Learning from the Past—Leading to the Future
Historical narrative in Jewish education highlights personalities, demography, politics, curriculum, and educational thought and practice. By chance, this issue of the Journal of Jewish Education is bookended by essays that reflect aspects of such narrative, albeit it in different ways. The front of the issue presents a suite of papers by Barry Holtz and Jonathan Cohen, which explore and reflect on the work of Seymour Fox (1929–2006) and Joseph Lukinsky (1930–2009). In his introduction, “The Collected Writings of Joseph Lukinsky and Seymour Fox: A Personal Introduction,” Holtz explains how Jonathan Cohen, who had been Fox’s doctoral student, edited the collection of Fox’s writings Visions in Action and Holtz, together with David Kahn, edited the collection of Lukinsky’s writings Maybe the Lies We Tell Are Really True. By coincidence, both of these volumes were published in 2016, and both Cohen and Holtz, at the inspirational instigation of Holtz, agreed to write a piece for the Journal—Cohen reflecting on the Lukinsky collection and Holtz reflecting on the Fox collection. What emerged and is published here is a celebration of the achievements of two influential Jewish educational thinkers in the 20th century,
Cohen’s essay “Dimensions of Time in the Jewish Educational Thought of Joseph Lukinsky: Reflections on Maybe the Lies We Tell Are Really True,” edited by Barry Holtz and David Kahn (JTS, New York 2016) explores the notion of time, particularly the relationship between the dimensions of past and present, and shows how it can serve as a focus to explore Lukinsky’s insights. Lukinsky understands revelation as an extended event, leading to the growth and modification of Torah. Cohen shows us how, according to Lukinsky, each temporal occasion within which such a process occurs is to be thought of as an event of revelation. This means that revelation can be experienced as flowing from the past into the present.
Holtz explores Fox’s writings and thoughts in his essay “Beyond Institution-Building: Seymour Fox as an Educational Thinker: Reflections on Visions in Action: Selected Writings edited by Jonathan Cohen (Mandel Foundation/Keter, 2016). Holtz acknowledges that Cohen has presented the case for Fox not only as a great institution-builder and academic entrepreneur but as a profound educational thinker who influenced generations of his students and colleagues. Holtz shows how Cohen unpacks the depth and complexity of Fox’s work, guiding the reader’s experience in encountering this volume. By collecting Fox’s writings and demonstrating in his introduction the importance of Fox’s contribution to both the thought and activities of Jewish education, Cohen has honored his teacher’s memory and done all of us in the field a great service.
Through these important reflections on each other’s collections of Fox and Lukinsky, Holtz and Cohen have added a rich layer of understanding and perceptiveness, so insightful to the contemporary world of Jewish education research and practice.
The back of the issue presents a book review essay by Jennifer Rich, which reflects on a suite of four recent books on Holocaust education. The books she has reviewed for the Journal of Jewish Education look at different issues around practice and approaches in teaching the Holocaust. She reflects that it is reasonable for teachers to feel trepidation around complex and challenging history. This is not a reason, however, to avoid teaching it or to avoid striving for excellence when teaching. Rich concludes that the four books she has reviewed are all excellent resources for teachers when thinking about how to get started with a study of the Holocaust or how to reimagine what they are already doing.
One of the elements that contributes to the strength of these essays is the fact that the authors—Cohen, Holtz, and Rich—are all experts themselves in the fields within which they are writing. Cohen and Holtz have made Fox’s and Lukinsky’s works accessible to all of us, and Rich herself is an experienced and well-published Holocaust researcher, beginning her review essay with reflections that mirror the findings of her own recent research.
These essays are important in their own right. The coincidence of having these papers related to historical narrative ready for publication in the same issue of the Journal strengthens this issue.
The theme of historical narrative is also the motif of our first full paper in this issue of the Journal. Sara Smith’s “If You Will It? The Early History of Non-Orthodox Secondary Day Schools in Los Angeles” highlights the story of passion, personality, geography, community, and reality in Los Angeles to argue that the general history of Jewish secondary schools in this city is bigger than the history of the individual schools themselves. The article will also shed light on the interplay of communal institutions, the community’s commitment and dedication to a cause, and the impact of sheer circumstance on the success of Jewish institutions. Smith concludes that the struggle for Jewish secondary education in Los Angeles reflected the fact that Jewish school enrollment experienced significant attrition between kindergarten and first grade. She explains how this rate paled in comparison to the number of students leaving full-time Jewish schooling following elementary or middle school. Smith records how Jacob Pressman’s vision was to retain these students with a high-quality Jewish secondary education. She reflects on how vision is insufficient on its own. It must be accompanied by the cooperation of leadership, parents, and students and by sound financial backing and integrity coupled with a shared commitment to the strength of the product.
Our next article, by Arielle Levites, “Worth Knowing: Talmud Study and Liberal Jewish Day School High School Students’ Intellectual Values,” asks the question: What do Jewish-day-school students believe constitutes good understanding and worthwhile learning in the context of their encounter with rabbinic texts in the classroom? This article shares findings from an interview study of Jewish-day-school students in grades 9 through 12 regarding their attitudes toward the study of Talmud. Levites suggests that high school students’ estimations of the value of Talmud study are shaped, not only by individually held tastes, talents and commitments, but also a set of shared intellectual values. These values, related to their beliefs about the purposes of learning and what good learning should accomplish for the learner, develop in the context of their schools and communities and frame how students set goals for and assess their own understanding of Talmud.
Our third and final full paper, “I’m Going to Israel and All I Need to Pack Is My Imagination: Pretend Trips to Israel in Jewish Early Childhood Education” by Lauren Applebaum and Sivan Zakai examines the practice of pretend Israel trips in Jewish early childhood education. Applebaum has observed that Jewish early childhood educators who work in markedly different preschool settings and who have differing beliefs about Israel and Israel education, nonetheless, converge on a practice of pretend trips to Israel that remains remarkably stable across settings. This article examines how and why these pretend trips have become part of Jewish early childhood education, enlightening the reader on a practice that is simultaneously beloved and unsatisfying for Jewish early childhood educators who care about both early childhood education and Israel education. These teachers, tasked with offering the first formal educational space in which young Jewish learners might encounter Israel, feel a significant sense of responsibility. And they take pride in their hope and ability to make children’s first engagement with Israel a joyful experience, grounded in their best efforts and built on their intuition as early childhood educators.
Three substantial articles, by four Jewish educators—Smith, Levites, Applebaum, and Zakai—each very different in content and context and each one contributing to the growing body of research related to Jewish-day-school education. As senior editor of the Journal, I am proud that these three articles are bookended by the reflective, review pieces by three of our most experienced authors and researchers in contemporary Jewish education—Holtz, Cohen, and Rich. This issue of the Journal really does enable us to learn from the past and lead to the future.