Education History
Jews and Their HistoriansWednesday, October 27, 2010 by Yehudah Mirsky | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
Over the last two centuries, Jewish identity has assumed an often bewildering variety of forms—religious, political, social, and cultural. One form, insufficiently recognized as such, is the study of Jewish identity, especially as filtered through Jewish history. Its main means of expression is the academic enterprise known as Jewish Studies, a field that in turn comprises a variety of specific schools and thinkers.
Editors' Picks
Darwin and the Rabbis Michael Kay, Thinking through My Fingers. We're told that "religion" and "science" went head to head over evolution. But nineteenth-century rabbis, including Samson Raphael Hirsch, Hermann Adler, and Abraham Isaac Kook, were all willing to engage with Darwinism.
Toeing the Church-State Line Julie Wiener, Jewish Week. Hebrew charter schools offer the chance to educate large numbers of American Jewish children in Hebrew and Israeli culture—at taxpayers' expense—and thus are making many inside and outside the Jewish world nervous.
Learning from Men Judith Hauptman, Jewish Studies Internet Journal. Were there women's voices in the ancient beit midrash? (PDF)
School Ties Jason Diamond, Tablet. The only thing hidden in the resurgence of the quintessentially WASPy American look is a sense of its Jewish roots.
History without Witnesses Deborah E. Lipstadt, Jewish Week. As the Holocaust disappears from living memory, what matters is not who is speaking but who is listening.
Decoding Day School Enrollment J.J. Goldberg, Forward. Despite two decades and millions of dollars spent pushing the idea, Jewish day schooling just isn't catching on among non-Orthodox American Jews.
Bullies, Sluts, Bulimics . . . and Supreme Court Justices Shira Kohn, Lilith. Given the numbers of women involved over the decades, historians won't be able to ignore the Jewish sorority experience for much longer. (PDF)
Digging that Hole Efraim Karsh, Hudson New York. Attempting to defend his political science department against charges of bias, one professor betrayed the true depth of the problem by likening Israel to Nazi Germany in several key respects.
Geoffrey Hartman's Jewish Turn Andrew Bush, H-Net. The scholar's aim is not to tear down the temple of the Western academy, but to build a third, distinctively Jewish pillar within it. Its name is midrash.
The Mis-Education of a Young Evangelical Dexter Van Zile, New English Review. How traumatic has the Jewish refusal to accept Jesus as the messiah been for Christians, and to what end?