Jon A Levisohn

At the Network for Research in Jewish Education (NRJE) Conference in June 2016, we presented a mock debate about the desired outcomes of Jewish education. We used that opportunity to take extreme positions, intentionally overstating our respective sides to highlight the differences. Here we present a truncated version of that debate, employing two fictional characters as our stand-ins to make it clear that neither of us would endorse the strong version of the positions that are presented here. A complete version of the debate will be published in Advancing the Learning Agenda in Jewish Education, edited by Jon A. Levisohn and Jeffrey S. Kress (Academic Studies Press, forthcoming).

This 2016 article by Jon A. Levisohn is one in a series for OOI Salons by the Hillel Office of Innovation. The mission of OOI Salons is to harness experts across fields as diverse as engineering, literature, philosophy, and business to think through the pressing concerns voiced by OOI’s rabbis, educators, and young adults in the Hillel movement. Through essays, roundtables, seminars, conferences, and publications, OOI Salons develop new ways of thinking about the Jewish world’s most persistent problems.

What happens when you get about 45 sociologists, educators, historians, scholars of literature, and people who work in philanthropic foundations in one room to talk about Jewish identity? What happens when they challenge assumptions about what " Jewish identity " means, and how the concept works in the Jewish community and in Jewish educational settings? We're finding out now, at our conference on Rethinking Jewish Identity and Jewish Education. When I invited participants to share their thoughts and questions at the end of the first day (Sunday, March 30), here's some of what they offered: