Jewish High School Research Articles

Guided listening as meaningful learning: A study of Israeli secular Jewish High School music programs

Guided listening is vital in music education, fostering self-expression, skill development, and academic achievement. Yet, its limited use in Israeli high schools creates a gap between its recognized value and practice. This mixed-method study examines guided listening integration in secular Jewish-Israeli high school music programs based on four philosophical and pedagogical approaches—esthetic, Praxial, active, and peer instruction—to understand teachers’ objectives, methodologies, implementation, and optimal learning environments. Data was collected from an online questionnaire, structured interviews, direct observations of Western Art Music History lessons, and the researcher’s reflective journal. Key findings: (1) teachers tend to use a repeated five-step teaching pattern (reviewing, lecturing, analyzing, listening while following a score, summarizing); (2) teachers usually do not write lesson plans with detailed, step-by-step guidelines; and (3) teachers use recommended guided listening approaches in a limited capacity, likely due to pressure from preparing students for exams, and the perception that such methods are not fully suitable for Israeli high school music students. The paper explores teachers’ challenges in adopting guided listening pedagogical methods while balancing curriculum demands and promoting inclusivity. It offers recommendations for policymakers and educators on professional development and curriculum revisions, emphasizing detailed lesson planning for effective learning outcomes.

“You Never Told Me”: The Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK) of Israel Education

Although there have been many studies describing the practice of Israel education, few, if any, have explored the pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) of this subject matter—what teachers know about how best to teach it. In this phenomenological study, 20 teachers in English-speaking Jewish high school settings in the USA, Israel, Australia, and Canada were interviewed to describe the components of their PCK. This research demonstrates that disappointment in the idealization of Israel by previous generations has impacted how today’s Israel educators in Jewish high schools understand the purposes of their discipline, the curricular choices they make, the instructional strategies they employ, and the context in which they teach. Addressing this unique phenomenon, which has come to be known by the slogan “you never told me,” has become a guiding instructional principle in the field as teachers about Israel prepare their students to maintain their Jewish commitments while transitioning from an immersive Jewish learning environment to becoming nuanced participants in conversations concerning Israel on college and university campuses. In addition to contributing to limited discourse on the teacher knowledge of Israel educators to improve the practice of the field, the findings of this paper emphasize the need for a pedagogy for complex Israel education deepening nuance and commitment to Israel. On the basis of the findings, we propose a model with eight design principles for how to do Israel education effectively in Jewish education frameworks, both formal and informal.

But Is It Jewish? Teaching Photography in a Day School

ABSTRACT Over a period of 13 years, I taught a class in photography to high school students, using a taxonomy I developed based on my own understanding of what makes for excellence in photography. Five of the elements of this taxonomy are explained and illustrated by photographs taken by my students; I submit these as evidence of my success in this endeavor. But since the school in which I taught is a community Jewish day school, a second goal of the course was for students to illustrate Jewish themes and explore their Jewish identities through the photographs they took. With this goal I had mixed success; over the years I received only 45 photographs (out of a total of 2,500) that were explicitly Jewish. I draw on Tali Hyman Zelkowicz’s ethnography of a similar Jewish high school and on James Fowler’s theory of faith development to consider what might have been on the minds of the students who submitted images that didn’t seem particularly Jewish. Whether or not some of the other photographs the students took might be considered Jewish is a question that will be taken up toward the end of this paper, when I explore the notion of conveying “Jewish sensibilities,” a term first introduced by Vanessa Ochs and elaborated on in several articles in this journal.

The Other Dual Curriculum: Jewish Community High School Students’ Reflections on What Counts as “Jewish” Learning

ABSTRACT Research on Jewish day schools has long focused on the challenges they face in managing the tension between the “Jewish” and “general” components of their “dual curriculum.” Interviews with 34 graduating seniors of a private, community Jewish high school found that students experienced another dual curriculum within the school’s approach to Jewish Studies. This other dual curriculum points to the central tension of liberal Jewish education, which is caught between two approaches: one that is fundamentally discursive, deliberative, and inquiry based and one that is essentially instructional and normative.

