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xi Acknowledgments This book is a very personal endeavor. As a child growing up in Boston, I attended the Dorchester Mattapan Hebrew School, housed in a synagogue, but open to any Jewish child who lived in the neighborhood. The school met five days a week, four afternoons and Sundays. I attended Sabbath services as well, as did many of my classmates. I studied the Hebrew Bible and prayer book, and Hebrew literature (in Hebrew), and I learned about Jewish history, Jewish music, and how to celebrate Jewish holidays. Far from being a burden, Hebrew school was a welcome alternative to the Boston public schools, where even a goody-two-shoes like me might be singled out for the “rattan” for a minor infraction. (“Rattaning” consisted of the teacher whacking our open palms with a ruler, the post–World War II upgrade from a piece of cane.) The stern, unsmiling women who struck fear in my timid heart in the mornings were very different from my afternoon and Sunday teachers at Dor-Matt, as we called it. My Hebrew teachers were almost always women, young and kind-hearted graduates of local schools of education, teachers colleges, or normal schools. Unlike my teachers in the Boston public schools, my Hebrew teachers could marry without fear of losing their jobs. One of the highlights of my Hebrew school years was being invited, along with my classmates, to the wedding of the glamorous Miss Stein. Although many remember religious school with the same fondness as visits to the orthodontist, most of my classmates and I, students during the late forties and early fifties, looked forward to school. Our teachers were passionate and energetic in their teaching; they were committed to Hebrew language and culture, to Zionism and the new State of Israel. We learned through music, art, and drama. We were taught to speak Hebrew, and learning a second language made us feel special and accomplished. About half of us were coached for the entrance exam to the Prozdor, the high school division of the Hebrew Teachers College, where our teachers had studied. My pleasant associations with this Talmud Torah (communally funded school) transferred to Jewish studies in general; I chose colleges around schools that either offered serious study of Judaica or were in proximity of institutions that did. I chose Jewish education as my profession. My educational biography, in Ellen Lagemann’s felicitous phrase, was shaped by my childhood experiences. Only as an adult did I realize that I was part of the golden age of American Jewish education, when the regnant progressive pedagogy of the day (which seemed to have leapfrogged over the Boston public school system) xii Acknowledgments was molding the teaching of Hebrew language and classic Jewish texts. I am grateful that this book gave me the opportunity to study that period, to help me understand why my fond memories of Hebrew school are so different from the bitter ones depicted in many American novels, memoirs, and short stories. I am delighted to have shared this journey of discovery with some of my colleagues, contributors to this volume whose research informs this period through the creation of portraits of women who accomplished so much and are so little recognized. I have benefited enormously from the friendship and wisdom of Ofra Backenroth, Alan Bennett, Lisa Grant, Jonathan Krasner, Shuly Rubin Schwartz, Miriam Heller Stern, and Rebecca Boim Wolf. I thank the archivists who helped answer questions and provide invaluable resources: Sean Martin of the Western Reserve Historical Society, Kevin Proffitt and Camille Servizzi of the Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives, Ellen Kastel of the Ratner Archives of the Jewish Theological Seminary, Gennady Yusin and Lizanne Hart of the staff of the Kaufman Center, and Lara Michels of the Judah L. Magnes Museum. I must single out Susan Woodland, the archivist of Hadassah who has been so supportive of this endeavor, for her unflagging energy, diligence, and responsiveness. I had the good fortune to have all sorts of technical support from David Kraemer, librarian, Hector Guzman, and other staff members of the Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary, as well as Edna Nahshon, Jordan Killam, Rosemary Raymond, Sam Spinat, Andrew Ingall, and Ruth Page. This book benefited from the input of its anonymous outside reviewers , the contributions of Sylvia Barack Fishman and Shulamit Reinharz of Brandeis University Press, the close reading of my good friend and colleague Shuly Rubin Schwartz, and Marjorie Ingall, one of the best writers...

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