The Initiative on Bridging Scholarship and Pedagogy in Jewish Studies is a multi-year research initiative of the Mandel Center at Brandeis. The initiative is grounded in the following three convictions. First, that teachers of Jewish Studies at all levels and settings share common questions and may productively engage in collaborative inquiries, even if they arrive at different answers. Second, that Jewish education ought not to be isolated from the academic pursuit of Jewish Studies scholarship. And third, that the sub-fields of Jewish Studies will benefit from the development of a "scholarship of teaching," much as has occurred in the fields of Mathematics, History, and elsewhere.
We launched the project in 2003-2004 with a faculty research seminar on Teaching Bible, with the participation of 10 scholars and educators, who engaged in bi-weekly discussions of the purposes and practices of teaching Bible at all levels and settings. In addition, each participant developed a research project with the support of the seminar. The initiative continued in 2004-2005 with the development of these research projects, and the presentation of many of them at the public conference in January 2005. Work continues on editing and revising this research for publication, as well as editing the video footage from the conference for presentation on this website.
As part of the initiative, a plenary session was developed for the annual conference of the Network for Research in Jewish Education in June 2005. Presenters at this session, entitled "A Missing Paradigm? Strengthening Research on the Pedagogy of Jewish Studies," included Jon A. Levisohn, director of the Bridging Initiative; Susie Tanchel, Gann Academy; Alex Sinclair, JTS; Marc Brettler, Brandeis; and Sharon Feiman-Nemser, Brandeis.
Future plans for the Bridging Initiative include the publication of a number of papers and movies, and the development of plans for a second area of focus: the teaching of Rabbinic Literature.
