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Collaboration has been found to be a powerful tool for professional development and central for creating opportunities for teachers to reflect on their practice. However, school districts continue to have difficulty both implementing and sustaining collaboration. The purpose of this research was to investigate the experience of the teacher in a creative, instructional collaboration. The teachers in this study found that teacher-initiated collaboration offered them trust and they were more open with their partners. The results also supported the claim that teacher collaboration can facilitate school reform. Participating teachers felt less isolation and developed more teacher knowledge.

The prevailing long-term trend in university history instruction--especially when one considers the rise of the historical seminar in the nineteenth century and the source-method of teaching in the twentieth--has been towards teaching methods of analysis. That is to say, by reading documents and sources, students can learn a way of looking at the world--to think like a historian: to constantly look for context, to examine change over time, to seek evidence and analyze it closely. There are three critical challenges in constructive courses and curricula. First, there must reconsider survey classes. The "facts-first" approach, the "coverage" model, and the efforts to teach "cultural literacy" still maintain a certain pedagogical inertia, manifested in how instructors usually teach individual classes and how the wider history major frameworks situate introductory classes to provide prerequisite knowledge to allow students to delve into deeper topics in upper-division courses. Second, it is necessary to look to learning objectives beyond the individual class. History courses should certainly have aims tied to the specific subject at hand, but one can also articulate overarching student objectives--what students will take away if a course is the only university-level history class they will ever take, or, alternatively, what they will gain from a sequence of courses or a major at large. And finally, if training students to think historically is an objective of instruction in history, it must be situated in the pursuit of a higher goal and framing for the humanities in general. Consequently, in a series of courses in medieval and modern Jewish history taught at the University of California, Los Angeles in 2017-2018, Jason Lustig experimented with assignments and course structures to explore these issues and how academia can look beyond coverage and achieve higher-order objectives in teaching history over a sequence of courses.

Jesus' appearance is not recorded in the New Testament, apart from some incidental mentions of his clothing. Nevertheless, his appearance is the most recorded feature in the history of world art. None of these images is based on primary sources; most, especially the most popular and influential images, tend to portray Jesus in the guise of a European Christian and not as an observant Jewish male of the first century CE. This distortion in artistic representations of Jesus reinforces mis-cast understandings provided in Christian pious traditions and Christian scholarly discussions throughout the centuries. This article explores the development of artistic presentations of Jesus of Nazareth. It uses the concept of kitsch art to analyse and evaluate the meanings conveyed in popular artistic representations of Jesus. A discussion of educational responses assists religious educators in designing programs that can critically appraise portrayals of Jesus and help students understand the role of art in fostering positive relations between Jews and Christians.

This study examines the perceptions of students in the Israeli public education system regarding secular interpretations of Judaism. The study analyzes a curriculum unit that was taught to Israeli high school students, which engaged the students with textual study of biblical, rabbinic and secular-"h?alutzic" sources. Applying qualitative research methods to the students' attitudes about the secular text, the research shows that most students associate being Jewish exclusively with a belief in God, and a religious reading of the Bible. As a result, they portray the secular-"h?alutzic" text, and its ideas about Jewishness, as non- and even anti-Jewish.

The purpose of this case study was to examine the researcher's perceptions of student participants' intercultural competence during rehearsals, focus groups, and interviews and the perceived benefits and challenges when implementing a researcher-designed curricular unit titled "Religious Choral Music from the Christian, Jewish, and Muslim Worlds" in one eighth grade middle school women's choir. Using Deardorff's intercultural competence process framework, which provides a method for exploring and categorizing elements of intercultural competence including attitudes, knowledge/skills, internal outcomes, and external outcomes, the researcher adapted Deardorff's framework to represent how the student participants demonstrated intercultural competence during the music unit, focus groups, and interviews. The perceived benefits of the music unit included student participants' emerging intercultural competence -- their positive attitudes and knowledge of unfamiliar religions broadened their cultural understanding, and their internal and external behaviors demonstrated respect toward religious and cultural differences. The perceived challenges of the music unit included a lack of resources, assumptions that emerged as a result of teaching about religious music, and intersections that occurred for some between religious music at their school, home, and house of worship. Finally, implications for teaching practice based on these findings are that music teachers should consider engaging students in discussions surrounding the religious and cultural elements of diverse religious music intended to foster intercultural competence.

