This paper provides a response to B. Davis' and H. Alexander's article "Israel Education: A Philosophical Analysis," (EJ1384540) published in this same issue of the Journal of Jewish Education. The authors provide a valuable conceptual map of six distinctive, sometimes intersecting and sometimes conflicting ideologies and purposes that…

This article argues that the teaching about Jesus in English primary schools urgently needs to include scholarship in Religious Education (RE) about teaching religion through the principles of Religion and Worldviews research and scholarship in Religious, Biblical and Theological Studies about decolonising the curriculum. RE teachers from the…

Everyone seems to agree that Israel education is complex. But all too often, the concept of "complexity" becomes a euphemism for the existence of unpleasant truths about Israel that challenge students' preconceived notions. I propose that instead of focusing on cultivating attachment to Israel, Israel educators should offer students an…

History education has been instrumental in transmitting collective memories across generations while sustaining national traditions. Many nations use history education to instill national memories in their future citizens. In the current Jewish context, history is arguably a dominant cultural discourse. History education is deemed central to…

Judas Iscariot has a pivotal role in the story of Jesus of Nazareth, particularly in the events in the last days of his life. But information about Judas provided in the New Testament is scant. Many details about his life, career and motivations for acting in the events of Jesus' final days have been amplified by those outside the biblical…

What does it mean for teachers to "know their subject matter" and what are--or might be--the sources of teachers' knowledge? The article contends that there is an underutilized potential resource for Jewish teachers that Judaica scholarship about classic texts may offer to pedagogy. The article examines, as a model, the Rabbinic…

Though the development of Jewish schools in the United Kingdom has increased enormously in the past 50 years, the planning of adult Jewish education in the UK has been almost entirely ignored. This article explores the purpose and provision of adult education in three communities in the United Synagogue, the largest synagogal body in the UK.…

Jesus' appearance is not recorded in the New Testament, apart from some incidental mentions of his clothing. Nevertheless, his appearance is the most recorded feature in the history of world art. None of these images is based on primary sources; most, especially the most popular and influential images, tend to portray Jesus in the guise of a…

Although the yeshiva is the housekeeper of the Jewish tradition of learning, it has undergone dramatic changes along history. We describe these changes in historical, sociogenetic, and microgenetic analyses, and particularly focus on the chavruta--dyadic learning around Talmudic texts during successive meetings, and the chabure--a gathering of…

Jewish learning in the context of professional development for Jews working in the "disruptive", or engagement sector has emerged as a domain into which millions of dollars are invested annually, with very little hard data on how those investments correlate to educational growth. This article considers the Sensibilities Framework,…

The authors taught students in an Executive Master's program in Jewish education how to recognize and manage Enduring Dilemmas, situations in which two prized Jewish values stand in tension with one another and cannot be enacted simultaneously. They explore how these educators draw on the leadership practice of Managing Enduring Dilemmas in their…

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…

In recent decades, the impact of postmodern approaches to history teaching has triggered an extensive worldwide debate that accommodates diverse and contrasting voices. This article examines how the education system of Religious Zionism, one of the most important ideological movements in Israel, copes with this issue. This inquiry, which is based…

Pedagogue's fallacy occurs when epistemological principles are applied by educators that in fact do not tell of, or explain, or help understand, the subject at hand. It is identified and introduced in this article to raise an important issue in the construction of pedagogical models of religious education: knowledge is reduced and/or distorted to…

When Jewish Sensibilities were formulated (2003) as a framework, it was not for the purpose of teaching Jews how or why to be Jewish. Rather, Jewish Sensibilities were a way for Jews to reflect on the Jewish content already in their lives; they also allowed practitioners in the field of health care to think about the Jewish patients and families…