“My Heart Is in the East and I Am in the West”: Enduring Questions of Israel Education in North America

Abstract

By examining writing about Israel education since the founding of the State, this paper highlights three questions that have surfaced repeatedly in Jewish educational discourse: What is the purpose of teaching American Jews about Israel? Who is best equipped to teach American Jews about Israel? How can Israel education foster positive identification with Israel without whitewashing over the imperfections of the Jewish State? By exploring how each question has manifested in Jewish education, it examines why—for very different reasons—these questions have endured over time, and considers what it might take to arrive at lasting conclusions about them.

Notes

¹ “Palestine education,” which predated “Israel education,” is outside of the scope of this article, but the fact that American Jewish educators were concerned about it long before the founding of the State (Krasner, 2003) further supports the notion that a long-range view is essential for truly understanding how American Jews have learned about Israel.

² The work of Alick Isaacs (2011) in The International Handbook of Jewish Education is a notable exception to this general trend.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Sivan Zakai

Sivan Zakai is Assistant Professor in Education at American Jewish University. E-mail: [email protected]