This article will discuss women's writing in the Ladino Zionist-literary periodical, El Maccabeo, during early twentieth century Thessaloniki. We will sketch the writers' profiles, and examine their goals and the literary means used to realize them. These indices will help us evaluate women's place in shaping Thessalonikian Jewry in general, the realization of the Zionist idea in particular, and how the articles serve as a literary and historical source for Thessalonikian Jewry during this period. Likewise, we will attempt to organize their articles along a historical-literary continuum and understand how they reflect the move from tradition to innovation.

Despite over 4,000 years of persecution, American Jews and antisemitism continue to be overlooked in university multicultural and social justice classroom discussions. This is due to many factors, such as the misconceptions that Jews are solely a religious group, are White and have completely assimilated into American culture, and are economically successful. Jews are a distinctive group in the United States who continue to experience racism and oppression. In order to validate the racism and discrimination of Jews in the United States, university multicultural and social justice programs must begin to discuss the issues pertaining to antisemitism.

This article analyses two case studies from the Israeli education system that demonstrate how religious themes and language are used in service of populist politics. First, 'Being Citizens in Israel' is the standard high school civics textbook that underwent a major revision in 2015. The second case study focuses on new school programmes that focus on the rebuilding of the Third Jewish temple, and the inclusion of references to the Third Temple in other school subject curricula. Both cases were analysed using Brubaker's terminology, specifically highlighting elements of majoritarinism, anti-institutionalism and protectionism that are especially relevant to the Israeli case. The majoritarian and protectionist elements are dominant within these cases, and convey a set of transcendental ideals in the name of an imagined collectivity that is conceived as superior, sacred, pure, with a historic mission in a manner that antagonises minorities, liberal sensibilities and democratic principles. The anti-institutionalism element is not explicitly present, yet an implicit contextual presence is discussed.

Early diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in children enables earlier access to services and better ability to predict subsequent development. A vast body of literature consistently shows discrepancies in the age of diagnosis between children from varying socio-economic levels, cultural and ethnic backgrounds. The present study examines the effect of sociodemographic factors on age of ASD diagnosis among the three primary ethnic sectors in Jerusalem region: secular and modern religious Jews, ultra-Orthodox Jews and Arabs. Findings indicate minimal differences in age of diagnosis prior to the age of six, although Arab children of this age were largely minimally verbal. After age six, no Arab children were referred for an evaluation.

Israeli higher education organizations are currently under pressure to achieve global excellence, satisfy Israeli economic and security needs, and serve Israel's diverse social groups; they are also required to meet standards of proper governance; and, they wrestle with Israeli, Jewish, Zionist and Palestinian legacies. This array of complex and often conflicting constraints drives our research, to investigate how Israeli higher education organizations are embedded in this particularly complex environment. Whereas research on the mission statements of universities focuses primarily on higher education organizations in the core countries, which serve as the ideals and templates for others worldwide, our investigation reorients this burgeoning research towards the study of higher education identification outside the highly-reputable Western academia. We examine the English-language mission statements of all academic organizations in Israel, in the period 2008-2018. Analyses reveal two main findings: (1) that local-global axis of organizational identity is ordered along place/space distinction and (2) that such glocal identity is enacted at the field level, among categories of higher education organizations. We discuss these findings in the context of the "identity paradox" of contemporary organizations, which are compelled to simultaneously declare their uniqueness as well as their relevance to certain social groups and agendas.

