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Introduction
- Brandeis University Press
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1 Introduction carol k. ingall T he Women Who Reconstructed American Jewish Education, 1910– 1965, introduces the unheralded educators who planted the seeds of social reform and progressivism in the soil and soul of American Jewish education. It highlights eleven eminent women who either informed the educational philosophies of the twentieth century’s most influential Jewish pedagogues, Samson Benderly (1876–1944) and Mordecai Kaplan (1881–1983), or put them into practice. The women profiled are Ethel Feineman and Grace Weiner, Jessie Sampter, Rebecca Aaronson Brickner, Libbie L. Braverman, Mamie Gamoran, Sadie Rose Weilerstein, Anna G. Sherman, Temima Gezari, Tzipora Jochsberger, and Sylvia C. Ettenberg. They not only recast Jewish education in the progressive, experiential model of John Dewey (1859–1952) and his followers but also implemented a pedagogy based on the primacy of Hebrew language and culture.1 Like much feminist scholarship, this book is intended, in part, to fill in the gaps in a history written by men about the achievements of men (the chronicle of captains and kings) and “recover . . . past history and forgotten heroines” (hooks, 2000, xi). Scholars of Jewish education are familiar with the contributions of the Benderly boys, as Benderly’s male disciples came to be known, but much less is known about the women who were disciples of Benderly and Kaplan. By illuminating the contributions of these women, this book offers a fuller analysis of American Jewish education. One simply cannot understand the development of the field without a close look at the aspirations, careers, and accomplishments of the women who taught in Jewish schools, wrote books that lined the shelves of Jewish classrooms and homes, created learning experiences for other Jewish women, and experimented with new forms of informal Jewish education in youth groups and camps. To paraphrase Larry Cuban (1992), the eminent historian of American education, if the Jewish community had an itch, it was these women who did the scratching (216). This volume documents the role these women played in implementing the Jewish communal agendas of instruction and enculturation from 1920 to 1965. As Kaufman (2006) has noted, “In the new world, the feminization of Jewish education would go hand in hand with the Americanization of the Jew” (897). Influenced by the tenets of progressivism and a love of Hebrew 2 Introduction and Zionism, these women believed that the United States afforded an ideal environment for Jewish life to flourish. Jewish education could produce an American equivalent of the fabled golden age of Iberian Jewry, one in which Jews would be full participants in American society while still firmly rooted to Jewish culture, customs, and religious practice. The American Jewish synthesis they forged was built on a love of the Hebrew language and literature, and Zionism. To fully appreciate their efforts, it is important to understand the efforts of the generation that preceded them. In his history of Hebraism in America, Mintz (1993) discussed the efforts of a cultural elite to revive Hebrew in the period just before World War I with the founding of the journal Hatoren (The Mast) in 1913 and the Histadrut Ivrit (Hebrew Union) in 1916. While Hatoren promoted Hebrew literature, the Histadrut tried to foster Hebrew culture and Hebrew nationalism (i.e., Zionism) through lectures, meetings, and eventually, a newspaper. Mintz observes , “It is undeniable that if Hebraism has made any impact on the American Jewish scene it is essentially through its influence on education. The story of how a small band of committed Hebraists ‘kidnapped’ the Talmud Torah [communally funded supplementary schools] movement and retained control of it for several decades needs to be told” (64). The Women Who Reconstructed American Jewish Education tells this story. These women and others like them, teachers and authors, were the “kidnappers.” It was they who kept Hebrew and Hebrew nationalism alive through education, not only in the Talmud Torah and in the first decades of the suburban synagogue schools, but also in children’s literature, camps and youth groups, adult Jewish education for women, and cultural arts programs for all ages. Contextualizing the Endeavor: American Jewish Education before the Women Who Reconstructed It In assessing the contributions of Maimonides to the theory and practice of medicine of his time, Sherwin Nuland (2005) used a yardstick that is applicable to other professions as well. What was the state of the profession at the time and how was it affected by the contributions of the person or persons under study? Did the professional add to theory and practice? Did he...