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.

KEYWORDS:

• Community schools
• ideological dilemmas
• orthodox judaism
• teacher education
• teacher ideology

Introduction

Rachel,¹ a veteran Tanakh (Jewish Bible) teacher who identifies as ultra-Orthodox, shared this personal narrative to illustrate the ideological tension that she experiences working at a Jewish community day school that identifies as pluralistic:

Early in my teaching career, I was invited to chaperone a school trip where I saw students purchasing nonkosher food, against school policy. As an Orthodox educator, I felt a tension in being asked to enforce school rules that were also religious rules. At the same time, this was inconsistent with the way I was expected to teach Judaism and Jewish values in my pluralistic Tanakh classroom, where I was instructed to present multiple options and interpretations of religious practice as equally acceptable. To add to the confusion, I soon discovered that the unwritten rule of kashrut on school trips was that ”as long as we didn’t see it, we could allow it”; we were in essence being asked to look the other way. Although this situation is arguably confusing for anyone to navigate, as a religiously observant person whose life is bound by halakha (religious law), I found it especially difficult to balance the rationale, boundaries, and nuances of these rules, both written and unwritten, with what the school represents and asks of its teachers.

After struggling with many situations similar to the one described above, Rachel eventually (she hopes) figured out how to balance the school’s intellectual ideology or mission, with its lived ideological culture. Rachel, as well as the others in my study, came to realize that although they live within the Jewish community and have taught Tanakh for many years, in essence they were still strangers in the pluralistic community school milieu. Perceived institutional inconsistencies made learning a different set of social, religious, and cultural rules even more difficult.

Ideological Dilemmas

This study used the theoretical framework of Billig et al.'s (1988) ideological dilemmas to explore the tension that Orthodox Bible teachers like Rachel face in a pluralistic school setting, while trying to navigate both the written and unwritten rules of a community so different from her own. Rachel’s story demonstrates how these issues transcend the classroom and impact her ability to function within the institution, forcing her to create a heuristic for compliance with school mandates, while remaining true to her personal values.

Billig et al.'s (1988) ideological dilemma is understood as internal conflict, contradiction, and inconsistency of thought, and not as a struggle between two choices, as its common usage implies . Common sense within a society, or what Billig et al. (1988) refer to as “lived ideology”, is similar to cultural ideology in that “both seek to describe the social patterning of everyday thinking” (p. 28). This is different from a society or group’s “intellectual ideology” which is a system of “political, religious and philosophical thinking and is … a product of intellectuals or professional thinkers” (p. 27). An individual or group can maintain both a belief and its opposite simultaneously, thus creating ideological dilemmas within an intellectual ideology,or within a lived ideology, or even between the two. Goodman (2016) distinguishes between contradiction and conflict, understanding the former as two opposing conceptions, both based on logic, in either beliefs or values, and the latter as a negative subjective experience, or the personal discomfort or dissatisfaction that arises from this logical contradiction. Although this may seem similar to psychological theories such as Festinger’s (1962) “cognitive dissonance” and the existence of concepts such as “value systems” or schema, these imply that thinking requires a certain amount of consistency and organization. A key difference between Billig et al.'s, (1988) theory and these other psychological theories is that the ideological dilemma approach views the individual as

Existing within a social context in which all the dilemmas and oppositions cannot possibly have been worked out. Moreover, the individual, by possessing the common sense of the community, also possesses the contrary aspects of belief which permit debates to continue both internally and externally (p. 19).

Contradictory common-sense maxims within any given society of shared culture and values will always exist, and are not perceived in a negative light. On the contrary, they give rise to the thinking process, which is closely related to argumenation, and are thus the way human beings make sense of, and “deliberate about their lives” (p. 18). What is critical to the present study is that Billig et al.'s (1988) dilemmas are social dilemmas and can only take place within a society where people share values, norms, social expectations, etc. One could argue, therefore, that for an outsider to any given society, common-sense contradictions can lead to challenges that cause confusion and conflict. Because of this, the Orthodox Tanakh teacher, an outsider in the non-Orthodox community or pluralistic school, presents theoretical as well as practical issues and implications for ideological dilemmas in educational settings.

Theoretical Implications for This Population

Even prospective teachers generally have a certain level of comfort in a classroom, and form early educational beliefs about what constitutes correct and good teaching because of what Lortie (1975) calls the “apprenticeship of observation” (p. 67). Orthodox teachers who themselves experienced an Orthodox education, will not feel the same level of comfort experienced by teachers who spent their formative years in the community or pluralistic day school. (Pajares, 1992).

Additionally, having been raised in fairly insular societies, these teachers may never have had occasion to face challenges to their personal religious beliefs (Krakowski, 2008; Schimmel, 2008). They therefore represent a group whose beliefs are likely being challenged in the classroom, something that is valuable to explore in today’s increasingly polarized society, where not everyone working at or attending any particular school necessarily identifies with the school’s affiliation (Kress, 2016).

While the notion of a “thinking society” is generally rejected in favor of looking at an individual’s beliefs (Billig et al., 1988), cultural groups are still educated to think about culturally sensitive subjects in clearly defined ways. It follows that in the Orthodox classroom Bible study would be different than that of a pluralistic classroom, where teachers themselves were taught to use a certain epistemology based on communal beliefs, or their “communal epistemology” (Golan & Fehl, 2020). The Orthodox Bible teachers chosen for this study likely share a fixed set of ideologies (Heilman & Cohen, 1989; Krakowski, 2008; Rosenak, 1983, 1995), about the Bible and the study of Bible, those of an Orthodox worldview and religious practice, but are working in a different, but also definable ideological environment, where pluralistic values are likely subscribed to (Conyer, 2009, 2011; Deitcher & Pomson, 2010; Engelberg, 2015). This study therefore addresses the issues of tension brought about by ideological differences between teachers and institutions, beyond the specific population and context described here.

Practical Implications for this Population

Orthodox teachers from across the Orthodox spectrum who work in non-Orthodox schools, such as pluralistic, community or other denominational Jewish day schools in North America, present certain concrete issues in the North American school system, as many North American Jewish day schools employ teachers whose personal beliefs are not fully in line with the school’s mission (Shkedi & Horenczyk, 1995; Ben Avie & Kress, 2007; Dorph, 2011; Matanky, 2003; Schiff, 1981).

In their study of Jewish Day schools, Pomson and Wertheimer (2022) found a “high proportion of Orthodox individuals teaching in a context where the great majority of students aren’t Orthodox” (p. 188). This presented difficulties for students in that school, who felt that many of the lessons lacked relevance to them as non-Orthodox students, in part because the Orthodox teachers were not able to adequately model a broader definition of Judaism, and “limit[ed them] in the examples of what it means to be Jewish” (p. 187). Student complaints about the content of the Jewish studies curriculum were echoed in criticism of the lack of diversity among those who teach Jewish studies, especially among those who teach Rabbinics and Tanakh. As one student claimed: “It communicates an implicit message that to be knowledgeable, you have to be Orthodox” (p. 187).

