Abstract
American Jewish life is changing, and with it, American Jewish education.
We would like to thank many individuals who helped us in the preparation of this chapter. Particular thanks are due to Yael Mendelson who served as our research assistant throughout the process. We thank Leora Isaacs, head of Isaacs Consulting LLC and former Chief Program Officer at JESNA, for suggesting and developing the metaphor of Jewish education as an ecosystem that is employed herein. In addition, we are grateful to all those who agreed to be interviewed and/or to submit written responses to questions that we posed in their fields of expertise. These include: Jeremy Fingerman, Amy Katz, Betsy Katz, Judy Kupchan, Marc Kramer, Scott Goldberg, Paul Reichenbach, Mara Beir, Sara Simon, Sandy Cardin, Jeffrey Solomon, David Gedzelman, Charles (Chip) Edelsberg, Sandy Edwards, Aharon Horwitz, Toby Rubin, Aliza Mazor, Will Schneider, Chaim Fischgrund, Anne Lanski, Avi Rubel, Ken Stein, Esther Kustanowitz, Lisa Colton, Russel Neiss, Daniel Septimus, Charlie Schwartz, Sarah Lefton, Stephanie Ruskay, Rafi Glazer, Ari Weiss, Eli Kaunfer, Alison Laichter, Evonne Marzouk, Adam Berman, Zelig Golden, Nigel Savage, Jakir Manela, Bob Sherman, Phil Warmflash, Gil Graff, Barry Shrage, Jim Rogozen, Sharon Feiman-Nemser, Barry Holtz. Unless specifically attributed to others, all opinions expressed are those of the authors, who are also responsible for any factual errors.
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Notes
- 1.
“Prosumerism” refers to the growing phenomenon in which individuals act simultaneously as producers of the products and services they consume. As an example, one can think of the way in which music listeners today create personalized playlists and become their own DJs, or computer purchasers design their own computer systems. This mindset and approach to becoming a co-producer of one’s experiences has now spread to domains beyond technology, including learning experiences.
- 2.
This is our estimate based on calculations covering the major arenas of Jewish educational activity. It does not include college-level Jewish studies. As we note below, there is a paucity of good economic data about American Jewish education.
- 3.
Thinking of Jewish education as an ecosystem echoes Lawrence Cremin’s urging that we look beyond individual educational institutions to consider what he called “configurations of education.” “Each of the institutions within a given configuration interacts with the others and with the larger society that sustains it and that is in turn affected by it” (Cremin 1974).
- 4.
Jewish education in North America is in reality multiple ecosystems interacting to a greater or lesser extent with one another. Each local community, and in some cases each institution, is its own ecosystem—and there are real distinctions in how these systems function (Wertheimer 2007). There are also distinctive ecosystems within various educational domains and denominations. A full analysis of these ecosystems, their differences and their interactions, is well beyond the scope of this chapter. So, we will continue to speak of the Jewish educational ecosystem writ large and focus primarily on those characteristics that are generally applicable across the system.
- 5.
There is no consensus among observers on what to call Jewish educational programs that meet for one or several hours per week and are attended by students who receive their general education in public or non-Jewish private schools. Variously, these are referred to as “supplemental” or “supplementary” school (or program, since not all like to characterize themselves as “schools”), “Hebrew school,” “Sunday school,” “afternoon school,” “congregational school” (though not all are part of congregations), or “religious school” (though not all are religious). In recent years, some activists in the field have sought to popularize the term “complementary education,” largely to avoid the negative connotations of “supplementary school” and a number of the other terms. We will use “complementary” education or programs in this article, except when referring to organizations and initiatives or quoting from publications that themselves use one of the other terms.
- 6.
Such attention is now beginning to come in the form of recent initiatives undertaken by the JCC Association (Jewish community centers being sponsors of numerous day camps) and the UJA Federation of New York (which supports a network of day camps), and philanthropic support from the Harold Grinspoon Foundation, which has been a major player alongside the Foundation for Jewish Camp in helping overnight camps develop new financial resources through its JCamp180 consulting service.
- 7.
In addition to Jewish Student Union/Connection operating in public schools, one of the most intriguing new youth programs of the past decade is The Curriculum Initiative (TCI), which works with Jewish students “and their allies” at independent high schools and prep schools. Although the national office for TCI was recently shut down, it still continues as a locally-run program under the auspices of the central agencies for Jewish education in the Baltimore and San Francisco Bay areas. The philosophy of TCI was summarized as follows in a report (2012) issued by its primary funding sponsor, the Samuel Bronfman Foundation, entitled Through the Prism: Reflections on the Curriculum Initiative, www.tcionline.org/Through_the_Prism_Reflections_on_TCI.pdf: (1) Meet students where they are, rather than pulling them out of their environment. (2) Engage students’ total environments. (3) Engage the people students trust and respect. (4) Create an intellectual discourse and high caliber programs that are open to all. (5) Ground Jewish learning in multicultural theory and practice. (6) Prioritize “emergent” curricula. (7) Promote process-based learning over outcome-based learning.
- 8.
Moishe House is an international non-profit organization comprised of a collection of homes throughout the world that serve as hubs for the young adult Jewish community. It provides a rent subsidy and program budget to Moishe House residents who then use their home to create their ideal Jewish communal space.
- 9.
Yeshivat Hadar is part of Mechon Hadar, which is itself an outgrowth of Kehillat Hadar, a pioneering independent minyan founded in New York in 2001. Encouraged by the success of and broad interest in the minyan and its guiding principles, several of its founders went on to found Mechon Hadar in 2006, which consults to and networks other minyanim around the continent and also sponsors an egalitarian yeshiva offering intensive full-time, summer, and community learning programs focused on the study of traditional texts.
- 10.
A proposition which may or may not be true. See Volume 30 of Contemporary Jewry.
- 11.
See, e.g., the programs described in the JESNA web publication at www.jesna.org/about/lippman-kanfer-institute/whole-person-learning).
- 12.
One recent overview of Jewish education nationally put it this way: “A survey of AVI CHAI grantees revealed that their number one concern was the continuity of funded programs. This result is not surprising. Big philanthropy is always looking to create something new, leaving open the question of the future of the programs that it creates. This issue is seen across the field. Very few of the programs established in recent years have stable financial bases…. The lesson for foundations is that, from the outset, they need to be thinking not just about how a program gets started but about how it is sustained” (Sales et al. 2006, p. 21).
- 13.
Greater MetroWest, NJ includes Essex, Morris, Sussex, Union, and northern Somerset Counties.
- 14.
The central agency in Philadelphia is now the Jewish Learning Venture; the San Francisco agency is Jewish Learning Works; Greater MetroWest’s agency is the Partnership for Jewish Learning and Life; and the Los Angeles agency is Builders of Jewish Education.
- 15.
A Ning is an outline platform for people and organizations to create custom social networks.
- 16.
CASJE has recently convened a panel to review existing research and develop a research agenda in the areas of the economics and sustainability of Jewish education. This is a much needed step for the field.
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Woocher, J., Woocher, M. (2014). Jewish Education in a New Century: An Ecosystem in Transition. In: Dashefsky, A., Sheskin, I. (eds) American Jewish Year Book 2013. American Jewish Year Book, vol 113. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-01658-0_1
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