Conscious History: Polish Jewish Historians before the Holocaust by Natalia Aleksiun

Reviewed by: Conscious History: Polish Jewish Historians before the Holocaust by Natalia Aleksiun Gershon Bacon Natalia Aleksiun. Conscious History: Polish Jewish Historians before the Holocaust. London: The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization in association with Liverpool University Press, 2021. xii + 329 pp. A chance encounter with the name of Polish Jewish historian Majer Bałaban, previously unknown to her, proved transformative for Natalia Aleksiun in her choice of career, and ultimately resulted in the excellent volume here under review. Conscious History is a delicately executed portrait of a small, but significant cohort of the interwar generation of Polish Jews, but it provides the reader with much more. It is a masterful and erudite summary of the writing of Polish Jewish history from its beginnings in the nineteenth century until the Holocaust. The chapter structure of the book is a felicitous combination of chronological and thematic approaches to the subject at hand. Chapter 1, “Beginnings,” speaks of the initial stage of historical research on Polish Jewry, usually by amateurs. Chapter 2, “The Making of Professional Jewish Historians,” is a fascinating portrayal of the first generation of university-trained Jewish historians, focusing on those scholars who played a crucial role in training the young historians of the interwar generation: Majer Bałaban, Ignacy (Yitzhak) Schiper, and Mojżesz (Moshe) Schorr. One point that stands out in her narrative is the centrality of Galician institutions (as well as the University of Vienna) in the formation of this first generation, in which another noted historian of Jewish origin, Szymon Askenazy, served as an enabler, even though his personal historical views as an integrationist differed from the more nationally minded scholars of the younger generation whom he encouraged. Chapter 3, “Becoming Polish Mainstream,” begins Aleksiun’s coverage of her main subject, namely the generation trained and active in the interwar period, now centered in Warsaw, with the leading role played by Bałaban, both in Warsaw University and in the Institute of Jewish Studies. Bałaban’s dual appointment at the two institutions created a formal scholarly setting of great consequence, enabling him to train over sixty male and female students of Jewish history who would earn university diplomas. He would become the first and only professor of Jewish history in a Polish university in the years before the Holocaust. Aleksiun rightly puts this phenomenon in its proper perspective. At the time that Bałaban and his cadre started their activity, the only comparable enterprises were the chair held by Salo Baron at Columbia University, the fledgling Institute of Jewish Studies at the Hebrew University, and a lone professorship in Jewish studies at the University of Madrid. As in the previous generation, here too a noted Polish historian of Jewish origin, Marceli Handelsman, gave important support to Bałaban’s professorship and to university-level teaching of Jewish history. The final two chapters of the book are thematic in nature. Chapter 4, “Beyond the Ivory Tower,” as its name implies, offers a wide-ranging survey of the activities of the university-trained young generation of Jewish historians. For the most part excluded from a career in Polish academia, or in state or non-Jewish institutions, [End Page 196] they worked in Jewish high schools, carried on their research, particularly in local history, and functioned as public intellectuals, publishing articles on popular history in numerous Jewish periodicals in Polish, Yiddish, and Hebrew. In their work, the line between the academic and popular remained constantly blurred. History was a tool in the fight to define the relationship of Jews to Poland and to the Poles, and was a struggle about the present and future no less than the study of the past. In view of this trend, the chapter examines such things as the use of Jewish history in parliamentary debates, in the work of Jewish army chaplains, and in remaking the curriculum for training rabbis. The final chapter, “Themes and Trends of Historical Enquiry,” well illustrates the historical agenda and changing approaches of the younger generation, among other things, their growing emphasis on economic history. A substantive epilogue and an extensive bibliography round out this impressive study. While Aleksiun’s discussion demonstrates a progressive academization and...

Gray Matters in Institutional Ideology: How Ideological Dilemmas Affect Orthodox Teachers in North American Community Schools

ABSTRACT This paper looked at ideological dilemmas for Orthodox Bible teachers in pluralistic Jewish high schools in North America. A phenomenological approach was used to identify sources of tension and drew on data from 30 semi-structured interviews conducted with teachers of diverse Orthodox affiliations. Findings indicated that teacher tension resulted from inconsistencies in institutional lived and intellectual ideologies, with regard to hiring practices, goals and missions of the school, and curricular and pedagogical autonomy. Tensions were exacerbated by teachers’ outsider status, which caused them to have difficulty interpreting religious, cultural, and social nuances of the school context.