The tension caused by differences between personal ideology, institutional ideology and pedagogical ideology may very well exist in other arenas, but may not be as visible as in this case, as people with outwardly different cultural and religious beliefs are not generally called upon to teach religious subjects. For example, in the Catholic school system, all teachers must have letters from their churches proving that they are members in good standing. The Ontario Catholic School Trustees publication defends this hiring practice as being nondiscriminatory because “no corporation, organization or business hires people and promotes them unless they share the goals and objectives of the corporate culture of these institutions” (Johnson, 2016). A recent case brought to the supreme court ruled in favor of two private religious schools in the state of California, deciding that teachers are considered “ministers”, and as the primary agents of teaching faith to students, must be aligned with the schools’ mission (Catholic News Agency, CNA, 2020).

In Israel, similarly, the Jewish religious national schools require all teachers to fill out a questionnaire, which affirms that they are religiously observant (Taub & Klein, 2000). Many North American Jewish day schools, however, may employ teachers whose personal beliefs are not fully aligned with the school’s mission. More than 20 years ago Shkedi and Horenczyk (1995) found that “in the Jewish educational world [it] is not unusual to find incongruities between the personal ideology and Jewish background of the teacher and those of the institution and/or students” (p. 109). In many or most cases, these individuals are Orthodox Jews working in Conservative, community or pluralistic day schools.

Even within a denominational school there may be differences in belief and ideology amongst both students and staff, resulting from the range of possible beliefs within any given denomination, as well as the fact that not everyone working at or attending a particular school necessarily identifies with the school’s affiliation (Kress, 2016). Community schools face greater challenges in this regard as they have a mandate to serve students from across denominational lines.

Orthodox teachers are likely hired by non-Orthodox institutions, despite their ideological differences, because “teachers affiliated with the Orthodox movement have more Jewish studies background” (Dorph, 2011), bringing content matter knowledge but not necessarily adequate pedagogical training. The Educators in Jewish Schools Study (Ben Avie & Kress, 2007) also discussed the difficulty of hiring and recruiting qualified teachers, and although the exact definition of “qualified” is difficult to determine from the broad scope of the EJSS study, it implies that level of teacher education and teaching certification may be an area where schools feel the need to compromise. A head of school interviewed by Kress in a (2016) study similarly bemoaned the “difficulty of finding non-Orthodox Jewish studies faculty” (p. 299). This was confirmed by an assistant principal in the same school mentioned above in Pomson and Wertheimer’s (2022) study who defended the practice of hiring a large number of Orthodox Jewish studies teachers by claiming that “the problem is that we simply can’t find enough individuals from the non-Orthodox community who are able to teach the curriculum to the high standards we want” (p. 188). Whether or not this is objectively true, or true for that particular community or school, it is an example of an undeniable practical concern regarding Orthodox teachers in community schools. With the current teacher shortages, finding teachers with a consubstantial ideology would be an added complication to an already complex hiring process.

Two Worlds: Orthodox Judaism and Everyone Else

Orthodoxy and Orthodox Education

Significant to considering Orthodox teachers in non-Orthodox schools, and especially with regard to the teaching of religious or culturally sensitive subject matter, is Wertheimer’s (2018) finding that “the great divide in American Jewish life is between the Orthodox and everyone else” (p. 67), where the Orthodox believe in a “structure of correct behavior … with externally imposed commandments” (p. 67) as opposed to the religious autonomy subscribed to by those outside of Orthodoxy. Non-Orthodox Jews tend to be more liberal in their interpretation of Judaism and are often less observant, considering themselves culturally rather than religiously Jewish (Pew, 2020; Pew, 2016).

Orthodoxy itself is not homogeneous, and the many different Orthodox communities result in varied Orthodox school categories. For example, Wertheimer (2018) identifies three broad groups of Orthodoxy in America; ultra-Orthodox, Modern Orthodox and Sephardic. Schick (2005, 2009, 2014) divides Orthodox schools into six categories: Yeshiva-world, Chassidic, Chabad, Centrist, Modern Orthodox, and Immigrant/Outreach, with each of these categories further divided into subgroups. Another more recent type of Orthodoxy called “open Orthodoxy”, as coined by Weiss (1997), advocates for a more flexible view of Halacha than was previously accepted in Orthodox circles.

The role of women in religious life, as well as the attitude toward secular studies, are major differentiators between the religious subgroups, and this impacts the educational stances of each school type. Since the goal of the ultra-Orthodox school is the inculcation of the ultra-Orthodox worldview and culture, religious education is oriented around apprenticeship into communal practices and beliefs (Krakowski, 2008), while adopting what Heilman and Cohen (1989) call “a contra-acculturative stance” towards the secular world. The Centrist Orthodox community, however, is somewhat more open to the study of secular subjects for practical reasons, such as earning a living. In the Modern Orthodox worldview, secular knowledge and culture are seen as valuable endeavors in their own right, and even as enhancement to religious knowledge, as long as they remain within the halakhic framework.

Orthodox Beliefs About the Biblical Text and Text Study

The Nishma study (Nishma 2017), surveying the spectrum of modern Orthodoxy, found that notwithstanding some openness to alternative views, the vast majority of respondents were found to believe in God and the divine nature of the Bible, and would likely accept the Maimonidean approach. This would include the belief that God transmitted the Biblical text to Moses, that every word of this text is equally divine and laden with meaning, (Blumenthal, 2014), what Kugel (1997) calls the “doctrine of omnisignificance”, and that the written Biblical text was simultaneously accompanied by an oral commentary (Ross, 2015). Since the principles of interpretation are also believed to be divinely transmitted, all later rabbinic decisions, based on human reasoning, and derived from the rabbinic hermeneutical principles, have the same authority as the text. This creates a fluidity of boundaries and authority between text and interpretation (Handelman, 1982).

Proponents of non-Orthodox streams of Judaism may hold the belief that “the Torah contains many materials from widely different time periods and places” (Dorff, 2004, p. 1). This openness to different interpretations of the Torah’s origin, and resultant approach to its study, may include source criticism, which acknowledges multiple written documents; form and tradition-historical criticism, which considers the oral origin and transmission of biblical tradition; or holistic approaches, which focus on literary artistry or intent (Nahkola, 2011).

It follows, therefore, that in an Orthodox classroom Bible study would be different than a pluralistic classroom, where alternate beliefs about the Bible may be present. Since teachers are educated using epistemologies based on communal beliefs, or their “communal epistemology” (Golan & Fehl, 2020), their personal beliefs about the nature of Bible and Bible study would impact the pedagogies used. Many Orthodox teachers take a parshanut (traditional exegesis) approach to teaching Bible, basing the study on classical medieval commentaries, while non-Orthodox teachers would be comfortable with a more literary approach to the text (Holtz, 2011).

Beyond beliefs about the significance of the text itself are beliefs around what the Bible or Torah text is and represents in religious life (Handelman, 1982). As Twersky (1988) explains, the ultimate purpose of Torah study in Judaism may be practice, but “intellectualism is an all-consuming process of religious practice” and to the Orthodox Jew, “education, the process of learning, is religion” (p. 179). The study of Tanakh or Bible itself, therefore, is a fundamental component of the practice of Orthodox religious life and comes with certain belief-based implications, for example

Because every word is sacred, an extra word matters and is a reason to look more closely at the text to understand a deeper point … … the beliefs they maintain are a product of a religious practice in which students engage with the text in uniquely religious ways (Krakowski & Block, 2019, p. 17).

