Re: John Landau’s questions about strengthening Jewish educational formats in Israel and the US.
By Zvi Novenber
This is a hot issue. Two articles in Friday’s “Makor Rishon” (14/7/2017) paper relate to Jewish education in Israel. (See below) I have no doubt that the staffs of Israeli schools of education at the universities and colleges like the David Yellen College in Jerusalem are immersed in this problem. Also, there are many institutions such as Yad Ben Zvi, Szold, Bet Avi Chai, field schools, youth movements and community centers that offer extracurricular courses and activities; all of which reinforce Jewish identity. Here in Israel we have a large number of impressive museums that focus on specific Diasporas or episodes in Jewish history. I am particularly enthralled with the City of David initiative.
Naftali Bennett, representing religious Zionism, is the current Minister of Education. The Ministry of Education contains an enormous bureaucracy that includes various pedagogical units and libraries. The Ministry also produces a lot of teaching materials.
Yair Sheleg writing in “Makor Rishon” feels that there are not enough secular teachers who are prepared to teach traditional Jewish subjects. Teachers with a religious background can remedy this but first have to disentangle themselves from their personal lives (i.e. keeping the mitzvoth) before they present traditional Judaism to their secular pupils. Sheleg criticizes the orthodox Rabbinate for its lack of flexibility today as compared to Chief Rabbi Shlomo Goren 40 + years ago who emphasized just living in Israel as fundamental to forming an Israeli Jewish identity. Sheleg thinks that instruction in Judaism is more important than teaching physics and chemistry as our identity depends on the former.
Also in “Makor Rishon”, Rabbi Chaim Navon lists ten points, all of which refute the accusation made by secular atheists that Israeli children undergo religious indoctrination. Navon advocates giving much more freedom and flexibility to school principals and parent associations. If and when a parent is dissatisfied with a particular approach he or she should be free to re-locate his children to another school more to his liking.
I don’t claim any expertise regarding Jewish education in America but I can suggest the following: Jewish day schools could probably make better use of Chabad and other liberal rabbis and teachers who should refrain from preaching. These teachers should specialize in answering questions about our beliefs and ritual and how they originated long ago. Maximizing parent participation in every aspect of school life is essential and would be challenging and productive. The communal celebration of ALL Jewish holidays is, in my opinion, crucial to developing strong positive attitudes to a living tradition.
There are probably hundreds of thousands of books dealing with every aspect of Judaism and Jewish history. I suggest that a short list (8-15) of texts be designated as required reading for parents and older children.
The following books are important:
JOHN LENNON AND THE JEWS by Ze’ev Maghen
Answers the question of why be Jewish?
THE JEWISH BOOK OF WHY by Alfred J. Kolatch 1981
A useful guide to Jewish rituals, beliefs and holidays.
JEWS AGAINST THEMSELVES by Edward Alexander 2015
Tackles Jewish self-hate. This book is very relevant today.
JEWISH HISTORICAL TREASURES by Azriel Eisenberg 1968
Each page (in chronological order) is dedicated to an important event, place or artifact in Jewish history. This book really needs to be updated.
Sincerely,
Zvi November 15/7/2017
Re: John Landau’s questions about strengthening Jewish educational formats in Israel and the US.
This is a hot issue. Two articles in Friday’s “Makor Rishon” (14/7/2017) paper relate to Jewish education in Israel. (See below) I have no doubt that the staffs of Israeli schools of education at the universities and colleges like the David Yellen College in Jerusalem are immersed in this problem. Also, there are many institutions such as Yad Ben Zvi, Szold, Bet Avi Chai, field schools, youth movements and community centers that offer extracurricular courses and activities; all of which reinforce Jewish identity. Here in Israel we have a large number of impressive museums that focus on specific Diasporas or episodes in Jewish history. I am particularly enthralled with the City of David initiative.
Naftali Bennett, representing religious Zionism, is the current Minister of Education. The Ministry of Education contains an enormous bureaucracy that includes various pedagogical units and libraries. The Ministry also produces a lot of teaching materials.
Yair Sheleg writing in “Makor Rishon” feels that there are not enough secular teachers who are prepared to teach traditional Jewish subjects. Teachers with a religious background can remedy this but first have to disentangle themselves from their personal lives (i.e. keeping the mitzvoth) before they present traditional Judaism to their secular pupils. Sheleg criticizes the orthodox Rabbinate for its lack of flexibility today as compared to Chief Rabbi Shlomo Goren 40 + years ago who emphasized just living in Israel as fundamental to forming an Israeli Jewish identity. Sheleg thinks that instruction in Judaism is more important than teaching physics and chemistry as our identity depends on the former.
