“Realizing I’m Sephardi”: Navigating Prayer and Curricular Discontinuities in Majority-Ashkenazic Day Schools

Abstract

ABSTRACT Many American Jewish day schools, where most staff and students adhere to Ashkenazic traditions, perpetuate the normativity of Ashkenazic practice and culture, both reflecting and reinforcing the status of Sephardic communities as “minorities within a minority.” This article draws on Sephardic adults’ recollections of the “Ashkenormative” aspects of their K-12 experiences to explore whether and how discontinuities between the home and school religious practices of Sephardic students contribute to their sense of belonging in school within a broader Jewish American landscape. Findings demonstrate how seemingly insignificant classroom interactions and institutional policies can inform the attitudes of minority adolescents towards themselves, their families, and their communities; and how these attitudes continue to develop throughout late adolescence and into adulthood.