This paper deals with the disclosure of subaltern thinking in current German-language textbooks for religious education. For the hermeneutical framing of this analysis, the approach of a postcolonial reading is particularly profitable. Obvious hierarchical relationships from clearly up and down can consequently be made visible and their presumed self-evidence unmasked. Even hidden hegemonic forms of expression can be uncovered in this way. With regard to current theology and religious education racism and misogyny, environmental degradation and sexual exploitation are attitudes that have already and almost as amatter of course been taken up critically. They are pedagogically reflected and attempted to overcome by using counter-models such as cultural diversity, equal rights, sustainability and sexual self-determination. In exciting contrast to this there are still nowadays textbooks used with remnants of exactly such formats of colonial thoughts. We argue that decolonising schoolbooks can be a useful part of decolonising the religious education curriculum. The schoolbook analysis carried out for this purpose is structured by four leading categories: Anthropological assumptions (1), religious classifications and interpretations (2), conceptions of culture and its hybridity (3) and finally the relationship to creation and environment (4). Textbooks from primary, secondary and vocational schools were examined.

This mixed methodology study explored the reasons that teachers in Israel are motivated to become school leaders, and the relative importance of the different discouraging factors that worked against such interest. A cross-national Israeli survey included 39 individual interviews, 2 focus groups of 25 teachers each, and a questionnaire completed by 149 teachers working in Jewish schools. Findings indicate a sense of mission and personal challenge motivated our sample. The most significant discouraging factor was the perceived inability to circumvent bureaucratic constraints imposed by the Ministry of Education. Implications and reform efforts for reducing bureaucratic constraints upon school leaders are discussed.

This research compares teachers' perceptions of principals' authentic-leadership dimensions, between collectivistic and individualistic cultures in the Israeli-Jewish (non-Arab) elementary schools. Culture will predict authentic-leadership dimensions with an individualistic tendency toward authenticity. 482 Israeli elementary school teachers (30% state-secular, 39% state-religious, 31% ultra-Orthodox) completed the Authentic Leadership Questionnaire and a demographic questionnaire. The results show that an internalized moral perspective was not predicted by culture, while self-awareness, relational transparency, and balanced processing were predicted by culture, associated with individualistic culture. This research strengthens the importance of culture for authentic-leadership and might help design culturally-sensitive principals' training programs; and may help principals improve schools' effectiveness in a culturally compatible manner.

A qualitative practitioner research study was conducted with 31 high school students studying religion contemporary Israeli society. The purpose of the study was to understand how using cartoons written and illustrated by the religious Jewish-Israeli settler Shay Charka challenged students to think about religion in Israeli society in new ways and whether introducing perspectives that were foreign to their North American Jewish education led to new ways of relating to and understanding Jewish-Israeli communities. Results of this small-scale study yielded that the comics were successful in introducing new ways of thinking about religion and in introducing a more complex portrait of Israeli society. As a pedagogical device, comics proved to be of salience and interest to the learners, which also led students to be motivated to study them. Students were particularly interested in the ways that Charka subverted their assumptions of gender in religious-Israeli communities and this specifically led to increased awareness of religious diversity in Israeli society.

Within current interfaith dialogue scholarship, perspective transformation towards the religious other is one of the most desired outcomes. However, exactly how such transformed perspectives come about and the characteristics of this transformation have not been adequately researched. In this study, we examine transformative learning within interfaith dialogue. Using a theoretical framework that combines Buber's philosophy of dialogue and transformative learning theory, we equate the transformative process with the dynamics of becoming "Thou." Through thematic analysis of qualitative interview data, we found that transformative learning within this context is contingent upon the creation of genuine and deep relatedness, that are constitutive of becoming "Thou." Our findings report how dynamic relatedness serves as a foundation, a catalyst, and culmination of transformative learning processes. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of these findings and suggestions for future research.

The path to human wholeness and love requires an embrace of sexuality and gender as powerful forces in human lives. This includes vigorous engagement with the life-giving and life-defying forces of sexual passion as that passion intersects with gendered identities and gendered social structures, thus opening doors for ethical reflection. The essay analyzes sexuality's power and complexity through the intensity of poetry, and it further explores the relationship between sexuality and spirituality in mystical literature. The goal is to identify pathways to celebrate sexuality, reflect and act ethically, and live into the promise of radical love.