Also in “Makor Rishon”, Rabbi Chaim Navon lists ten points, all of which refute the accusation made by secular atheists that Israeli children undergo religious indoctrination. Navon advocates giving much more freedom and flexibility to school principals and parent associations. If and when a parent is dissatisfied with a particular approach he or she should be free to re-locate his children to another school more to his liking.
I don’t claim any expertise regarding Jewish education in America but I can suggest the following: Jewish day schools could probably make better use of Chabad and other liberal rabbis and teachers who should refrain from preaching. These teachers should specialize in answering questions about our beliefs and ritual and how they originated long ago. Maximizing parent participation in every aspect of school life is essential and would be challenging and productive. The communal celebration of ALL Jewish holidays is, in my opinion, crucial to developing strong positive attitudes to a living tradition.
There are probably hundreds of thousands of books dealing with every aspect of Judaism and Jewish history. I suggest that a short list (8-15) of texts be designated as required reading for parents and older children.
The following books are important:
JOHN LENNON AND THE JEWS by Ze’ev Maghen
Answers the question of why be Jewish?
THE JEWISH BOOK OF WHY by Alfred J. Kolatch 1981
A useful guide to Jewish rituals, beliefs and holidays.
JEWS AGAINST THEMSELVES by Edward Alexander 2015
Tackles Jewish self-hate. This book is very relevant today.
JEWISH HISTORICAL TREASURES by Azriel Eisenberg 1968
Each page (in chronological order) is dedicated to an important event, place or artifact in Jewish history. This book really needs to be updated.
Sincerely,
Zvi November 15/7/2017
https://mosaicmagazine.com/picks/2017/07/the-future-of-jewish-education-in-the-age-of-relativism/
@ Michael S:
Re: “Tora, Tora, Tora” (1970)
Though it’s true that Japanese and Jews have a lot in common in addition to the J in the beginning of our names.
The oldest Jewish prayer is the standing prayer, the Amidah. The Japanese Buddha of Compassion (orig. Amitabah) is Amida Buddah and they stand and chant “Namu Amida Butsu”.
First month of the Jewish calendar is Nissan. Which is followed by the months of Toyota, Lexus, Honda, Mitsubishi and Suzuki.
Lox and Sashimi look so similar because their points of origin are very close together. Lox comes from Murray’s and Sashimi comes from Ollie’s which is only two doors down. The tectonic points of the world converge as one heads South and ten blocks down they come together at Zabar’s Deli. On the same shelf. Right before the egg salad. That’s the American Jewish contribution. In Russia we had Steppes. Here we have Shelves.
@ Michael S:
And you didn’t mention the ending of Psalm 137 — talk about collective punishment! this was officially canonized — but nobody quotes it. Because everybody skips around, I bet most Jews and Christians don’t even know it’s there. When it’s set to music the last couple of lines are replaced with a prayer to God.
Muslims read passages like this in their writings literally. It’s a crime in Muslim law not to. Punishable by death. They also use what they call the principle of “abrogation” to put the later writings first. That’s when Mohammed revealed himself as a psychopath.
Also, Judaism warns against worshiping human leaders, that’s why there are derogatorty stories about Moses, Saul, Solomon, David.
In Islam, the Psycho Mohammed is put out as the “perfect man” to be emulated. It’s as though a whole society were patterned after the personality of Charles Manson.
Come to think of it, The British showed good sense during the Opium Wars. If the Muslims all just sat around every day hooked on opium doing nothing, the problem would eventually solve itself. Their violence would evaporate overnight. Unlike Judaism and Christianity, Islam has no internal motor for change. And something has to give and to go. If not it then them.
@ Michael S:
I might add that as in Deuteronomy 20, in Deuteronomy 25 it’s clearly not the “who” but the “why” that’s important as the justification for genocide: “When you were weary and worn out, they met you on your journey and attacked all who were lagging behind; they had no fear of God. ”
If we followed what it says, for real, it’s really clear what we would do with these creatures.
That’s the way people were 3, 4 thousand years ago. Everybody. We just wrote it down.
The Muslims are still like that. They are like willful throwbacks to some earlier form of hominid. They belong in a zoo. Caged and sterilized so they don’t breed in there.
@ Michael S:
It’s annoying the way everybody reads into things what they want instead of reading them literally. People, as a general rule, say what they mean and mean what they say, comedians aside. But we were living in the bronze age. The Arabs don’t lie in Arabic.
So what is this willfully blind nonsense about practical proposals to make the Arabs lives easier. Ha Ha. They don’t care about any of that. They see us for what we are but we don’t see them for what they are. We are behaving like fools.
