Beit Midrash Research Project

The Beit Midrash Research Project was launched in 2003.  We conceived of our work as a Jewish educational "design experiment" and developed and implemented a Beit Midrash for Teachers in the DeLeT program.  We have been documenting and studying this Beit Midrash since its inception.

The purpose of our research is to develop and enrich educational discourse on Beit Midrash, text study and havruta learning and to offer venues for the further improvement of these practices.  In a time of immense cultural change, we believe that the scholarship of these older forms of "Jewish" learning can contribute to the quality of Jewish education by clarifying what they entail, what purposes they serve and how they can be taught and cultivated in different contexts.

Core Research Questions that Inform Our Work
a. What educational purposes can be served by a Beit Midrash setting?  And what is entailed in designing a Beit Midrash to achieve those purposes? 
b. What does "good" text study look like?  What are its core practices and how might they be taught?
c. What does "good" havruta learning look like?  What are its core practices and how might they be taught? 
Contact Us

We welcome hearing from other people, both educators and researchers in this area or who share similar interests.

Orit Kent -- okent@brandeis.edu
Elie Holzer -- esholzer@netvision.net.il