Beyond Jewish Identity: Rethinking Concepts and Imagining Alternatives ed. by Jon A. Levisohn and Ari Y. Kelman (review)

Reviewed by: Beyond Jewish Identity: Rethinking Concepts and Imagining Alternatives ed. by Jon A. Levisohn and Ari Y. Kelman Rebecca Shargel Jon A. Levisohn and Ari Y. Kelman, eds., Beyond Jewish Identity: Rethinking Concepts and Imagining Alternatives. Brookline, MA: Academic Studies Press, 2019. 290 pp. 1 illus. Hardcover $119. Paperback $35. ISBN: 9781644691281, 9781644691298 Beyond Jewish Identity critically interrogates the phrase “Jewish identity” and how it is used in Jewish educational discourse. The editors, Jon Levisohn and Ari Kelman, note that key Jewish educational stakeholders have treated identity as something static and possessed. Since the late 1960s, Jewish educational and communal efforts have been tasked to strengthen Jewish identity and saw Jewish identity formation as the desired outcome of Jewish education. The book’s purpose is to understand how “Jewish identity” is used, its meanings, and also new possibilities to “understand the desired outcomes of Jewish educational interventions” (vii). Most of the book’s discussion focuses on Jewish identity in the United States. This review will draw from several of the chapters authored by different scholars, many of whom are university professors. The book consists of two parts; in the first part of the book, the authors illustrate constructions of Jewish identity. Two essays treat the historical development of Jewish identity discourse in the United States. First, Jonathan Krasner illustrates the ways that identity was used between 1940 and 1980, particularly by the American Jewish Committee. Krasner recognizes the plethora of organizations involved in this endeavor, as well as the conscious use of psychological and sociological theories in the discussions of Jewish identity. He concludes the chapter by naming various forces that worked together as in a “matrix of philanthropic foundations, federations, Jewish schools, camps, Israel trips, Jewish campus organizations, service-learning organizations, youth groups and the like has become a veritable Jewish identity industrial complex” (61). In addition, Ari Kelman looks at identity in terms of the discourse regarding Jewish college students in the late 1960s and early 1970s, given the tumultuous political environments of that time. Jewish leaders considered Jewish identities as a protective force, “a bulwark against the turmoil of social and political currents” (xiii). Deducing that college students were un-prepared to face their challenges, Jewish leaders resolved to bolster Jewish education for those in K-12 settings so that young Jews would be better prepared for what they might encounter in college. Another two chapters treat contemporary populations with multiple identities. Samira Mehta examines Jews identifying with multiple religions and ethnicities. She found that “multireligious, multiethnic, and multiracial families [ . . . ] are increasingly part of the [ . . . ] American Jewish landscape,” reflecting the broader picture of increasingly diverse families in the US (34). Mehta suggests that given these hyphenated and complicated narratives it would be more productive to shift the focus from identity to practice—in other words, from who someone is to what a person does. [End Page 265] Katka Reszke’s chapter examines a diasporic community, young Poles in Poland from “Generation Unexpected,” who grew up Catholic and discovered their Jewish roots in adolescence or young adulthood. As Poland has attracted Israeli and American Jewish tourists, these young Poles encounter perplexed tourists who challenge them with whether or not they are authentically Jewish. This chapter renews the conversation around who is a Jew and also gives a perspective of Jewish identity as a process of discovering, becoming, and looking at family history. The young Polish struggle with facing their Jewishness brings forth a new lens on identity—something which is an evolving process that includes both seeking one’s roots as well as soul searching. In the book’s second section, the authors propose new directions. Tali Zelkowicz notes that stakeholders, including “lay decision-makers, professionals, policy makers, and funders, alike, look to American Jewish education to be, as Jonathan Woocher put it, ‘the guarantor of Jewish survival’” (151). She criticizes an approach based in fear and survivalism. To illustrate, she contrasts two approaches to Jewish identity work in a liberal Jewish high school. The first approach, purporting “to make Jews” (145) forces teachers to prioritize the tradition over students’ futures, which, in turn, suppresses students’ authentic questions and present concerns. Zelkowicz notes the perception that educators...