“You have the advantage of me, sir.”
@ Michael S:
Yes, it was a joke, I thought you were going to let it slide. No, we did enter WWII because of Pearl Harbor. Deuteronomy 20 says if your foreign enemies surrender, enslave them, if they don’t, kill the men and do enslave and exploit the women and children but in Canaan, kill everybody no matter what. And in other places like the conquest of Jordan, it says they did that there and in every city. Yes, capital punishment for murder all over the place which Israel only did with Eichmann. I’m only half serious here but you really don’t think Israel should pre-emptively take out terrorists???
And, James is not part of the Torah last I checked.
I find bible-thumping anachronistic and unnecessary. Since you mentioned the New Testament, what do you think about all that turn the other cheek nonsense that Jesus preached? Isn’t Israel doing a more than a little too much of that? And don’t plan for tomorrow, let God take care of it? Ha Ha. Boy, we’d all be dead, by now. I really do believe he spent the missing years of his life in India hanging out with Buddhist monks who lived by begging and state support. Perhaps abolish has something to say about them. Ha ha.
@ Sebastien Zorn:
Hi, Sebastien.
You said the “WWII” comment wasn’t serious, so I’ll just let it slide. You just told me some of your favorite passages of scripture. Am I supposed to find a lowest common denominator? Let me try…
Deuteronomy 20 was instructions about how to conduct warfare. It is unique for its time, I believe. Heathen nations, such as the Assyrians, seemed to have no limits to their behavior:
“Who has not felt your endless cruelty?” (Nahum 3:19).
Deuteronomy 29 is an instruction to avenge Amalek, from generation to generation.
Numbers 33:55… which, together with your Talmudic reference, seems to justify pre-emptive strikes
Exodus 21, coupled with Maimonides, justifies capital punishment for murder.
The Psalm 137 passage seems to focus on:
7 Remember, Lord, what the Edomites did
on the day Jerusalem fell…
That goes along with the curse against Amalek.
Genesis 9:6, again, justifies capital punishment for murder.
I would take issue with Tractate Berakoth, 58a; but otherwise, I go along with the scriptures. The Talmud is talking about killing someone first, who intends to kill you. That seems a little flaky: If Jacob had followed this advice, he would have tried to kill Esau, instead of making peace with him.
The New Testament talks about wars. First of all, it predicts that we will have them, right up to the end of the age:
Matthew 24:
[6] And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.
Secondly, it talks about the causes of wars: specifically about quarrels in the church, but it applies to all wars:
James 4:
[1] From whence come wars and fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members?
[2] Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not.
[3] Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.
We didn’t really enter WWII because the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, any more than we entered the Vietnam War because of a mythical second attack by North Vietnamese PT boats against a US destroyer. In both cased, our Presidents and generals had made up their minds long before these incidents occurred (or were purported to have occurred).
I won’t take issue about WWII, because I wasn’t involved. Towards the end of the Vietnam War, I was personally forced to decide whether or not to take part; and I chose the latter. I acted legally, according to Army regulations; but I followed my conscience. I knew the NVNs and Viet Cong, as well as much of the people, saw us as invaders; so they justly sought to drive us out. Others disagreed with this judgment; but I didn’t think it was my quarrel.
In Israel’s case, I see the Land as having been given them by God; and those who want to take it from them are fighting against God. Only a fool would want to fight against God.
@ Michael S:
No, but seriously, I agree with you and here are some of my favorite passages:
Deuteronomy 20
The parts that get emphasized are mostly irrelevant and inane gibberish.
@ Michael S:
Yes, it’s impossible to understand how the US wound up entering WWII without it.
Tora Tora Tora Trailer 1970
https://youtu.be/kFUfY9bQMgI
[A parent] should be free to re-locate his children to another school more to his liking.
What this author probably means is relocation to another *government* (tax funded) skool.
I doubt he would go along with a “hands-off”, [government] policy of letting parents choose to not send their kids to any school or assign any curriculum (i.e. ‘unschooling’).
By the way, when education is 100% privatized parents will have the best possible breadth of school choice.
[Some believe that] instruction in Judaism is more important than teaching physics and chemistry ..
This author apparently believes that the Government skoolz should emphasize hard-science instruction (as a close second to religious subjects).
I wish he would explain why.
I wonder what he studied.
The Ministry of Education contains an enormous bureaucracy that includes various pedagogical units and libraries
Public education is just another costly, inefficient, politically driven, government bureaucracy.
It needs to be ABOLISHED.
I see that Torah is not on the short list. Without it, the other books are a complete waste of time.