More than simply teaching the subject matter of Torah, Orthodox teachers may see their roles as teachers as having a religious mission, such as instilling faith and a love of Torah. They may feel that this is especially important when teaching nonreligious students (Shkedi & Horenczyk, 1995).

Although community schools embrace all types of Jewish denominations, Orthodox students for the most part attend “clearly defined Orthodox schools” (Gillis, 2014). One could posit that Orthodox teachers, especially those who themselves received an ultra-Orthodox education, would have the orientation that inculcation of Orthodox worldview is the purpose of schooling (Krakowski, 2008), and may instinctively try to do the same, regardless of the schools where they are presently teaching.

Pluralism in Judaism and Pluralistic Education

In order to fully understand the experience of the Orthodox teacher working in the pluralistic school milieu, a discussion is included here to illustrate how pluralism is manifested in schools and especially in Jewish communities and Jewish community schools that identify their mission as pluralistic.

Diane Eck of the Harvard Pluralism Project (Eck, 2006) (https://pluralism.org/about) stresses four points that need to be considered with regard to pluralism. First, that pluralism is about more than just diversity, it is about “energetic engagement with diversity”. She also advocates for the “active seeking of understanding across lines of difference”, which goes beyond simple tolerance. A third point is especially relevant to the discussion of Orthodox teachers and their strongly held beliefs, and that is that pluralism is not “not relativism, but the encounter of commitments.” One is not asked to abandon personal beliefs and commitments but to hold these differences “even our religious differences, not in isolation, but in relationship to one another”. And fourth, Eck advocated for a pluralism that is based on dialogue. Having the conversation about differences is pluralism, and does not require people to agree or change their minds.

Donniel Hartman (2007), a leading innovator in contemporary Jewish thought and education, defines pluralistic as “cognizant of the differences among members but [able] to perceive equal value in a multiplicity of positions’’ (p. 25). This is to be differentiated from tolerant, where one recognizes the “difference which one believes to be wrong” (p. 26). A third stance, deviance, means a crossing over of a boundary where something can no longer be tolerated. Identifying the line between tolerance and deviance or what Hartman calls “intolerable deviance” is what becomes complex. These stances can be understood “as constituting a spectrum of social responses to difference, with pluralism and intolerable deviance serving as the extremes” (Hartman, 2007, p. 36).

Although ancient Jewish sources do not fundamentally oppose the concept of multiple perspectives and beliefs, an actual postmodern pluralistic belief would still be very difficult from an Orthodox perspective. Gillis (2014) explains Orthodox resistance to pluralism on three levels: (1) politically, that Orthodox Jews do not wish to do anything that would give validation to another denomination, (2) sociologically, the Orthodox need to maintain the “coherence and solidarity of their own communities” (p. 52), and (3) theologically, the belief that Orthodox Judaism cannot acknowledge beliefs that are in direct conflict with their own beliefs.

A study by Engelberg (2015), looking at those on “the sociological borderline between Religious Zionist and secular societies” (p. 126) found that Orthodox Jews are unlikely to accept a pluralistic view of religion, especially in comparison to their non-Orthodox counterparts.

A recurring theme among interviewees was that Judaism is just one truth among many, an unorthodox stand shared both by interviewees who abandoned religion and those who are located on the liberal side of the Orthodox spectrum, but not by the few more strictly Orthodox interviewees (p. 130).

Pluralism may simply be an incommensurable value for many Orthodox teachers (Zivan, 2005).

Pluralistic Jewish Schools

Both Shevitz (2006) and Kress (2016) found that schools may use the term pluralism, but can be very different in their attitudes and approaches. Jewish schools will call themselves “pluralistic” to reflect the diversity of the school’s community, but this does not mean that they enact what Eck (2006) or Hartman (2007) would consider a pluralistic environment. “As applied to Jewish schools, pluralism refers most directly to the approach taken to the reality of diverse Judaic beliefs and practices among members of the school community” (Kress, 2016, p. 294) In fact, the three schools in Kress’s (2016) study each adopted a different form of pluralism. He notes the varied languages used by different scholars to describe and attempt to differentiate the varied embodiments of pluralism in schools and specifically Jewish schools. Forms of pluralism noted in the literature include school cultures of assimilation, modified classical cultural pluralism, or amalgamation (Appleton, 1983), and in Jewish education schools are described as enacting demographic pluralism, co-existence pluralism, generative pluralism (Shevitz, 2006) or engaged pluralism (Wasserfall, 2009). These are differentiated by levels of engagement, interaction, tolerance, and respect, and the degree and extent to which each may remain in their cultural group of origin or assimilate and amalgamate to form a shared culture.

Non-Orthodox Jewish day schools may identify as community schools, nondenominational schools, pluralistic schools or even as pluralistic community schools. “Within the Jewish day school system ‘community’ Jewish schools have as part of their mandate service to students across denominational lines. The term ‘community’ as applied to these schools embodies a tension that they face” (Kress, 2016, p. 294). Kay (2009), discusses the tension, potential for conflict, and difficulty, inherent in any attempt at creating a pluralistic school community, where there is a fine line separating diversity from divisiveness. At the end of the day, though, what “determines the character of an institution is set at the local community level” (Schick, 2014, p. 14). Similarly, Kress’s (2016) found that each school’s approach seems to stem from a community’s need and “mirrors the community in which the school is embedded” (p. 296).

One could argue that the more engaged pluralistic schools would pose greater ideological challenges for Orthodox teachers. But that is not necessarily the case, as these tensions are also reflective of American values that come from “conscious choice and decision making”, Horowitz’s (2008) “voluntary approach”. This is very different from the “tried and true involuntary approach where Jewishness is conveyed through early enculturation and habituation” (p. 77), and which would be more aligned with the Orthodox approach to Judaism.

Methodology

Research Approach

This study used a phenomenological approach to qualitative research, and focused on what all of the participants in the study have in common. This study “describes the common meaning for several individuals of their lived experiences of a concept or phenomenon” (Creswell, 2012, p. 76) focusing on the subjective understanding of the phenomenon as understood by the one who lived the experience. The essence of the experience for the teachers is described here, with the aim of understanding the subjects through their own interpretations (Guba & Lincoln, 1994).

Participant Selection and Study Design

The criteria for the selection of candidates in this study was that they identified religiously as Orthodox Jews, were themselves educated in Orthodox schools, and that they teach Tanakh in non-Orthodox Jewish high schools. Ten teachers from four different schools in North America participated in the original study, and an additional twenty teachers from six additional schools participated in a second study that had some overlapping findings. All of the schools identified as pluralistic, but were different from each other in the ways that pluralism is articulated, either in its intellectual or lived ideology, or both.