Strange Fruit & Other Plays by Harold Jaffe

Reviewed by: Strange Fruit & Other Plays by Harold Jaffe R. Sebastian Bennett (bio) strange fruit & other plays Harold Jaffe Black Scat Books https://blackscatbooks.com/2021/10/#:~:text=Harold%20Jaffe's%20new%20collection,we%20find%20ourselves%20in%20today. 144 pages; Print, $14.95 Harold Jaffe's latest volume, Strange Fruit & Other Plays, is a compelling exploration of Art and History. The work comprises a selection of dramatic texts, a new literary form for Jaffe, author of more than thirty books. The title of the book derives from Billie Holiday's anthemic song, "Strange Fruit," about the horror of a lynching in the South. The song was written by a Jewish high school teacher from the Bronx, who was also a writer and activist. He handed it to Billie Holiday after a gig in a Greenwich Village club. The song immediately moved her. Jaffe's dramas, which themselves expose racial issues and endorse humanistic cooperation, explore sociocultural and political themes and trends through a combination of character analyses and macroscopic investigations of cultural moments/shifts over the past century. The net result is a fresh, acute rendering of and commentary on artistic dimensions—especially as they relate to cultural crises. Jaffe's dramas can be divided into those that are primarily diagnostic representations and those that are aspirational representations—in the latter case pointing to aspects of society that could or should be ameliorated. As Jaffe has done so well in many of his other texts, his dramas diagnose issues that live at the core of current and historical conflicts, including racism, gender inequality, excessive commercialism (i.e., excessive selfishness). Other dramas include more aspirational themes, such as the function of art as a dream [End Page 155] that releases us from the confines and restrictions of our materialistic world; and the theme of return to innocence—a return to our purest, most spiritually complete form as children, a motif that expands on similar dynamics in the works of Blake, Whitman, and Wordsworth. From the basal position, Jaffe explores the art-making process, including consideration of the enigmatic question of whether the goal of art is fully met in its creation, or whether art is epistemologically furthered, in an augmented observer effect, via its distribution, acclaim, or status. This juxtaposition is seen most pointedly in the drama Artaud/Bataille, wherein Antonin Artaud "is writing to Jacques Riviere, literary editor of the important journal Nouvelle Revue Francais," after Artaud's work is rejected. Artaud queries, What if I were to inform you that … the so-called literary world, such as you have devoted your professional life to, means to me nothing. Less than nothing. It is precisely the "bleeding out into the absolute" which alone compels me. Jaffe expands his inquiry into status to include consideration of the commercialization of brands, or quests for brand awareness; and astutely connects this brand-questing to many individuals in our new technocracy who strive to create their own "brands," in essence selling themselves—which can be seen as a form of prostitution, although not necessarily sexual, wherein the ultimate goal is monetary gain, or somewhat less frequently, narcissistic satisfaction or ego enhancement. In Shredded Wheat, Jaffe vividly renders humans in the act of commercializing themselves through a conversation between an "Actor" and a "Brand": actor: Why are some humans called brands, Brand? brand: Humans are called brands because they market and whore themselves. actor: Why are some humans called actors? brand: International bad humans are called actors because they play the roles laid out for them. actor: Who uses the term actor and brand? brand: Fools and mofos who themselves are brands and actors use the term actors and brands. [End Page 156] At times, some of Jaffe's dramas morph into "meta-dramas," dramas within or about dramas, as in Jimi/Janis/JM, where Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin are simultaneously portrayed through their music and offstage commentary and through actors rendering the musicians' would-be personae onstage. This disconnection, explicitly manifest in the stage directions, represents the musicians' private and public images as well as the jagged gap between the public's view of a "celebrity" and that person's true "self." The...

