Senior Fellows Convening
Reconsidering the Aspirations of the Field: Reimagining Visions of Jewish Education
The first cohort of the MCSJE Senior Fellows, from their dual perches in directorships and as researchers, believe it is time to revisit and revive a conversation about our aspirations for the future of Jewish education.
In the 1990s, a group of highly learned Jewish educators and scholars undertook an ambitious project: to imagine a viable and thriving future for Jewish education. In 2003, they published their work, Visions of Jewish Education (edited by Fox, Marom, and Sheffler). Two decades later, our Jewish and general worlds and landscapes have changed, and continue to change, radically.
With deep devotion to the field, humility, and a desire to help lift up the great work of Jewish education, the Senior Fellows sought the help and wisdom of a group of carefully chosen Jewish education thinkers who are uniquely situated to provide rich, nuanced and thoughtful insights and feedback on their project; to engage in probing, honest, and collaborative exploration; and to promulgate the larger conversation about the future of Jewish education for months and years to come.
This invitation-only online convening sought to launch this conversation and explore the Fellows' interest in creating eventual publication(s) about the visionary possibilities of Jewish education.
A select and small group of thought partners convened via Zoom May 23, 2023, with Mandel Center Senior Fellows: David Bryfman (The Jewish Education Project), Shira Epstein (William Davidson Graduate School of Education at JTS), Miriam Heller Stern (Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion), and Tali Zelkowicz (The Wexner Foundation); and with Mandel Center and Brandeis University scholars: Ziva Hassenfeld, Sharon Feiman-Nemser, Jonathan Krasner, Jon Levisohn, and Joseph Reimer.