This study examines how 3- and 4-year-old Jewish children think and feel about Israel. The research, conducted as a collaboration between scholars and practitioner-researchers who work in Jewish early childhood centers, draws upon group interviews, elicitation/provocation exercises, a drawing task, and teacher documentation to investigate how some of the youngest learners in Jewish educational settings conceive of Israel. We found that 3- and 4-year-old Jewish children think about Israel as a foreign country with its own customs, landmarks, and language. They also think about Israel as a distinctly Jewish place, with a special role in Jewish traditions and stories. We found no evidence that 3- and 4-year-old children reflect on Israel as a place of personal meaning for their own Jewish lives. This absence challenges both the theory and practice of Israel education in the early childhood setting.

What does it mean for teachers to "know their subject matter" and what are--or might be--the sources of teachers' knowledge? The article contends that there is an underutilized potential resource for Jewish teachers that Judaica scholarship about classic texts may offer to pedagogy. The article examines, as a model, the Rabbinic tale--stories found in Rabbinic literature about the Rabbis themselves--homing in on the ways that this literature is viewed by scholars today. It then explores the pedagogic implications of this scholarship and suggests both the advantages and complexities in using Judaica scholarship in this fashion.

This qualitative study reports on principals' perceptions regarding the teacher characteristics deemed most important for hiring effective teachers. Data for the study come from semi-structured interviews with principals working in urban public, Catholic, and Jewish schools. Results reveal a tendency among principals in all three sectors to focus on both professional skills and personal characteristics as critical components in teacher hiring. However, the analysis reveals that sector affiliation may play an important role in explaining many cross sector variations. More informed hiring practices by principals could potentially affect teacher quality, a critical area for student-learning outcomes.

This article uses data from site visits to four Hasidic elementary schools in Brooklyn to examine how specific learning, review, and testing activities used in these schools might be applied in other Jewish education classrooms to build knowledge depth and automaticity. The literature on learning and cognition in secular subjects has identified many classroom techniques that promote deep learning and long-term retention rather than superficial recall, but these techniques have not been applied systematically to Jewish studies classrooms. Hasidic schools, whose overall approach to religious education differs significantly from that of other Jewish day schools, employ distinctive learning activities that incorporate many of these techniques. Some elements of Hasidic learning practices may thus represent a valuable model for other Jewish studies contexts.

Though the development of Jewish schools in the United Kingdom has increased enormously in the past 50 years, the planning of adult Jewish education in the UK has been almost entirely ignored. This article explores the purpose and provision of adult education in three communities in the United Synagogue, the largest synagogal body in the UK. Synagogue-based adult education is apparently provided with little planning or measurement of outcomes. Community leaders and members take differing approaches to its aims and success measurement, with socialization being vital for participants, most of whom are in their senior years.

This study explored the perceptions of 25 secular teachers employed in American, Australian, and Israeli Jewish religious schools regarding disparities between their secular identity and their school's religious habitus. It also examined the ways these teachers cope with such disparities. Findings suggest that teachers' challenges were anchored in their freedom of religion and conscience, educational credo, and framed organisational position. However, the teachers acknowledged student benefits such as students' exposure to diversity and support offered to those experiencing religious and identity conflict. Identified patterns of teachers' coping strategies included "opposition," "adaptation," and "fence-sitting." We drew upon the literature on "passing" and "everyday forms of resistance" in schools having rigid public transcripts to explain these strategies' moral and emotional costs. The study's implications apply to other religious schools and educational settings characterised by rigid public transcripts of discipline and accountability policies that may conflict with teachers' identity and educational credo.

Interfaith dialogue can encourage learning between members of different religions. Facilitators of interfaith dialogue must support, encourage, and challenge participants to engage with others in dialogue on a difficult and sensitive topic. I present findings from a qualitative case study conducted with an interfaith dialogue group located in the southeastern US. To create a learning community that adhered to seven key values, the facilitators assumed different roles during dialogue sessions. Understanding these roles and their influence on the group's values could be beneficial for practitioners of interfaith dialogue, as well as scholars and professors of religion.