For two reasons, I did not delve deeply into the specific characteristics of each micro milieu or educational institution, but instead limited the analysis to a lived space understanding, the ways that the participants experienced the school, without attempting to verify any objective truth about the school. First, the ethical expectation or even requirement to keep the institutions where the research was conducted anonymous “decouple[s] events from specific locations and facilitating their use in certain kinds of theoretical claims” (Nespor, 2000). This lessens the value of expending too much space on the institutional differences, beyond the ways the teachers experience them. And second, it is beyond the scope of this research to delve into the particular institutional differences, since the goal here is to focus on the teachers lived experience, with the milieu being relevant only insofar as it contributes to an understanding of this. Schwab (1973) defines milieu as the many different influences the various environments and communities and subcommunities of the student “nesting one inside the other like Chinese boxes” (p. 503) have, that impacts on their belief systems, and how they can learn. This definition of milieu implies a “lived space”, or a space with symbolic value shaped by the one who experiences it, as described by Lefebvre and Nicholson-Smith (1991), rather than a description of the physical building or even the administrative structure, school mission and values. Because of this, the validity of the teachers’ assertions regarding their experiences in the schools, and especially with regard to their preparation to teach Tanakh in a pluralistic setting, was not challenged.

Teacher participants were chosen using a purposive sampling method (Creswell, 2014). As Orthodox Jews, they represent a group that is teaching a subject, Hebrew Bible or Tanakh, that they presumably hold as sacred, holy and divine (Nishma, 2017), to students whose community does not necessarily share these beliefs. The study was limited to teachers who have been in a pluralistic community school, as described above, for at least four years, as the purpose of the study was to look for a deep understanding of the school’s culture, mission and social milieu, as well as the opportunity to experience and grapple with the issues.

To obtain maximum sample diversity, the teachers interviewed in this study, although all identify religiously as Orthodox, came from a diverse group within Orthodoxy; they included Chabad, Centrist, Modern Orthodox, and Yeshivish or ultra-Orthodox. None of the participants identified as open Orthodox, the group which according to Nishma (2017) had the lowest likelihood of fully believing in written Torah from Sinai. All participants were themselves educated within the Orthodox school system, although with diverse educational backgrounds, and were of differing ages, and years of teaching experience, in both US and Canadian schools.

The semi structured qualitative interviews were based on two broad questions associated with a phenomenological study: “What have you experienced in terms of the phenomenon?” and “What contexts or situations have typically influenced or affected your experiences of the phenomenon?” (Creswell, 2012, p. 81). Broadly, the interviews guided teachers to discuss three areas of their lived experience:

1. Previous educational experience, both as teacher and learner, and what led them to this institution

2. How they understand the culture and ideology of their current institution

3. Challenges and tensions they expected to experience and do experience as an Orthodox teacher in this social, cultural and religious environment, and the impact on pedagogical decisions

To uncover ideological dilemmas or inconsistencies, the interviews focused on the teacher’s understanding of pluralism, and what a pluralistic institution is and should represent, both in terms of Judaism and Jewish education within the broader community. They were also asked to discuss how they thought Tanakh should be taught in a pluralistic institution, and how closely they felt they are aligned with that ideal. Similar questions were posed at different points in the interview, in order to uncover conflicting and contradictory views and inconsistencies (Shkedi & Horenczyk, 1995), as a way to uncover ideological dilemmas.

Data Collection and Analysis

Interviews were held in empty classrooms where the teachers taught, or in some cases, due to limitations of physical distance, over Skype, and later Zoom. Each interview lasted approximately one hour, although some subjects enjoyed talking about their experiences, leading to much longer interviews, of up to one hour and 45 min. The interviews were audio recorded and later transcribed. Handwritten notes were taken during the interviews. Reflective memos, including general impressions and a list of key points of interest that emerged, were written immediately after each interview.

The interview transcripts were read and reread, and significant statements, or sentences and quotes that provide an understanding of how participants experienced the phenomenon, were highlighted. These significant statements were then clustered into meaning units from which themes were developed. These themes were then used to describe the ways that the participants in the study experienced the phenomenon under investigation (Creswell, 2012). In keeping with the framework of Billig et al.’s (1988) ideological dilemmas, the focus was on finding inconsistencies or contradictory statements within an individual participant’s response that would highlight where the teacher experienced tension.

According to Creswell (2012), phenomenological analysis uses systematic procedures that move from looking at narrow units such as significant statements to broader or meaning units. The researcher then gives detailed or thick descriptions that summarize what the participants have experienced and how. The analysis ended with a description of the essence of the experience for individual participants.

Findings

All of the findings were reported from the point of view of the Orthodox teachers who participated in the study, and represent their lived experiences of the tension and struggles that they faced in the ideologically different environment of the pluralistic community school. Some of the tensions discussed below are a result of uncommunicated, or at least not clearly communicated expectations, as the teacher experienced them. Other challenges seemed to result from different understandings of what had been communicated, perhaps arising from different cultural settings and the assumptions contained therein.

Three sources of confusion, conflict, and tension emerged. The first was a direct result of the hiring process and the teachers’ initiation into the school milieu, and the assumptions that these practices resulted in. The second issue for these teachers was a lack of clarity around what pluralistic Tanakh education versus Orthodox Tanakh education actually is, which caused teachers to create their own definitions, and at the same time, to be conflicted about whether they were in fact aligned with the schools’ mission. And third, the experience of freedom and autonomy to plan and enact curriculum and to make pedagogical decisions, although desired and welcomed, contributed to the tension and discomfort that they experienced.

Teachers Initiation into the School Milieu

Out of discussion regarding career paths and specifically how interview participants found themselves teaching Tanakh at the non-Orthodox institution, a common story emerged. Six of the teachers interviewed described being sought out and pursued for their positions, rather than applying or seeking out the positions on their own. The literature, as described above, offers explanations for this; the need schools have for subject matter experts and for teachers in general. But this led the teachers in this study to conclude that they are personally and pedagogically what the school desires, especially in the way that they approach the teaching of Tanakh and other Jewish subjects.

Five of these teachers were invited to the school by a headmaster or high-level administrator. This included Shuki, a teacher with many years of experience working in a prestigious religious school, who was cold called and offered a position immediately upon moving to a new city.

Friday morning [two days after moving to the city] I’m getting a call and I don’t know who … and on the line was [Headmaster] … And [he] asked me you’ve been invited, et cetera. I would like to see you this morning … I’m waiting there in the small waiting room and then he comes out, he puts his hand on my shoulder like I’ve been his best friend for the last 10 years, and he walks me into his room and there on his table was a Gemara, a Talmud, …. and he told ... I have a problem here. I’m trying to figure out this Gemara. Help me to figure it out. …. I learned the Gemara for a few minutes and then I explained it, and then he offered me a contract on the spot

This anecdote may speak directly to the difficulty that schools have in finding qualified Jewish studies teachers, and therefore may feel the need to hire Orthodox teachers, despite their ideological differences, as was discussed above. From his telling of the story, it is clear though, that Shuki is working under the assumption that his knowledge and expertise are greatly valued by the school and he has no reason to believe that anything about this position is a compromise from the schools’ perspective. Whatever the schools’ reasons for seeking them out, teachers like Shuki clearly interpreted the circumstances under which they were hired as a sign that their ideological and pedagogical approach was desired.

