Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Studies in Jewish Education

Jonathan Krasner

Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Chair of Jewish Education Research

Jonathan Krasner's 2020 book, Hebrew Infusion: Language and Community at American Jewish Summer Camps (Rutgers University Press), co-authored with Sarah Bunin Benor and Sharon Avni, was the recipient of the 2020 National Jewish Book Award in Education and Jewish Identity. His 2011 book, The Benderly Boys and American Jewish Education (Brandeis University Press), was the winner of the 2011 National Jewish Book Award in American Jewish Studies. He was named as a 2012 finalist for the Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature.

Krasner is also the lead author of “Between Home and Homeland: Jewish College Students Confront the Israel-Gaza Conflict and Campus Divides,” a study focusing on the experiences of Jewish college students after the Hamas attack of October 7, 2023 and during the ensuing war in Gaza. Krasner and his co-authors also published a report based on the research, entitled You Stand Out No Matter What You Say: Jewish College Students Reflect on Israel-Gaza and Campus Conflict,” under the aegis of the Jack, Joseph, and Morton Mandel Center for Studies in Jewish Education. He and his research team, including Cheryl Weiner, Meka Greenwald, and Lance Rothchild, are currently working on a follow-up study. 

Krasner has been the co-editor-in-chief of the Journal of Jewish Education since 2021. He is also the co-editor of Teaching and Learning in Jewish Day Schools (with Jon Levisohn and Sharon Avni). This volume emerged from a Mandel Center-sponsored conference, Inside Jewish Day Schools, which he co-chaired.

Keenly interested in the teaching and learning of Jewish history in Jewish educational settings, Krasner is the co-writer, with Dr. Jonathan D. Sarna, of the two-volume award-winning Jewish history textbook for young people, The History of the Jewish People: A Story of Tradition and Change (Behrman House, 2006, 2007), and the one-volume Jewish History: The Big Picture (Behrman House, 2008). He is currently working with area religious schools to pilot a series of lessons on the American Jewish Experience since 1945. 

Krasner, who was a Wexner Graduate Education Fellow from 1994–98, received his doctorate in American Jewish Studies at Brandeis. He has a master's in education from the Harvard University Graduate School of Education. From 2002–2014 he was an assistant and associate professor of the American Jewish experience at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion. Prior to his academic career, he taught for ten years in Jewish day schools and was the founding history department chair at Gann Academy.

He is the past chair of the Network for Research in Jewish Education and serves on the editorial boards of the American Jewish Archives Journal and the Journal of Jewish Education. Krasner is also a member of the American Jewish Historical Society's Academic Board, the Association for Jewish Studies, the American Educational Research Association, the History of Education Society, and the Organization of American Historians.

Krasner is also the co-founder of Keshet, a board member of the Covenant Foundation, and a member of the executive board of Moving Traditions.

Research Agenda

Krasner is currently working on a history of the American Jewish day school movement and was the recipient of the Sylvia and Moshe Ettenberg Prize of the Network for Research in Jewish Education to support his research. 

In addition to the history of American Jewish education, his research interests include the teaching and learning of Jewish history and social studies, Jewish youth, the social history of American Jewry, and the history of Jews and sexuality. 

MCSJE Projects and Programs

Current

• Jewish College Students and the Israel-Gaza War
• Jewish Day Schools History Project
• Mandel Project on Teaching the American Jewish Experience

Past

• Hebrew at North American Jewish Overnight Summer Camps
• Jewish Historical Understandings
• Rethinking Jewish Identity and Jewish Education
• Teaching and Learning in Jewish Day Schools

Highlighted Publications

• Ramah in Transition: The Sheldon Dorph Years
• Teaching the Jewish Experience in the American History Classroom: Themes and Sources
• On the Origins and Persistence of the Jewish Identity Industry in Jewish Education
• American Jewry at Risk: “A Time to Act” and the Prioritization of Jewish Education
• Seventeen Months in the President's Chair: Morris Abram, Black-Jewish Relations and the Anatomy of a Failed Presidency

(See his faculty page for a complete list of publications.)

Brandeis Courses

• AMST 150a The History of Childhood and Youth in America
• AMST 180b Topics in the History of American Education
• HRNS 231b The American Jewish Community in Historical Perspective
• NEJS 169b From Sunday Schools to Birthright: History of American Jewish Education
• NEJS 171a Teaching and Learning the Holocaust and Israel

Featured Events

• Learning about Learning: How Camp Ramah Met the Challenges of the 1990s
• Antisemitism on Campus After October 7
• Spotlight on Jewish Education after October 7th
• Spotlight on Jewish Learning: Past, Present and Future | A panel of Brandeis faculty in recognition of the University’s 75th anniversary
• Hebrew Infusion: Language and Community at American Jewish Summer Camps