When What We Know about Jewish Education was first published in 1992, Stuart Kelman recognized that knowledge and understanding would greatly enhance the ability of professionals and lay leaders to address the many challenges facing Jewish education. With increased innovation, the entry of new funders, and the connection between Jewish education and the quality of Jewish life, research and evaluation have become, over the last two decades, an integral part of decision making, planning, programming, and funding.

This book looks at the philosophical consideration of Jewish existence in our time, as reflected in Jewish education, its alternative visions, its purposes and instrumentalities, the values it should serve, and the personal and social character it ought to foster. Prevalent conceptions and practices of Jewish education are neither sufficiently reflective nor thoroughgoing enough to meet the multiple challenges that the world now poses to Jewish existence and continuity. New efforts are needed to develop an education of the future that will honor the riches of the Jewish past and grasp the opportunities of fruitful interactions with the general culture of the present. To promote such efforts, six leading scholars in this book formulate their variant visions of an ideal Jewish education for the contemporary world. This book also translates these visions into educational practice and, finally, articulates a vision abstracted from a case study of a school's ongoing practice.

Joseph Reimer uses his experience and talent as an ethnographer to bring to life the drama of one synagogue’s struggle to make Jewish education work. Reimer spent more than two years as an observer within the synagogue, studying the afternoon religious education programs for children, families, and adults. As a result of his observations and discussions with rabbis, teachers, and parents, Reimer came away with the important insights into what makes Jewish education succeed, which form the basis for this book.

The International Handbook of Jewish Education, a two volume publication, brings together scholars and practitioners engaged in the field of Jewish Education and its cognate fields world-wide. Their submissions make a significant contribution to our knowledge of the field of Jewish Education as we start the second decade of the 21st century. The Handbook is divided broadly into four main sections: Vision and Practice: focusing on issues of philosophy, identity and planning –the big issues of Jewish Education. Teaching and Learning: focusing on areas of curriculum and engagement Applications, focusing on the ways that Jewish Education is transmitted in particular contexts, both formal and informal, for children and adults. Geographical, focusing on historical, demographic, social and other issues that are specific to a region or where an issue or range of issues can be compared and contrasted between two or more locations. This comprehensive collection of articles providing high quality content, constitutes a difinitive statement on the state of Jewish Education world wide, as well as through a wide variety of lenses and contexts. It is written in a style that is accessible to a global community of academics and professionals.

A perfect guide to those wishing to understand the contemporary Jewish day school. This book takes readers inside Jewish day schools to observe what happens day to day, as well as what the schools mean to their studenets, families, and communities. Many different types of Jewish day schools exist, and the variations are not well understood, nor is much information available about how day schools function. Inside Jewish Day Schools proves a vital guide to understanding both these distinctions and the everyday operations of these contemporary schools.

Paperback edition of a favorite text on the literary creativity and communal involvement in the production of the Tosafist corpus.

The first full-scale history of the creation, growth, and ultimate decline of the dominant twentieth-century model for American Jewish education