Yaakov was not simply offered a position; he was actively pursued by the administration:

[Director of Judaics at pluralistic school] offered me a job and [another school] offered me a job…. but [director of Judaics at pluralistic school] didn’t take no for an answer and he said the right things which made it appealing to me, so I figured let me try.

Teachers’ Assumptions Resulting from School Initiations

As Yaakov explained, “When I came here, I believed that they believed that Judaism was authentic Judaism … . Talmud, Rabbinics, Tanakh needs to be taught as Toras Moshe [Divine Origin as given to Moses], as the continuity of Judaism, our doctrine, our commitment.” As surprising as this last comment may seem, the teachers that participated in the study, who were hired under these circumstances, genuinely believed that if they were pursued for the position, the schools understood how they would be presenting the material, and were on board with their approach.

Other teachers also clearly articulated similar assumptions because of the circumstances under which they were hired. When asked why she never had a conversation about the school’s expectations regarding her ideological approach to the teaching of Tanakh, Tehilla replied “I did not ask that. Because I assumed that they were hiring me – they knew.”

Teachers Setting Expectations When Hired

As opposed to what was reported as a lack of communicated expectations from the schools’ side, Chaim and Sara both claimed to have been upfront with their respective schools about how they would be approaching the Tanakh courses.

I will not teach anything that has to do with the movement. But this is what I told them when they hired me. By movement, I mean Reform and Reconstructionist and Conservative. Not teaching about any of the other movements. A, I wouldn’t …and B, it’s not in line with what I feel comfortable teaching. They know that.

Sara also shared that she was very clear with the school about her beliefs and how she would be presenting them to her students.

When they first hired me …. I told them straight upfront, because the head of school knows my husband and he’s very familiar with what it means to be Orthodox. In fact, he’s got a brother that’s Orthodox and living in Israel. So, he knows what that means. I said, look, I am 100 percent Orthodox. I tell my students that right off the bat on the first day of school. I’m not apologetic about it in any way. I think it’s really important to be comfortable in your own skin. I think that’s why a lot of frum people don’t do well in a school like this.

Having, so to speak, set the record straight at the outset, one would imagine that these teachers would be confident and secure in feeling that they were teaching and doing their jobs as expected. However, this was not generally the case, as will be discussed below.

Defining Pluralism and Pluralistic Tanakh Education

Although participants felt that they were clear in setting boundaries and being upfront about what they were prepared to do, their perspective was that the school, was not always clear, or even consistent, in their expectations. Teachers reported that the lived reality of the school was very different from their understanding of the schools stated mission and vision. Inconsistencies were also perceived by the teacher within the school’s intellectual ideology, meaning the different ways that the school expressed its religious or cultural mission and vision.

Difficulty Defining Pluralistic Tanakh Education

Teachers could not easily articulate what a Tanakh class in a pluralistic school should look like, and instead expressed vague conceptions of pluralistic, compared to Orthodox, Tanakh study. Aryeh’s understanding of pluralistic Tanakh is “not to promote one way over another way. It’s to be able to understand that there are multiple perspectives and understandings and in a nonjudgmental way, be able to still be very real to who you are.”

To say that Tzvi did not fully understand the ideological nuances that his position would entail is an understatement. He had very little knowledge of a Jewish Day School curriculum at all, coming from the substantively different yeshiva system. Courses like the ones he eventually taught did not even exist in his own educational experience. Although he eventually taught Tanakh, he was first offered a position teaching Jewish history.

When I closed my business, I was going to go – I had applied for a job in public school. I ran into [principal], he told me there was – they’re looking for history teachers at [this school] and he told me to apply. I had no idea that he meant Jewish history teachers, because I didn’t know such a subject existed. So, I applied and they hired me. That’s why I came here.

Although Tzvi is a trained and qualified general studies teacher, he had no training or prior experience in Jewish education and certainly not in pluralistic Jewish education. Tzvi reported not being given any guidelines for teaching Tanakh, and was asked to teach it with no prior experience.

I actually didn’t set out to become a Jewish studies teacher; I set out to become a general studies teacher. After 17 years teaching general studies, I went into business for about 25 years and then after I closed my business, I came to [this school] and they made me Jewish history teacher. Then the second year you’re asking me to teach Tanakh and I love Tanakh and I felt that the – I could bring a new way of thinking to my students about Tanakh.

Tzvi did not describe any training or acculturation process to the teaching of this culturally sensitive subject matter in the pluralistic school. Instead, he articulated a desire to expose his students to his personal understanding of what a Tanakh class should be about.

Although teachers could not necessarily articulate what they meant by “Orthodox Tanakh” or a pluralistic approach to the teaching of the Bible, they did seem to have a conception of a particular perspective being employed. These teachers did, however, feel that their own approaches were appropriate for a pluralistic school. Yehuda was of the belief that pluralistic Tanakh is not that different from what he was already doing.

Probably a Tanakh course will be quite similar, what would be taught – I would say 98 percent of what is taught by a Reform teacher here and an Orthodox teacher here, would be parallel, but it’s the two percent that sometimes you could bring out a little bit of the idea. Either by showing an insight of a commentator and presenting – or perhaps sharing with them the fact that values – these values are real Torah values, that’s what makes a Torah person. Your mission is that once they realize that these rational things are Torah values, even those things of – again, I mentioned before, that if there is an understanding that Torah makes sense, values that I understand are found in Torah, so let me look at the whole Torah, let me look at all those things.

Sara is also comfortable teaching Tanakh the way that she is used to, and believes that this is what the school wants, although earlier she pointed out the spiritual and ideological risks of her place of employment:

Sara:

Surprisingly, we teach a lot about that. We teach a lot. We teach a lot about G-d, we teach a lot about Torah miSinai [Divine revelation]. I actually teach a lot of good material that a frum [Orthodox] school would be teaching. I do.

Esther:

In terms of Torah miSinai?

Sara:

Yeah. In terms of the whole curriculum.

Lack of Clarity Surrounding Schools’ Intellectual Ideology: No Clear Mission Given

One theme that emerged was that the school was vague or unclear in stating its mission, regarding pluralism in general, and the teaching of Tanakh specifically:

As a general rule, and maybe things have changed, I don’t know, but either they’re extremely vague to the point that you could give the same mission statement to 10 schools without a problem. Or, like you said, they might have specific values and ideals that they’re trying to hit on and emphasize, but yeah. It’s not something that teachers are even aware exists or something that, you know, is promoted in any way in the school. So definitely at [school X], I didn’t feel – I mean, I don’t know if I ever once read the mission statement at [school X].

Dov also presents the school’s vision as vague, and he comes across as somewhat negative in his feeling about what the school currently stands for. “I think the school would say that the ideal graduate is someone who is serious about their Judaism, whatever that means, and someone who has good breadth of knowledge about Jewish past, present and future,” whereas he himself claims a much more developed vision for his students:

Yeah, that’s great as a starting point, but to go beyond that and to turn their Jewish education into meaningful, spiritual endeavors. Those meaningful, spiritual endeavors ought to be grounded in Jewish traditional concepts, ideas, values, cultural practices.

