Jonathan Krasner

Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Chair of Jewish Education Research

Jonathan Krasner

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.

He 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. He is inaugurating a day school archives project, which will involve a collaboration between the Mandel Center for Studies in Jewish Education and the Brandeis Goldfarb Library.

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, and Jews and sexuality. His articles have appeared in a variety of academic journals and edited collections.

Krasner is also 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).

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 and a member of the executive board of Moving Traditions.