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| Berman Jewish Policy Archive @ NYU Wagner | Newsletter
May 2010 | |
Dear Friends,
In an era characterized by so much concern about Jewish continuity and
engaging the unengaged, perhaps it makes sense to take some time to think about
people who, not born Jewish, take steps to join our people. Indeed, the book of
Ruth -- which we will read soon at Shavuot -- tells the story of history's
first Jew-By-Choice. With the words "Your People shall be my People, your God
shall be my God," this convert joins the Children of Israel. Deemed so worthy, she
becomes the great-grandmother of King David, Israel's most celebrated monarch
(albeit he had a few "complications," to be sure!).
BJPA @ NYU Wagner provides a storehouse of material on conversion to
Judaism, and related matters. Some reflect the fact that for many Jews-by-choice,
as for Ruth, a relationship with a Jewish partner is part of their journey. In
1974, the Journal of Jewish Communal Service reviewed the then-new Introduction to Judaism course offered by the Cleveland Rabbinic Board. Jews and Non-Jews: Falling in Love, by Steven Huberman, studied Boston-area converts to Reform Judaism, their
motivations, practices, demographic characteristics, and beliefs. Our
historical record continues in 1987 with Conversion Among the Intermarried: Choosing to Become Jewish, by Egon Mayer and Amy Avgar; Intermarriage and Communal Policy: Preventions, Conversion, and Outreach, by Steven Bayme (1994); Continuity and Conversion,
by Lawrence
J. Epstein and The Case for Proactive Conversion, by Gary A. Tobin (1999); and Choosing Jewish: Conversations about Conversion (2006), Sylvia Barack Fishman's study of the process through which interfaith couples decide
whether a non-Jewish partner or spouse will convert into Judaism. In my own
work, I have examined
and suggested methods of outreach to intermarried couples (1993) and also
argued that conversion
is a less than complete solution to the intermarriage problem (1997). In
2006, David Ellenson and Kerry M. Olitzky criticized
the discourse that so closely conflated conversion and intermarriage.
In An Historical Overview of Outreach and Conversion in Judaism (1990), Robert
Seltzer argues that, after centuries of isolation and lack of interest in
outreach, we cycled back into a new historic era of outreach. Other works, such
as In the Footsteps of Ruth: A Sociological Analysis of Converts to Judaism in America (1989) and Jews by Choice: A Quiet Revolution (1986), attempt to elucidate the implications of outreach
today. Other thinkers explore the process of conversion itself ought to look
like. For example, see Conversion: Considering a New Paradigm (1986), or a piece on leveraging modern
communication technology for the purpose of Lowering the Barriers and Saving the Meaning (2008).
In Israel,
religious conversion has come to have serious political implications. The
current controversy over the newly-proposed
Israeli conversion law, opposed by Masorti and Reform movements, has its own history as detailed in
The "Who is a Jew?" Controversy: Political and Anthropological Perspectives, by Charles S. Liebman (1986), and How Do the Issues in the Conversion Controversy Relate to Israel?, by Daniel J. Elazar (1999).
Finally, conversion can go both ways, and underlying the current preoccupation
with continuity in the United
States is the seldom explicitly named issue
of Apostasy Among American Jews (1991).
Issues surrounding conversion - motivations, processes, religious and political
authority, and the impact on Jewish communities and Judaism itself reflect both
the richness and relative security of modern American Jewry, and present
challenges, but also great opportunity for the entire community of Jews, by
birth and by choice.
With best wishes,
Steven
Prof. Steven M. Cohen
Director, Berman Jewish Policy Archive @ NYU Wagner |
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FEATURED REPORTS:
Tanakh Standards and Benchmarks Project |
| In 2003, The Jewish Theological Seminary's Melton Research
Center for Jewish
Education launched the Jewish Day School Standards and Benchmarks Pilot Project. It was designed to enable Community, Conservative and Reform day
schools to enhance the teaching and study of Tanakh. A growing number of
schools are now using standards and benchmarks to improve teaching and
learning. These reports produced by Education Matters evaluate the project from its beginning through the end
of the 2007-2008 school year. They find that when implemented with
fidelity, the project positively influences the teaching of Tanakh and supports
a collaborative, instructionally focused culture for teachers, a context in
which they continue to work to further improve their practices and students'
learning.
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| FEATURED AUTHOR:
ISA ARON
Dr. Isa Aron is Professor of Jewish Education, HUC/JIR, Los Angeles. She teaches
courses in philosophy of education, teaching, and organizational change, and is
the founding director of the Rhea Hirsch School of Education's Experiment in Congregational Education (ECE). Her publications include Becoming a
Congregation of Learners, The Self-Renewing Congregation, and Sacred Strategies: Transforming Functional Synagogues into Visionary Congregations,
with Steven M. Cohen, Larry Hoffman and Ari Y. Kelman (forthcoming, Alban
Press, 2010). We invite you to check out her work on BJPA.
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JEWISH EDUCATION AND TECHNOLOGY CONFERENCE
On May 5, BJPA and JESNA's Lippman Kanfer Institute
co-hosted a conference on "Technology and Jewish Education: A Revolution
in the Making?" We invite you to check out blog coverage of the conference, and encourage you to share your own thoughts
about how to take full advantage of the potential technology holds for
expanding and enhancing Jewish learning and teaching. You may respond to any of
these blog posts, add your own thoughts to the JE3 website
or tweet to hashtags #je3conf and/or #jed21. Videos from the conference will be
available on the JESNA website next week.
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BJPA is funded by the Mandell L. and Madeleine H. Berman Foundation and the Charles H. Revson Foundation. | |
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