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In this article, the author talks about Jon A. Levisohn's article that develops a menu of orientations for the teaching of rabbinic literature. The author suggests that Jon A. Levisohn's article should be required reading for all Jewish educators who are interested in curriculum and teaching. The essay is a vehicle for introducing a way of looking at curriculum and exposing educators to a method of inquiry that should serve the reader well in his/her own work in Jewish education. There is an old Yiddish expression that might be appropriate to the author's praise of Levisohn's article: "something is wrong, the bride is too beautiful!" The author would not want the reader to think that this is a flawless essay. It is the model that the author claims it to be, but there are questions that he wants to raise with this article. First, though he praised Levisohn's footnotes as an auxiliary work on curriculum, the author asks Levisohn to annotate the personal references to scholars and practitioners. His second concern is with the Skills Orientation. The author ends this review as he started, with praise and recommendation. In keeping with the intellectual guide of the article, the author mentions that he does not know Jon Levisohn, but looks forward to meeting him, and talking Torah and curriculum with him.

Points to the importance for Jewish education of the relationship between the Hebrew language and Jewish identity. Argues that de-emphasis of the Hebrew language leads to a culture and religion that do not reflect the texts, culture, and traditions of Judaism. Prescribes increased emphasis on Hebrew in training Jewish teachers. (DSK)

Investigation of the attitudes of 1,252 children in grades 4 through 12 toward studying Hebrew at their private Jewish school in South Africa measured attitudes toward language learning, traditional orientations, nationalist orientations, motivation, and self-rated proficiency. Results showed that attitudes decreased in positive value over the 9 grade levels, although not always in totally linear fashion. (Author/CB)

Analyzes existing materials for teaching the Talmud, pointing out that this material is uninteresting for most students. Describes an Israeli curriculum and instruction project at Masorti High School in Jerusalem which introduces Judaic studies from a positive, critical perspective. (KO)

Illustrates how American curriculum theories have lasting impact on other countries by describing how U.S. curriculum development ideas have been transplanted to Israel. (Author/JM)

The article presents a study, which is an initial investigation of the Jewish knowledge and Jewish behaviors of Israeli high school students from the former European and Asian republics of the former Soviet Union. The students had been in Israel from three to thirty months when a mostly closed questionnaire was administered. The purpose was to clarify the nature of the participants' relationship to Jewish tradition. The cognitive, affective, and behavioral domains were the categories used to define this relationship. The results indicate that there is very little difference between the European and Asian groups in all of the categories. The study also indicates that the Jews of the former Soviet Union have maintained a surprisingly high level of Jewish cognition, affect and behaviors despite the years of repression of religion there. It is apparent that the rituals and observances reported are those that are highly visible in Israeli society. Further research is necessary to follow these adolescents as they continue to work out their Jewish identity in Israel.

Surveying the Israeli educational structure in quest of how Jewish is the education of the Jewish State, one is amazed at how much time, energy, and productivity are devoted to Jewish curricula in Israel today. To demonstrate this point, and to detail some of this activity, requires a brief description of the organizational structure of the various educational systems and institutions at work in Israel today. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

One of the major continuing issues in the Israeli educational system over the last three years has been the professional status of the classroom teacher. The issue has been kept in front of the public through the determination and action of the elementary and secondary school teachers' unions. These unions, which in combined force, represent almost all of the teachers in the government schools, religious and general, have become aggressive in pursuing their goal of ameliorating the status of teachers in Israel. The teachers claim that the last several years have witnessed a serious decline in the status of the teacher, a failure to attract competent and qualified people to the profession, and a failure to reward and stimulate the best people in the system. One of the symptoms of this lack of esteem for teachers was the decline in their real wages, and therefore, a concrete expression of lack of regard for teaching by the Israeli society. However, the Israeli press and public opinion, would have preferred to see the teachers' cause as an exclusively economic issue. They preferred to say that this was merely another sector of the economy demanding its just share of the Israeli inflationary spiral. The unions saw this as a more complex social values issue. The teachers began to express serious discontent during the 1978-79 school year, and at that time threatened a series of work stoppages, and even strikes, if their demands were not dealt with. The Israeli government, always hard pressed by wage increase demands, began to relate to the teachers seriously at the end of 1978, and on January 16, 1979, appointed a special governmental commission to investigate the situation. This commission was officially known as the “Governmental Commission for the Investigation of the Status of Teachers and the Teaching Profession.” [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]