This qualitative research aims to explore the experiences of teachers in the implementation of prayer services in religious high schools for boys in Israel. It is a continued research project following on from a study which focused on the experiences of students in the implementation of prayer services. Using Lamm's model of educational ideologies the paper explores differences of educational perspectives between students, and teachers. It provides important data about teachers' views on prayer and spiritual development as compared to their students which can be of value to other religious denominations as well.

In reference to the article by Hanan Alexander 'Education in nonviolence', the text takes up the issue of reading Emmanuel Levinas's Talmudic texts for the philosophy of education. It intends to positively answer the question about the value and potential of such inspiration, focusing on concepts from two of Levinas's Talmudic readings. The first part of the text is devoted to the characteristics of the intellectual output of the thinker. The second part analyses and discusses Alexander's commentary on one of Levinas's Talmudic readings, 'Toward the Other'. Alexander aims to show the specificity of the idea of education in nonviolence, heavily indebted to the Jewish tradition and thought. The third part of the text is an extension of Alexander's comment, focuses on another Talmudic reading by Levinas, 'Cities of Refuge', and aims to outline the philosophical underpinnings of the idea of the pedagogy of asylum.

What are controversial issues? Who decides whether something is controversial, and how does it affect how a subject is taught whether a topic is presented as either controversial or not so? Although there has long been a lively debate within educational research on what criteria should be used to determine whether or not an issue is controversial, this topic has been less discussed in the specific context of religious education. At the same time, recent classroom studies have uncovered a finding that teachers of religious education feel that it is demanding to address controversial issues in their teaching, and that they lack the basic disciplinary and didactic skills to manage issues of such complexity. The main aim of this article is to bring the discussion about teaching controversial issues into the scholarly field of religious education and to explore the issues in deciding whether a topic should be considered controversial or not, and whether it should be taught as an open or a settled question.

Adults conceptualize God as particularly knowledgeable -- more knowledgeable than humans -- about moral transgressions. We investigated how younger (4- to 5-year-old) and older (6- to 7-year-old) children view God's moral knowledge. Cultural narratives in the United States portray God as omniscient, which could lead children growing up in the United States to conclude that God knows their own and others' behaviors. However, older children are better able to distinguish between different minds, and this ability (theory of mind, or TOM) may predict a tendency for older, versus younger, children to attribute greater knowledge to God. Consistent with the latter possibility, 6- to 7-year-olds viewed God as more knowledgeable of their own and others' transgressions than did 4- to 5-year-olds. TOM partially mediated this difference. Further, children -- particularly 4- to 5-year-olds -- conceptualized God as more knowledgeable of others' transgressions than of their own. Study 2 probed whether 4- to 5- year-olds' responses were due to wishful thinking (e.g., they did not want God to know their transgressions and therefore reported that God would lack this knowledge). Supporting this prediction, 4- to 5-year-olds attributed greater knowledge to God of their own, versus others', pro-social acts. The extent to which children attributed knowledge of these acts to God predicted their own propensity to behave pro-socially by sharing with others. This work expands current understanding of religious cognition, particularly its connections with moral judgment and theory of mind.

In the wake of COVID, the Mandel Teacher Educator Institute (MTEI) faced essential pedagogical challenges in creating learner-centered, relational, and inquiry-based Jewish text study in an online synchronous space. In fall 2020, we offered an online adaptation of a line-by-line method for text study to understand the way this pedagogy invites enactments of teaching, social, and cognitive presences. This study uses qualitative methodologies to understand the learners' experiences. Implications from this study can help us understand how activating presence in online spaces can bring rich, connected Jewish learning experiences into spaces often perceived to be flat and disconnected.

In 2020, COVID-19 compelled Hillel to offer its Jewish Learning Fellowship (JLF) online. This paper examines how educators adapted one element of JLF's pedagogy -- the Mic Drop, or closing class -- to online teaching. Class recordings and interviews with educators from four campuses were obtained. A flexible coding approach was applied, followed by analytic coding to determine the functions of Mic Drops. Codes were developed inductively (based on new adaptations of online teaching) and deductively (based on existing pedagogical frameworks). The paper describes four types of Mic Drops used and suggests ways to strengthen educator training for online teaching in Hillel and beyond.

