Joseph Reimer

When American Jewish psychologists Bruno Bettelheim and Lawrence Kohlberg introduced in the late 1960s their research on kibbutz child-rearing and education, they presented kibbutz as a radical, secular, collectivist experiment. The term radical experiment was the key to capturing the interest of their social-science-oriented audiences. Yet, as their biographers would later attest, Bettelheim and Kohlberg each found a spiritual meaning to their kibbutz research that they never shared with their readers. Those personal Jewish meanings are the primary focus of this article.

An accessible and engaging treatment of the experience of Jewish summer camps. This book tells the story of how Jewish camps have emerged as creators of positive spiritual
experiences for Jewish youth in North America. When Jewish camps began at the dawn of the twentieth century, their leaders had little interest in creating Jewish spiritual experiences for their campers. Yet over the course of the past century, Jewish camps have gradually moved into providing primal Jewish experiences that diverse campers can enjoy, parents appreciate, and alumni fondly recall. Making Shabbat Real explores how Shabbat at camp became the focal point for these primal Jewish experiences, providing an interesting perspective on changing approaches to Jewish education and identity in North America.

Given the centrality of Shabbat celebration to the weekly cycle of Jewish residential camps, it is surprising how little Shabbat-at-camp has been studied. This participant observational study of three American Jewish residential camps has focused on how Shabbat-at-camp is created and how the ritual celebrations engage the older campers. This study found that when these camps encourage ritual innovation and invite their oldest campers to take leadership in ritual practice, the teens respond with great energy and dedication. Drawing a detailed portrait of these invented rituals, I argue that behind the carnival atmosphere lies a serious invitation to four distinct Jewish learning opportunities and a path to becoming leaders in their camp world.

Missing from the growing literature on Jewish camps is Lukinsky's (1968) pioneering study of the curriculum to teach responsibility that he designed for the 1966 Ramah American Seminar. Reviewing this work I discovered that Lukinsky-under Schwab's (1971) influence-creates a rare balance between his own perspectives as an educational practitioner turned researcher with those of Erik Erikson, the famed developmental psychologist. I suggest that we read his work as an example to all who call upon theories of psychological development on how to use those theories to illuminate our thinking while not allowing them to dominate our educational discourse.

What is the place of teaching about other world religions in a Jewish educational curriculum for adolescents? This article explores a course in world religions that has been taught at the Genesis Program at Brandeis University since 2001. Based on a participant observational study during 2002 and 2012, the author traces how the teachers construct goals and implement plans that include site visits to places of worship of the religions they are studying. The questions raised and the struggles of students to make sense of Judaism in the context of world religions is the backdrop for considering both why and how other Jewish educators might thoughtfully include the study of other religions as part of their Jewish education for adolescents.