The Torah of Che Guevara: Jewish Students and Armed Struggle in Military Brazil

Studies of Latin American Jews under Cold War dictatorships have primarily focused on Jewish victims of dictatorial state violence. More recent scholarship, however, has offered individual case studies of Argentine Jewish activists as political actors rather than victims. Building on this newer work, this article examines the participation of Jewish high school and university students in the student movement and armed struggle against the Brazilian military regime (1964–85). Drawing on secret police records, memoirs, and oral history interviews, it explores the experiences of a dozen Jewish activists, tracing their politicization to family ties, Jewish elementary schools and summer camps, and elite public high schools. Blurring the boundaries between the "communalist" and "dispersionist" approaches to Jewish history by demonstrating how social networks established through leftist Jewish institutions had lasting impacts on ostensibly unaffiliated Jewish activists, this article offers the first extended examination of Jewish anti-dictatorship activism in the Latin American sixties.

Abraham Joshua Heschel: A Life of Radical Amazement by Julian E. Zelizer

Reviewed by: Abraham Joshua Heschel: A Life of Radical Amazement by Julian E. Zelizer Robert Eisen (bio) Abraham Joshua Heschel: A Life of Radical Amazement. By Julian E. Zelizer. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2021. xxiii + 297 pp. Rabbi Dr. Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907–1972) was unique among modern Jewish thinkers. These thinkers usually had some combination of the following three characteristics: a mastery of Jewish learning, a mastery of Western learning, and a public career devoted to social and political activism. Yet while almost all distinguished modern Jewish thinkers excelled in two of these three areas, only Heschel, it would seem, excelled in all three. He had a rare combination of gifts. Julian E. Zelizer's biography does a wonderful job capturing this remarkable individual, and he does so in a manner that will appeal to academics and non-academics alike. Zelizer's book is not the first biography of Heschel; Edward Kaplan and Samuel H. Dresner produced one in 2007. However, the latter work was two volumes, while Zelizer's book is a far more concise and readable single volume. Moreover, it is clear from the first pages of Zelizer's book that his biography is more focused than that of Kaplan and Dresner. Zelizer is primarily interested in Heschel as a social and political activist. The prologue opens with a description of Heschel standing alongside Martin Luther King, Jr., as they and others led a famous civil rights march in 1965 from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama. From Chapter One onward, Zelizer tells the story of Heschel's life in order to explain how Heschel ended up becoming a social and political activist. One would not have easily guessed from Heschel's upbringing that he would take on such a role. Zelizer describes how Heschel grew up in Warsaw in an ultra-Orthodox family. His father was a rabbi who [End Page 325] presided over his own Hasidic court, and Heschel distinguished himself at an early age as a prodigy in traditional yeshiva learning. However, as a teenager, Heschel encountered the world of secular Jewish intellectuals in Warsaw, and his interactions with that world prompted him to seek secular learning. His family reluctantly agreed to send him to Vilna (Vilnius) to study in a secular Jewish high school so that he could eventually attend a university, and the plan succeeded. Heschel was admitted to the University of Berlin. Chapter Two details Heschel's years in Berlin, where he earned a doctorate and was introduced to the rich Jewish culture of Germany in the 1920s and 1930s, which included such leading Jewish intellectuals as Martin Buber. But with the rise of Nazism in the 1930s, Heschel eventually had to flee Europe. His academic credentials allowed him to obtain a visa to join the faculty of the Hebrew Union College (HUC) in Cincinnati, the flagship institution for American Reform Judaism, just months before the onset of World War II. Chapter Three describes Heschel's years in Cincinnati, which were among his most difficult. Not only was the world in turmoil due to the war, but the Holocaust unfolded and claimed a number of Heschel's family members. Adding to Heschel's despair was that HUC was not a good fit for him because Heschel never abandoned his life as a traditional Orthodox Jew. Fortunately, in 1943 he was offered a position by the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York, the flagship institution for Conservative Judaism, which was much closer to Heschel's brand of religiosity. Chapter Four focuses on Heschel's intellectual life in New York in the 1940s and 1950s when he began to process what had happened in World War II in a large body of writings. His writings tried to arouse American Jews to adopt a genuine religious spirituality that he felt was lacking in their lives. The same writings also attempted to inspire these Jews to express their spirituality through social and political activism. These lessons, it would seem, were the ones that Heschel gleaned from the events of World War II. Jews needed to be more spiritual, and their spirituality had to motivate them to alleviate human suffering. The stage was now set for Heschel...

“Let’s Talk About Justice”: English, Social Studies, and Judaic Studies Teachers Deliberate About Justice Across the Middle School Curriculum

ABSTRACT Although several prior studies portray integration in Jewish high schools, this study presents a unique example from a Jewish middle school, where a team of 7th-grade teachers met over two years to integrate their disciplines. Investigating factors that facilitated and hindered integration, I found that the following factors helped drive integration forward: administrative support, teachers’ interest, and creating new frameworks. Conversely, factors hindering integration included teachers’ struggles to find connections among subjects and the lack of “follow through” by the administration. The study concludes with implications for professional development.

Secondary Students’ Evolving Relationships and Connections with Israel

This article presents a qualitative practitioner research study designed to understand how a morally complex Israel curriculum impacts the nature of secondary school students’ relationships with Israel. The research was conducted with 31 students enrolled in an elective about Israeli society at a Jewish high school in Canada. At both the start and conclusion of the course, students used a predetermined list of relationships to determine the one that most closely reflects the way they relate to Israel. At both junctures, students also wrote explanations justifying their decision. Results from the beginning of the course showed that 19 students chose relationships that reflected a personal and emotional bond with Israel and 12 students chose relationships that prioritized intellectual connections to Israel. When the survey was administered at the end of the course, none of the 19 students who initially chose personal relationships changed their responses to intellectual ones but 7 of the 12 intellectual responses changed their response to personal relationships. The data indicates that a curriculum built around morally complex narratives and texts in Israeli society can help lead to the formation of strong emotional bonds between students and Israel.

Meaningful Zoom Israel Education?: A 2020 Coronavirus Case Study on Emotionally Engaging Israel Learning

ABSTRACT A Jewish high school adopted different models of online Zoom learning for the 2020-2021 schoolyear; research was conducted in two Israel studies classes that taught the same content, but one class was fully online and the other was a blended learning environment. The purpose of the study was to understand whether meaningful learning can be conducted online. The qualitative results showed that meaningful learning happened in both cohorts. The significance of the findings are relevant to educators in many disciplines as they show that despite a change in learning site, effective and meaningful education is attainable in online learning settings.

Confronting BDS in the Classroom: Jewish High School Students Build Community by Watching BDS Demonstrations on University Campuses

A practitioner research study was carried out with 31 students who were enrolled in a course on contemporary Israeli society at a Zionist Jewish high school. As part of a unit designed to introduce students to criticisms against Israel, students watched 3 videos produced by the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement and by university student newspapers. The study assessed whether watching videos of BDS behaviours negatively affected the ways that pro-Israel students learned and thought about Israel. Reflective exercises and interviews revealed that the videos did not harm students’ relationships with the country. Instead, while some students reported feeling intimidated and scared by BDS’ tactics, all 31 students reported that watching the videos was crucial for helping them prepare for life after high school and for understanding the criticisms made against Israel. A surprising finding of the study was that many students shared that having the opportunity to discuss BDS together as a group not only helped them better understand BDS but, more importantly, allowed them to feel less alone by forming a community that banded together through the learning of difficult and upsetting content.Une étude par un praticien en éducation a été menée auprès de 31 étudiants inscrits à un cours sur la société israélienne contemporaine dans une école secondaire juive sioniste. Dans le cadre d’un module conçu pour initier les étudiants aux critiques d’Israël, les étudiants ont regardé 3 vidéos produites par le mouvement Boycott, Désinvestissement et Sanctions (BDS) et par des journaux étudiants universitaires. L’étude a évalué si le visionnement de vidéos qui mettaient en scène des manifestations BDS affectait négativement la manière dont les étudiants pro-israéliens apprenaient et pensaient à propos d’Israël. Des exercices de réflexion et des entretiens ont révélé que les vidéos n’avaient pas nui aux relations des élèves avec le pays. Plutôt, alors que certains étudiants ont déclaré se sentir intimidés et effrayés par les tactiques de BDS, les 31 étudiants ont tous déclaré que regarder les vidéos était crucial pour les aider à se préparer à la vie après le lycée et pour comprendre les critiques dirigées à l’endroit d’Israël. Une découverte surprenante de l’étude est que de nombreux étudiants ont partagé que le fait d’avoir l’opportunité de discuter du mouvement BDS en tant que groupe les a non seulement aidés à mieux comprendre le BDS mais, plus important encore, leur a permis de se sentir moins seuls en formant une communauté qui s’est regroupée tout au long de l’apprentissage de contenu difficile et bouleversant.

