Beyond Jewish Identity - Rethinking Concepts and Imagining Alternatives

"‘Jewish identity' is such a complex idea-neither simply a religious, nor cultural, nor ethnic ‘identity,’ but all of those things combined (and more). This important volume rejects narrow definitions and resists the way that ‘identity’ has been oversimplified and flattened in Jewish communal contexts. Along the way, it offers new paths for other communities struggling with concepts of identity to follow as well." — Felicia Herman, Executive Director, Natan Fund
There is something deeply problematic about the ways that Jews, particularly in America, talk about “Jewish identity” as a desired outcome of Jewish education. For many, the idea that the purpose of Jewish education is to strengthen Jewish identity is so obvious that it hardly seems worth disputing—and the only important question is which kinds of Jewish education do that work more effectively or more efficiently. But what does it mean to “strengthen Jewish identity”? Why do Jewish educators, policy-makers and philanthropists talk that way? What do they assume, about Jewish education or about Jewish identity, when they use formulations like “strengthen Jewish identity”? And what are the costs of doing so?

This volume, the first collection to examine critically the relationship between Jewish education and Jewish
identity, makes two important interventions. First, it offers a critical assessment of the relationship between education and identity, arguing that the reification of identity has hampered much educational creativity in the pursuit of this goal, and that the nearly ubiquitous employment of the term obscures significant questions about what Jewish education is and ought to be. Second, this volume offers thoughtful responses that are not merely synonymous replacements for “identity,” suggesting new possibilities for how to think about the purposes and desired outcomes of Jewish education, potentially contributing to any number of new conversations about the relationship between Jewish education and Jewish life.

List of contents

Contents
1. Introduction
Jon A. Levisohn and Ari Y. Kelman
2. Taking Jewish Identity Metaphors Literally
Eli Gottlieb
3. You are Jewish if You Want to Be: The Limits of Identity in a World of Multiple Practices
Samira K. Mehta
4. On the Origins and Persistence of the Jewish Identity Industry in Jewish Education
Jonathan Krasner
5. Identity and Crisis: The Origins of Identity as an Educational Outcome
Ari Y. Kelman
6. Regarding the “Real” Jew: Authenticity Anxieties Around Poland’s “Generation Unexpected”
Katka Reszke
7. Re-Thinking American Jewish Zionist Identity: A Case for Post-Zionism in the Diaspora (Based on the Writings of R. Menachem Froman)
Shaul Magid
8. Jewish Educators Don't Make Jews: A Sociological Reality Check About Jewish Identity Work
Tali Zelkowicz
9. Beyond Language Proficiency: Fostering Metalinguistic Communities in Jewish Educational Settings
Sarah Bunin Benor and Netta Avineri
10. Where is the Next Soviet Jewry Movement? How Identity Education Forgot the Lessons that Jewish Activism Taught
Shaul Kelner
11. Jewish Education as Initiation into the Practices of Jewishness
Jon A. Levisohn
12. Jewish Sensibilities: Toward a New Language for Jewish Educational Goal-Setting
Lee Moore and Jonathan Woocher, z’’l

About the author

Jon A. Levisohn is the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Associate Professor
of Jewish Educational Thought at Brandeis University, where he serves as the
director of the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Studies in Jewish
Education.

Ari Y. Kelman is Jim Joseph Associate
Professor of Education and Jewish Studies at Stanford University, where he
serves as director of the Concentration in Education and Jewish Studies.

Summary

There is something deeply problematic about
the ways that Jews, particularly in America, talk about “Jewish identity” as a
desired outcome of Jewish education. For many, the idea that the purpose of
Jewish education is to strengthen Jewish identity is so obvious that it hardly
seems worth disputing—and the only important question is which kinds of Jewish
education do that work more effectively or more efficiently. But what does it
mean to “strengthen Jewish identity”? Why do Jewish educators, policy-makers
and philanthropists talk that way? What do they assume, about Jewish education
or about Jewish identity, when they use formulations like “strengthen Jewish
identity”? And what are the costs of doing so?

This volume, the first collection to
examine critically the relationship between Jewish education and Jewish
identity, makes two important interventions. First, it offers a critical
assessment of the relationship between education and identity, arguing that the
reification of identity has hampered much educational creativity in the pursuit
of this goal, and that the nearly ubiquitous employment of the term obscures
significant questions about what Jewish education is and ought to be. Second,
this volume offers thoughtful responses that are not merely synonymous
replacements for “identity,” suggesting new possibilities for how to think
about the purposes and desired outcomes of Jewish education, potentially contributing
to any number of new conversations about the relationship between Jewish education
and Jewish life.

Additional text

“It’s a good thing for the Jewish educational domain to question the ways that funders and other stakeholders understand the work of educators, schools, and other educational institutions. The book succeeds in pushing back against the heavy hand of funders’ expectations about how individual educational enterprises are supposed to yield subsequent Jewish identities. … The editors of this volume are to be commended for gathering together this stimulating collection of essays to focus our attention on the relationship between Jewish identity and Jewish education. I hope this book leads to many more focused studies that will illuminate and extend the important questions it provokes.”
—Bethamie Horowitz, New York University, Journal of Jewish Education

Product details

• Assisted by: Ari Y Kelman (Editor), Ari Y. Kelman (Editor), Jon A Levisohn (Editor), Jon A. Levisohn (Editor)
• Publisher: Academic Studies Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 30.09.2019
• EAN: 9781644691298
• ISBN: 978-1-64469-129-8
• No. of pages: 290
• Dimensions: 156 mm x 234 mm x 16 mm
• Weight: 445 g
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Religion/theology > Judaism; Non-fiction book > Philosophy, religion > Religion: general, reference works