The Culture of American Jewish Schooling

Abstract

The creation of a voluntary American Jewish educational system was an important item on the agenda of the twentieth-century American Jewish community. The nature of this new Jewish educational system was significantly influenced by the theory and practice of the twentieth-century American public school. The primary form of American Jewish education has been—and remains—the part-time Jewish supplementary or religious school. Toward the second half of the twentieth century, the Jewish day school emerged in response to changes in American public schools, and offered a sector of American Jewry more intensive Jewish schooling. The nature of the twentieth-century formats of formal Jewish schooling reflects the complexities of providing meaningful Jewish education within a dramatically new society and worldview.