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This review shows that Jewish understanding of the nature of the obligation to educate a child to observe the commandments has changed over time and should not be regarded as fixed or absolute. Early Tannaitic halakhah focused on the age at which the child possessed the physical ability to perform the commandments, not specifically twelve for a girl or thirteen for a boy. Education was directed at encouraging the child to observe the commandment as soon as he or she was physically capable of doing so. Additionally, early law understood that every Jew must ensure that his fellow-Jew perform the commandments, not just the child's parents. In later law, the child's obligation was postponed to thirteen, and, in this setting, the obligation to educate a child under that age was interpreted as a distinct commandment intended to ensure that the child became accustomed to doing so. This obligation now specifically applied to the father and not to every Jew (and even not to the mother), and it was interpreted as separate from the general responsibility of a Jew towards his fellow-Jew. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on the Jewish education system and discusses the changes introduced in it and its impact on the Jews. It is mentioned that in the last fifty years the many changes has taken place in the Jewish education system with focus diverting from yeshiva and rabbinical schools to academic libraries and class rooms. Also, as a part of change, secular Jews and gentiles are being appointed to govern the learning module, publication of books and schools.

Although Levinas talks about ethics as a response to the other, most scholars assume that this "response" is not something tangible—it is not an actual giving of food or providing of shelter and clothing. But there is evidence in Levinas's own writings that indicate he does intend for a positive response to the Other. In any event, while he acknowledges that the other is the sole person I wish to kill, killing the other, within an ethical framework would be a violation of that response. The failure to respond to the other ethically requires us to ask if Levinas's project needs an educational philosophy or a model of moral cultivation to supplement it. This essay explores this question by putting into conversation Levinas's ethical project and his interest in Jewish education with John Dewey's philosophy of education and its relationship to the political community. This exploration will help us see what this field of research might offer in promoting the cultivation of ethical response as Levinas envisions it and what its limits are. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]