CANON AND CURRICULUM: HOW WE CHOOSE WHAT WE TEACH

Abstract

Jewish Religious culture is caught in the same conflict as American culture in general when it comes to literacy and continuity. What sort of literature do we choose to enhance or reflect literacy and to insure continuity? This paper explores some of that conflict in ways that have not been addressed by Jewish intellectuals, or many intellectuals at all, for that matter. Beginning with Zeitlin and Rivkin, who described biblical canonization in terms of a “power elite” securing its position, the authors describe questions that have stimulated post‐modern skepticism about the stability of canons. The paper offers guidelines for the selection of new material into canon and hence into curriculum. They do so while addressing some of the thinking of Harold Bloom (against the political function of canon) and his antagonists (in favor of the political function), and they do so in a cautious but ultimately optimistic way.