This paper examines data gathered from Jewish day school students in North America, Europe and Argentina about their experiences of remote schooling during the first 4 months of the COVID-19 pandemic. Data report on student access to technology, student satisfaction with the remote-learning pedagogies their schools employed, students' feelings about what they gained from this experience, and how Judaic studies and general studies compared when delivered remotely. The paper provides an opportunity to probe cultural and structural differences between day school education in different cultural contexts and especially the differences between more communitarian and more individualistic school orientations.

As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, many Jewish adult education programs transitioned from in-person learning to synchronous webcast classes. This move creates new questions about the practice of teaching Jewish texts in the new medium. The author describes a case of an online Talmud class and the instructional strategies used by the practitioner. In the new medium, she is restricted in her use of interpretive-relational pedagogies, such as havruta that she would employ in person. Findings describe the ways she navigates these new challenges, emphasizing a tangle of strategies and tactics.

This study focuses on the impact of mentoring in Jewish day schools through the lens of cross-cultural considerations. The researchers examined the influence of differences in culture and religion on mentoring relationships and professional growth experiences. Findings indicate that building bridges of understanding and trust in a cross-cultural mentoring environment, requires the viewing of teacher mentoring as context-specific. Mentoring is strengthened when mentors become familiar with the school community and exhibit a respectful, and non-judgmental attitude toward the unique religious and cultural elements of the school community. Findings from the study provide an important contribution to discourse about teacher mentoring through a new and unique lens that focuses on cross-cultural relationships and their potential to enhance professional development and learning opportunities for teachers and mentors.

Over the past few years, the civics curriculum for Israeli high-schools has become the centre of a heated political debate. Following this debate, in May 2016 a revised official textbook was introduced. This paper draws on an in-depth analysis of the revised official textbook, comparing it to the previous official textbook published in 2000. The analysis focuses on the discursive changes that took place regarding the ways in which the revised textbook conceptualises Israeli citizenship. A particular focus is placed on how the revised version of the official textbook often prioritises the ethno-national model of the nation state over and above the commitment to democratic values, including minority rights. The main argument of this paper is that these changes are a reflection of the penetration of a neo-Zionist discourse into the civics curriculum.

Although Talmud study is central to rabbinical school curriculums, rabbinical students' experiences with Talmud study remain understudied. This article draws on interviews with students from five seminaries to argue that students describe Talmud study as a process of acquiring both knowledge and authenticity. These two goals intersect with a particular tension: a desire to cover large amounts of Talmudic material quickly and a desire to study smaller amounts more slowly. Rather than viewing the latter two as a binary, Talmud teachers should recognize the complex ways in which coverage and comprehension interact with one another, cultivating student and teacher metacognition.

This study focuses on the metaphors used by modern Orthodox Israeli women aged 18-30 who studied in seminars in Israel where "havruta" learning is practiced to refer to their learning experience. It is assumed that these metaphors reflect the students' unmediated perception of "havruta" and highlight the significance of interpersonal relationships, sensitivity and accountability to the partner, the value of seeing a text from different viewpoints, and validation of one's experience. Moreover, the metaphors emphasize the interaction between the learners and the text and the learners' desire to be part of the dialogic interpretation process presented in the Talmudic text itself.

This paper examines the complex relationship between the state, civil society and education through comparative research with young people in France and the UK. Survey data derived from two cohorts of school students in South Wales and Lyon reveal strong differences in their levels of civic and political participation. While our Welsh students have higher levels of 'civic participation', as measured in terms of charitable work and volunteering, our French students have far higher levels of what might be considered 'political engagement', defined in terms of campaigning and demonstrating. We argue that these differences can be accounted for by the different cultural repertoires and priorities of citizenship education which themselves reflect the contrasting historical configurations of education, the state and civil society in these two countries.

The purpose of this study was to better understand how Jewish day school leaders in Toronto perceive non-Orthodox Jewish day school financial sustainability. This multisite case study used a questionnaire, completed by 23 leaders of non-Orthodox Jewish day schools, and one-on-one interviews with all eight heads of school of the non-Orthodox Jewish day schools in Toronto to collect data. Both data collection instruments addressed three guiding research questions. Conclusions point toward a need to develop new ideas, to increase collaboration between the schools, and to focus efforts on raising the perceived value of Jewish day school education for prospective families.