Although there is nothing particularly contradictory in what he presents as his vision versus the schools’ vision, he is clearly convinced that there is a difference, articulating this “I mean, I think there’s a difference between what my … ideal graduate would be versus what the school’s idea of a graduate would be.”

Aryeh also found that the school’s mission was inconsistently articulated. When asked if he felt that the school that he worked in was pluralistic, his answer was:

Yes, in terms of theoretically [pluralistic]. That is what they’re trying to accomplish and they are trying to make everyone feel accepted and promoted and not hone in on one specific segment or branch of Judaism. No, in terms of that, practically, when there are collisions between different ideologies, they tend to – the default tends to be Orthodox.

The participants presented conflicting statements regarding their understanding of their particular schools’ intellectual ideology, although they also admitted to a certain lack of knowledge and training with regard to pluralistic values. Yehuda emphasizes his lack of interest or desire in trying to understand this better, but at the same time spoke with a certain amount of authority regarding the values of the school.

It’s hard for me to say how I understand their ideology, because it means I would have to understand the statement of the school or even read it. I accept, and I’m probably right, that this is a school that values Jewish continuity and understands that there’s no Jewish continuity without Jewish education and this is the environment to provide the Jewish education and not take away one iota from their success in all other fields. So therefore, this is a school that wants to give the – you know, be sure that those who succeed in life, value their tradition and keep Judaism alive. That’s the mission of the school.

Lived vs Intellectual Ideology Around Tanakh Teaching

Although teachers felt that their school’s mission was not clearly articulated, they reported what they observed as inconsistency of the intellectual versus lived ideology around the teaching of Tanakh in the pluralistic school setting. According to Miriam, “nowhere in the school’s mission statement is the word Orthodox found, and all it says is that it is a pluralistic school with a diverse student body etc., but in reality, all of the Jewish studies teachers are Orthodox. And Tanakh [Jewish Bible] is taught from an Orthodox perspective”. Miriam is addressing the confusion that she faces in trying to reconcile the written mission of the school, which she made an honest effort to conform to at first, with the lived cultural reality of the school. This is something that she finds confusing and a source of tension.

Rivka also found that at one pluralistic school that she worked in, the Tanakh ideology tended to be what she would consider Orthodox, rather than pluralistic, even though many of the teachers themselves were not Orthodox. It is unclear what the teachers mean when they say Orthodox ideology, but it is implied that they are referring to the teaching of Tanakh from the perspective of Divine origin and the use of traditional medieval commentaries.

There’s a traditional bent there. Even the teachers that are not what we’d call observant, these Israeli teachers, they’re still teaching in a very Torah min hashamayim [Divine origin] conceptualization.

Not only is the mission confusing for her, but requests from administration have also been a source of confusion for Miriam, as she feels that her personal worldview is excluded from the multiple perspectives considered acceptable in her school context. Miriam explains that while the school considers itself to be open-minded, she finds that they are mostly open-minded to people like themselves, but not as open to someone like her, an ultra-Orthodox woman. In fact, she was asked by an administrator not to use certain exegetical materials in her teaching of Tanakh because they originate in ideas of chassidut (teachings of the Hasidic movement). Although one could argue that the administrator’s objection seems to be less about her and her identity, and more about the school’s curricular approach, she took it personally, and felt excluded.

Teachers’ Resultant Definitions of Tanakh Education in a Pluralist Environment

Left to their own devices to figure out what pluralistic Tanakh should look like, teachers claimed that they were enacting the school’s mission, based on their own understandings of the school’s ideology and its vision of pluralism. Aryeh feels that he is transparent in what he is doing, in sync with the schools’ values and (unarticulated) mission, proof of which he presents as his having never had to hide anything that he does, and says “I never felt that, sort of, we have to go behind the back of the school because we’re teaching X and their ideology is Y … … I don’t think I ever felt like I had to be fake or cover up certain things”. When discussing what he believes is his alignment with the school’s ideology, Aryeh describes his understanding of what pluralism is in his particular context, which is to allow everyone to be true to their own personal beliefs and to teach “in a pluralistic manner or in a manner which wouldn’t offend other people”.

With no mission statement for the teaching of specific subjects, the resultant assumption is that “my way” is what the school wants, and recalls the earlier finding that the hiring process contributes to this understanding. Many teachers felt that they had some clarity with regard to their institution’s general mission, in terms of pluralism, tolerance, acceptance and diversity, but did not believe that the school had a clearly articulated set of goals for specific subjects. This resulted in teachers feeling a certain sense of freedom to determine the way Tanakh is taught in the school. As one teacher put it, “I’m given flexibility…. when you are given flexibility, there is no need to conform.”

Two participants expressed that the teachers themselves created the ideology for the teaching of Tanakh, believing that “in terms of ideology, it was very much teacher driven”. Ezra felt very strongly that it would be impossible to separate the teacher’s understanding of teaching Tanakh, from the school’s understanding because:

I am the school and you are the school and all that we are, when we teach the Tanakh, this is what we carry. We carry out what the school is. I don’t think that the school has lined out a specific policy for Tanakh for us to carry out, and that’s why I’m giving you my own – there is a general mission statement, but there’s no specific Tanakh statement and that’s where the difference is.

These teachers were somewhat critical of the ideals of pluralism and the schools’ mission, yet at the same time described themselves as aligned with the school and its mission, which underscores the high levels of tension that they experience.

Freedom in the Classroom: It Was the Best of (Workplaces) It Was the Worst of (Workplaces)

Benefits of Perceived Freedoms Afforded to Pluralist Tanakh Teachers

The autonomy experienced and described by the Orthodox teachers was what allowed them to thrive, function, and be happy in the pluralistic context, but at the same time created an environment of tension and insecurity. Although teachers were at times critical of their schools’ lack of vision and clear direction as discussed above, these same factors are what give teachers autonomy in their pedagogical and even curricular decisions. Teachers connected the schools’ lack of vision directly to the curricular freedom they experience:

I found it was so loose. A lot of my subjects that I’m supposed to teach are just a word. You know, teach tzedakah [lit. charity]. What does that mean? It could mean anything. Or, teach fairness. You know what that means? It literally can mean anything. It’s just a word. Go and prepare eleven hours worth of content on yashrus [lit. integrity]. It’s because there’s no real belief of what any of this is so therefore it’s on the teacher to figure it out.

Sara considers this to be positive: “There’s a lot of autonomy. People are not being micromanaged.” Others also express the lack of specific expectations in a positive light: “I mean, I have to work with other people, but it’s not so dogmatic that I’m required to teach, you know, anything specific.”

This type of curricular freedom allows the Orthodox teacher to teach what they are ideologically comfortable with, and in this way, avoid challenging interactions. While schools may give general guidelines regarding content that needs to be covered, enactment of the curriculum and specific pedagogies are often left to the individual teacher. And while they are critical of this, they are also happy about it.

So, in terms of the actual fine tuning, what I’m going to focus on, that doesn’t necessarily come from the school and I definitely have a lot more leeway to be able to determine which sugyos [segments] I’m going to be going into and which I’m just going to kind of gloss over … I enjoy being able to have that freedom to be able to do that.

