hebrew Bible. The first ones were discovered in 1947 by shepherds in caves on the northwestern shore of the Dead Sea, and are believed to be the oldest surviving Judaic…