Abstract
Although recent scholarship has examined gender issues in Judaism with regard to texts, rituals, and the rabbinate, there has been no full-length examination of the education of Jewish children in day schools. Drawing on studies in education, social science, and psychology, as well as personal interviews, the authors show how traditional (mainly Orthodox) day school education continues to re-inscribe gender inequities and socialize students into unhealthy gender identities and relationships. They address pedagogy, school practices, curricula, and textbooks, as along with single-sex versus coed schooling, dress codes, sex education, Jewish rituals, and gender hierarchies in educational leadership. Drawing a stark picture of the many ways both girls and boys are molded into gender identities, the authors offer concrete resources and suggestions for transforming educational practice.
ewish day schools transmit lessons about Jewish values, as well as a plethora of information. Few would be surprised that expectations regarding the male and female roles of students — and the men and women they will become — are among the societal values conveyed by Orthodox day schools. However, as Chaya Rosenfeld Gorsetman and Elana Maryles Sztokman analyze explicit and implicit gendered messages, some startling lessons are derived not from halakha — Jewish law — but rather from often unexamined and sometimes unwitting “cultural and sociological” premises. Boys and girls enrolled in all-day Jewish schools learn lessons not only about the foundational texts...