The Double-edged Sword of Curricular Freedom

There was also the expressed concern that the very same open environment of learning that allows teachers to be able to teach the way that they want to teach, gives permission to the “others” to teach in ways that they consider to be unacceptable. Although Dov appreciates the openness that leads to critical thinking and deep discussion, there is also the fear of what “that can lead to”:

I think the ideology and the kind of academic approach to Jewish studies and the communal nature of school lends itself to discussion, to critical thinking. The double-edged sword is that there can also be misrepresentations, misunderstandings and unnecessary conflict ultimately.

When pressed to explain what he meant by the double-edged sword, Dov seemed hesitant at first to share his true beliefs on the matter with me, at first claiming to be sharing what a different teacher in his school thought about it. Eventually he must have felt safe enough to share what were clearly his own beliefs, which were that people who do not believe in the Divine origin of the Torah should not be teaching Tanakh, not even in a pluralistic school:

He [other teacher] feels very strong[ly] that there are certain people who shouldn’t be teaching Rabbinics, whether it’s because of their own personal ideology or because of their knowledge base or both. That’s what he said. And I don’t disagree with him. I certainly see it in Tanakh and other teachers who are going to walk in, who are going to teach Yonah or Shimshon or, I don’t know, Shmuel or whatever they’re going to end up teaching and, it’s like, there is that little voice in your head that says, yeah, okay. They can read the text and teach the text, but are they going to get the essence of it? Are they going to hit it the way it needs to be hit, so to speak? Is that an opportunity that squandered from a religious point of view, from a spiritual point of view? Because unlike Shakespeare, it’s not just a book that you can analyze in terms of motivation and characterization. There’s a divine element to it. Whether you believe it’s divine or not, there’s a discussion to be added. So, yeah, I definitely think that’s ... the second other edge to the sword.

Risky Business

While Dov and others speak of how much they love where they work, calling it “the best place in the whole world to be”, they also describe discomfort and even fear. These teachers describe the non-Orthodox milieu as a very dangerous place intellectually, illustrating the high level of tension that they experience. Teachers frequently articulated “danger”, as in to one’s religious beliefs and practices, claiming “it’s a little bit dangerous there for someone frum, who is not strong like that”. There was also a perceived need for vigilance, that one must be “really, really, really strong in who you are, so you’re not taken with the waves, so to speak”.

Beyond the religious threat of exposure to different ideologies, teachers expressed the worry that they will say the wrong thing and get called to task. Miriam, a veteran teacher with many years of experience at both Orthodox and her current pluralistic school, had an uncomfortable interaction with a student. She shares that she was called in to speak to the principal, and left that interaction saying “it’s too risky for me. I felt like maybe I was going to lose my job.” Dov also expressed a feeling of danger in the environment, a worry about getting caught saying the wrong thing.

It’s a very huge can of worms. Very dangerous, intellectually, for anyone, really. So, it’s almost inevitable, it’s statistically inevitable that we’re going to get into some kind of trouble. We, meaning teachers. Because, invariably, you’re going to express an opinion and someone’s going to either mis-hear it or hear it and not like it, misrepresent it and then, you know – it’s one of those things that keeps me up at night. I’m not going to lie.

When asked if this would impact Orthodox teachers more than anyone else in today’s polarized society, Dov responded “Well, proportionally, definitely, more the Orthodox teachers, just because of the nature of their beliefs in a community school … .”

While teachers described experiences where students or even administrators were upset by things they said, they also describe a lack of clarity or direction around knowing what is allowed to be said, and if and when “something will blow up”. They claim that “there’s just poor communication that’s done about the validity of a perspective and what is a valid perspective and what isn’t. It’s a very, very dangerous and fine line for educators.” Because of this, and somewhat ironically, for some, the feeling of insecurity was a direct result of there being no direct reprimand or criticism of what the teacher is doing.

As the years have gone by, my freedom of speech has been increasingly tolerated. My political incorrectness is rarely interfered with by the administration. … [the school] sanctions my work by not stopping me, by not even trying to stop me. (Tzvi)

The lack of oversight regarding pedagogical and hermeneutical decisions leads these teachers to wonder whether the school is actually happy with what they are doing. They express feelings of tension resulting from what they perceive as inconsistencies in when these reprimands may come, commensurate with the above definition of ideological dilemmas. This was most strongly expressed by Tzvi, but also echoed by others. Many of the teachers participating in the study were well-respected, long-standing members of their faculties, who held leadership positions such as department chairs. The fear and insecurity that these Orthodox teachers described was therefore a result of the very same freedom that they also enjoyed and appreciated, highlighting the tension of teaching culturally sensitive content as outsiders, in the non-Orthodox milieu.

Discussion

This study looked for the ideological issues and dilemmas that Orthodox Jewish teachers face when teaching in pluralistic environments, specifically, North American Community Jewish high schools. Prior studies have focused on ideological dilemmas (Shkedi & Horenczyk, 1995; Deitcher, 2016; Dorph, 2010; Shkedi & Nisan, 2006) but not with a focus on this specific population, working in this particular cultural milieu. This study has practical implications for the school system in which it was conducted, but also has theoretical and practical implications for research involving any teachers serving ideological communities different than their own. This is especially significant in today’s polarized society, where navigating ideological differences in the classroom has become increasingly challenging.

The teachers in this study reported many conflicting lived and intellectual ideological experiences. They felt welcomed and embraced both by the hiring experience and the pluralistic inclusive intellectual ideology of the school, but at the same time felt like outsiders who did not always embrace these same views. They consider themselves to be both in sync with the schools’ mission or intellectual ideology as they understand it, both determining and actualizing the schools Tanakh mission, but they also claim to subscribe to a drastically different set of values. They reported loving the openness and curricular freedom of the pluralistic milieu but also experienced fear of doing or saying the wrong thing. While they see themselves as a part of the pluralistic whole, and the ones who determine or even set the intellectual ideology of Tanakh study, they also see themselves as separate from the community that they work and teach in.

Significance for Jewish Education

Ideological dilemmas (Billig et al., 1988) exist within every society of shared culture and values, and are to be expected within the cultural, social, and religious non-Orthodox school milieu in North America. The dilemmatic realities of a pluralistic milieu are challenging for anyone to navigate, but these nuances would be more difficult for an outsider, and can lead to added tension and confusion. Even though their official mantra is to be open to the entire community, pluralistic community schools in North America are in fact serving a certain segment of a community within a community, where the Orthodox teacher is socially and culturally a stranger.

Other studies have addressed the issue of hiring Orthodox teachers as subject matter experts (Ben Avie & Kress, 2007; Dorph, 2011), but this study addressed the impact on the teachers themselves, and what this means in terms of their lived experience in the institution.

While pluralistic schools may have an intellectual ideology of engaged pluralism, the current reality of teacher shortages (Jackson et al., 2022) and a need for subject matter experts may take priority over finding teachers who are a perfect ideological fit. This dilemma of the lived versus intellectual ideology may be more easily understood by those within the school community, but to the ideological outsider, it would be unclear and confusing. Although many Orthodox teachers in this study were likely hired to fill a need for subject matter experts, they did not describe any awareness of this, and were therefore left to assume that their way of doing things was acceptable and desirable.