The article reviews texts from central children's weeklies during Israel's first decade (1948-1958) and portrays them as a platform for legal and moral principles aimed at the country's youngest citizens. By focusing on the first decade of Israel, which posed Israeli leadership and citizens with many challenges, the article addresses the periodicals' commitment to upholding the country's legal culture and laws and their ongoing preoccupation with current legal matters. It also demonstrates the effects of sectorial tendencies and politics -- two characteristics of children's journalism at the time -- on how they addressed legal issues.

This study applies the notion of 'alternative futures' in globalisation and education by focusing specifically on the intersection between religion and education. Through an in-depth exploration utilising a case-study approach, we delve into the organisational dynamics of an Israeli school catering to a closed-off, traditional Jewish religious community while also proactively embedding specific forms of internationalisation. We identify and analyse the conflicting rationales and agenda maintained by this school based on interviews with the school's community, including teachers, superintendents, school leadership, and parents. We argue that the ideas of segregation, religionalisation, and nationalism are nurtured through the hybridity of the networks of influence, custom-tailored by the school's leadership to serve this unique community. In particular, we analyse the school's distinctive practices, norms, and routines designed to overcome the gap between the seemingly contradictory values of universalism vs particularity; globalisation vs nationalism; segregation vs unity; and religion vs modernity, and the ways that these dynamics play out in a country struggling for (self)-recognition as a Jewish and Democratic State, while being situated in an intractable internal and external conflict.

No study thus far has investigated music engagement in the home among sectors of society, that because of cultural and/or ethno-religious characteristics, have a drastically different lifestyle and home environment than typically ordinary conventional local residents, who represent the more hegemonic popular Western liberal-minded secular culture. The current study recruited 96 families belonging to one of two subgroups: Modern-Orthodox (n = 49) or Ultra-Orthodox (n = 47) Jews in Israel. They completed the "Children's Music Behavior Inventory" (CMBI). The findings show no differences between the overall Orthodox sample to a matched sample of the general population. However, when comparing between the two subgroups significant differences surfaced concerning parent-initiated music activities in the home environment. The study demonstrates that even among families who do not fit into the mainstream of society, music is a crucial part of family life embedded in the home, and that music engagement is an essential component within parent-child relationships.

This article offers a detailed study of one child's relationships to Israel from kindergarten (2012-2013 academic year) through 7th grade (2019-2020 academic year). By tracing Avigail over the course of eight years, I argue that children do not develop "a relationship" with Israel but rather many different relationships over time. Using a combination of qualitative methods including semi-structured interviews, image and music elicitation, storytelling exercises, and parental communications, this case study uses one child's many different conceptions of and relationships to Israel over the course of her childhood and adolescence to shed light on key questions in Israel education.

This study focuses on the phenomenon of Israeli backpacking as a function of traditional, observant, and secular population segments. We explored whether and to what degree backpacking features are related to the affinity of backpackers with the Jewish tradition and faith. Our study was based on a sample of 120 Israeli backpackers who had returned to Israel in the past five years. An analysis of the survey indicates a clear association between the length of the backpacking trip and the affinity of backpackers with the Jewish tradition and faith. We also found that backpackers on lengthy trips tended to engage in events or rituals related to religion to a greater degree compared to backpackers on shorter trips. An interesting finding was that backpackers on lengthy trips felt closer to Jewish tradition and observed religious precepts more than backpackers on shorter trips. These findings imply that the longer Israeli backpackers remain abroad, the stronger their affinity with Jewish tradition. One question that arises is whether the distance from Israel fosters a sense of nostalgia for Jewish culture, or whether backpackers on longer trips undergo a more spiritual experience during their time abroad.