Illustrating and Animating an Alternate Ending to the Israel Narrative: Creative Arts in Israel Education

ABSTRACT A qualitative study focusing on arts-based learning in Israel education was conducted at a community Jewish high school in North America. Building on studies that have shown students are able to simultaneously love and critique Israel, the purpose of the study was to assess whether producing creative work led to creative solutions to contemporary problems in Israeli society being offered. The data yielded positive results in a limited capacity; a few of the students did move beyond critique and offered thoughtful solutions, showing the potential benefits of arts-based learning. Recommendations are offered for helping more students develop creative solutions.

The British, the tank, and that Czech: How teachers talk about people in history lessons

ABSTRACT In this article, we examined how high school teachers talked about people in history lessons and how they engaged in or shunned multiperspectivity aspects as they talked about people who lived in the past. Based on an analysis of 40 hours of observations of 5 different classes in 3 Jewish high schools in Israel according to the constructive-interpretive method, we found that in most of the lessons observed, few references were made to specific individuals. At the same time, many teachers talked about people in history by referring to generic people, to general categories of people, or by using personification. Using examples, we discuss the educational significance of the different ways history teachers talk about people in history through the prism of multiperspectivity as an aim in history education. We conclude that discussing the connections between the practice of talking about people in history lessons and multiperspectivity may contribute to teachers’ awareness of another way they can promote multiperspectivity in class.

Broadening Perspectives on Immigrant Experiences: Secondary Students Study the Absorption Difficulties Faced by Mizrachi Immigrants in Israel

ABSTRACTOver the course of the 2015–2016 academic year, 12th-grade students at a Jewish high school in Canada participated in a research study that assessed how they integrated morally complex narratives in Israel’s past into their own relationship with the country. This article presents material based on how students reacted to learning that some Jewish immigrants were mistreated by the government by way of intentional economic disparity, depiction as grotesque caricatures in standard curricula, and denial of access to funds for cultural expression. The majority of students expressed shock and outrage as this narrative contrasted with the Zionist narrative that they had previously learned.

Religiosity: Protective or Risk Factor for Posttraumatic Distress Among Adolescents Who Were Exposed to Different Types of Acts of Political Violence.

This study examined the potential moderating effects of religiosity on the associations between exposure to acts of political violence and posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTS) among Jewish adolescents in Israel. In addition, it examined whether self-reported physical and interpersonal exposure to acts of political violence predicts PTS symptoms beyond the objective exposure effects (i.e., the proximity of participants' place of residence to high-, moderate-, or low-intensity political violence). A representative sample of 2,992 Jewish high school students (Grades 10 and 11) was taken. We used self-reporting to measure the level of religiosity and the Impact of Events Scale-Revised (IES-R) to measure PTS symptoms. Results show that self-reported exposure to acts of political violence adds a significant additional amount of variance to the prediction of PTS symptoms after objective exposure is already included in the regression equation. Religiosity was found as a risk factor for PTS symptoms such that the greater the religiosity of the adolescents, the higher their PTS symptoms. Therefore, prevention interventions should target the vulnerable group of religious Jewish adolescents.

Attitudes Toward Spirituality and Humanistic Values of Israeli Jewish High School Graduates

Attitudes Toward Spirituality and Humanistic Values of Israeli Jewish High School Graduates

Learning From a Mussar-Based Initiative in a Community Day School

ABSTRACTMussar, an approach to character growth emerging as a movement in the 18th century, has increasingly been incorporated into contemporary Jewish education. The purpose of mussar—the cultivation of character—is consistent with the goals of Jewish day schools and other settings. This article examines the implementation of a mussar-based program in a Jewish community high school. Particular attention is given to questions raised by the introduction of this program into a pluralistic school setting. Implications are discussed in terms of the broader goals of Jewish education.