Educational philosophers such as Pekarsky (1997), embrace the notion of Jewish institutions having a vision, or an idea of the type of student and community that “the educational process is to bring into being” (p. 32). And while students require adult guidance to grow and flourish (Pekarsky, 2007), there is danger in bringing a specific set of values into the classroom. Although Orthodox teachers with Orthodox educational backgrounds would have clarity of vision (Pekarsky, 1997) they would also likely have “very different conceptions of what Judaism and Jewish education are fundamentally about, conceptions that give rise to radically different views of the aims and process of Jewish education.” (Pekarsky, 2011, p. 425). This different vision also extends to the teaching of Tanakh specifically.

One could argue that the pluralistic environment would be an ideologically challenging environment for teachers coming from any denomination and belief system. Kay (2009), in fact, found that a certain amount of tension is characteristic of all pluralistic schools and is “endemic to pluralism as a concept” (p. 166). Notwithstanding the difficulties described by Kay (2009) for any educator, that of mastering, answering questions, and presenting “all of the perspectives fairly without giving preference to any one” (p. 166), I argue that these would be an even greater challenge for the Orthodox Tanakh teacher, with his or her strongly held beliefs, even without mixed messages from the institution. The Orthodox consider themselves be the upholders of “Judaism pure and simple” (Gillis, 2014, p. 60), and would therefore be resistant to recognizing the legitimacy of other denominations or movements within Judaism.

It is possible that some of the confusion and difficulty that the Orthodox teachers experience when they find themselves teaching texts that are sacred to them, in pluralistic schools, are an inherent part of the philosophical and theological differences between Orthodox and non-Orthodox branches of Judaism. In Orthodox society, life, and especially religious life, is bound by clear laws and sets of rules to interpret these laws. The very nature of flexibility and personal choice in religious matters would seem dilemmatic and challenging to the Orthodox mindset, where “any variance from Orthodoxy as unacceptable deviation”, unlike Reform or more liberal streams of Judaism where “religious variety within Judaism [is] a tolerable situation” (Meyer, 2014, p. 77). The participating teachers’ descriptions of inconsistency and lack of clear vision may simply be their perspective of the school’s enactment of pluralism, that allows for religious choice and freedom.

As a postmodernist thinker, Avi Sagi (1999), considers the importance of an internal consistency of thought within a religion and within the thought of the religious person, as more important than conformity to an external reality or definition of truth. This may be a reason for the added difficulty for the Orthodox teacher, who seeks a clear set of rules by which to function, and would find the lack of clarity or consistency between the institution’s intellectual and lived ideology to be especially challenging. But it is also possible that the flexibility of halachic observance that is normative Conservative and Reform practice is perceived as inconsistency by the Orthodox teacher, who is a “stranger” in this cultural and religious milieu. Rokeach (1973) defined a value as “an enduring belief that a specific mode of conduct or end-state of existence is personally or socially preferable to an opposite or converse mode of conduct or end-state of existence” (p. 5), differentiating between personal and social values as well as moral and competence values. Rokeach also felt that critical to understanding a person’s beliefs is the recognition that there is a hierarchy and organization to beliefs, what he calls a “value system” (p. 5). One could argue that while the Orthodox teacher lives within a value system that emphasizes halakhic observance within a system of halachic interpretation, the pluralistic school’s value system prioritizes inclusion and flexibility within halakha, and even goes as far as allowing nonobservance as a possible outcome. These teachers’ lived experiences of mixed messages and lack of clarity may be in part due to their misunderstanding of, and discomfort with, the way the pluralistic environment functions.

This study confirmed Conyer’s (2009) finding that Jewish schools do not prepare teachers for the pluralistic needs of the school, based on a study that looked at how much teachers understand about pluralism. As teachers are ultimately responsible “for actualizing the chosen ethos of the school” (Conyer, 2009, p. 160) their understanding of pluralism is significant. The teachers in this study, for the most part, did not formally study pluralism, although they did have ideas about what pluralism is and should be, which they then attempted to integrate into their teaching. Notwithstanding their lack of formal training in its theoretical basis, they were able to construct a personal theory that correlated with normative liberal-democratic values. What is critical, though, is that “if a school is to actualize its chosen ethos, it needs to ensure that teachers share its intended understanding” (Conyer, 2009, p. 168). The teachers in this study reported that they too were not given any specific training to help them understand the pluralistic school environment that they were supposed to help create, nor were they given guidance in how to create a Tanakh classroom environment with pedagogies appropriate to a pluralistic milieu. At the most, they could comfort themselves with staying out of trouble, all the while living in fear.

Notwithstanding the inherent difficulty that an Orthodox person would experience in a pluralistic context, the concrete examples given by the teachers in this study demonstrate the high level of ideological tension that they must contend with. This is especially so when they are given direction and instruction that directly contradict what they observe to be the schools’ lived ideologies. Beyond difficulty with the concept of pluralism and acceptance of multiple truths for one educated in a world of absolute truth, is the added difficulty from the lack of consistency in the messages that they receive, creating confusion compounded by confusion. Being given direct instruction about expectations and school culture that do not reflect the reality of the institution would be difficult for anyone, but is more challenging for a cultural outsider and “stranger” to navigate. The examples of the teachers that were pursued by the schools but not given any guidelines about what was expected in terms of teaching practices and approaches to Tanakh in a pluralistic school environment are illustrative of the additional tension that they experience as Orthodox teachers.

Applications of the Study Beyond the Tanakh Classroom

While this study focuses on a particular population working in a particular school milieu, the implications and applications of this study reach far beyond those immediate populations and fields, especially in today’s polarized educational reality. Curricular and pedagogical freedom, albeit desirable, can also cause insecurity leading to tension for teachers. The study demonstrates the importance of a clearly articulated vision and school mission, as well as the need for honest conversations about the schools needs when hiring. This is especially so when the teacher is a cultural, social or religious outsider in the school milieu, and where the subject matter is taught differently in different communities.

This study highlights the reality that many face when teaching in a classroom with diverse beliefs at play. This issue is especially poignant today where so many ideological, political, and religious issues divide the American public and seem to have no middle ground where people are prepared to meet each other halfway or even respectfully. The recent CASJE study on Jewish educators (2021), documented the need to understand who these educators are in order to support them and allow them to succeed. The experiences of this population should be considered when thinking about how teachers live with a high degree of ideological tension and must find ways to navigate these tensions.

Acculturation of teachers into a school mission around the teaching of culturally sensitive subject matter should be a priority when thinking about teacher retention in today’s ideologically polarized climate. Studies that have examined questions regarding teacher retention have found that the single most important factor is teacher satisfaction, especially with conditions that directly impact teaching (Gimbert & Kapa, 2022). New teacher mentoring should therefore include a component of aiding teachers in navigating the challenging ideological issues that they will face in the classroom, and clarity regarding the institutions’ stances on these issues is paramount. Maintaining teachers is a high priority today, and issues that add to teacher-experienced tension need to be addressed and considered seriously.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

¹ All names have been changed.