A brief analysis of "The Blessing of a Skinned Knee" gives a glimpse of beliefs and practices cherished by the family that attempts to employ Jewish teachings to raise children. The child nurturing and rearing practices are in a degree enlightening and supplementing the existing literature in education. Prevention with the inspiration from time-tested lessons of philosophy drawn from Judaism and psychology theory could bring about a marked positive impact on child rearing. Three cornerstone principles of Jewish living--moderation, celebration and sanctification are frames of reference in developing philosophy of cultivating children. Moderation helps achieve the balance between what parents ought to do and what they should let go and tells priorities and values that make peace of mind accessible in the materialistic, anxious and highly competitive world. Gratitude is the most valuable character trait children need, for being grateful and celebrating what they are granted by life, they will always see the most beautiful world and stay with the most peaceful mind, both of which are essential to the pleasure of life. Sanctification indicates that all daily enterprises are holy and therefore demand devotion and commitment.

The purpose of this study was to examine an interfaith dialogue group to understand how adults learn through such an environment. In this qualitative case study, I worked with a group of Jewish, Christian, and Muslim adults located in the southeastern United States. In investigating adult learning through interfaith dialogue, I found that members experience communicative, instrumental, relational, personal, and transformative learning. The findings from this study may help practitioners in both participating in and facilitating interfaith dialogue groups with the intent of learning about other religious traditions. It may also benefit scholars in providing an understanding of how these groups can be intentional learning environments.

"Study" is recently re-invoked as an alternative educational formation to disrupt the learning trap and trope. This paper calibrates "study" and "learning" as two hermeneutic principles and correlates them with "seeing," "hearing," and "observing" as three onto-epistemic modes that respectively underpin Greco-Christian, Rabbinic, and ancient Chinese exegetical traditions. Linking study and learning with the hermeneutic issues of language, text, meaning, and reality, my calibration unfolds in four steps. First, I introduce an epistemic aporia encountered in interpreting some Chinese educational "wind" texts, exposing our naturalized reasoning of learning along a representational enclosure. Second, turning to Susan Handelman's writing, I trace this learning-as-representation enclosure as being conditioned upon the Greco-Christian exegetical mode of "seeing," meanwhile correlating "study" back with the Rabbinic "hearing" hermeneutic. Third, I move on to explicate an onto-cosmological "Yijing observing," proffering a "study" hermeneutic as a movement of observing, following, and attuning to "wendao," literally put, "a crisscrossing pattern that (re-)turns with 'dao.'" Finally, I re-"observe" and "study" the crisscrossing Chinese educational "wind" texts, evoking a Chinese "wind-teaching" sensibility so far rarely discerned through representational thinking and learning.

This qualitative research aims to explore the experiences of teachers in the implementation of prayer services in religious high schools for girls in Israel. Twenty teachers from three different schools were interviewed as part of this qualitative research study. Interviews were conducted during 2017-2018. The research focused on what teachers felt were the goals of prayer services in schools and the challenges they faced in their implementation. The research points to reasons why, from teachers' perspectives, these services are not maximizing their impact on the religious development of many students. Most importantly, the research highlights the inner tensions of teachers in balancing traditionalist approaches to the implementation of prayer services with more creative strategies to provide a more meaningful experience for their students. While this research was conducted within the ethos of Jewish religious schools in Israel, it provides important data about teachers' views on prayer and spiritual development which can be of value to other religious denominations as well.

Management educators have been advised to cultivate their students' character. Yet they lack the instructional resources they need to do so. We were inspired by the principles and techniques of the Jewish spiritual practice of "Mussar" to put students on a personalized path of continuous character improvement. According to "Mussar," everyone has some measure of a given character trait and needs to calibrate it to fill in a deficiency or tone down an excess. Although correcting character deficiencies and excesses requires a commitment of effort, we can, and should, become better versions of ourselves by applying that effort--that is, engaging in reflection, setting goals, monitoring our progress, and making adjustments--to move each of our character traits ever closer to its respective virtuous mean. We have designed materials to increase students' awareness of character and its importance in organizations, give them a vocabulary of character traits, help them identify the character traits they would like to address, and provide them with a sustainable process for self-enhancement. In this article, we introduce these materials and provide evidence of their effectiveness.