Programs
MCSJE has developed programs that engage and inspire established and emerging researchers and practitioners with the goal of driving impact in the field of Jewish education scholarship.
The Mandel Center for Studies in Jewish Education (MCSJE) is dedicated to advancing the field of Jewish educational scholarship through expansive research on teaching and learning and by convening and catalyzing other scholars and practitioners in the field through important programs, events and conferences.
May 30
How do educators from differing pedagogical orientations learn, undertake, and ultimately improve the work of teaching Israel? In this conversation, "Teaching Israel: Studies of Pedagogy from the Field" editors Sivan Zakai and Matt Reingold discussed the complex issues facing those who teach about Israel, along with respondents Lisa Grant (Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion) and Alex Pomson (Rosov Consulting), and moderator Sharon Feiman-Nemser (Brandeis University).
May 2
In this special event, authors from a recent themed issue of Journal of Jewish Education discussed their articles on race, ethnicity, and immigration in Jewish education. The issue spotlights the experiences of underrepresented individuals and serves as compelling testimony to the diverse array of Jewish experiences and identities, challenging prevailing norms about how Jewish educational spaces are designed and who benefits from them. Co-sponsored by the Mandel Center for Studies in Jewish Education at Brandeis University, the Grant Center for the American Jewish Experience at Tulane University, and the Journal of Jewish Education.
April 11
Visualizing Jewish Texts and Practices through the Graphic Novel | What happens when students of classical Jewish texts encounter visual representations of those texts, not just words? In her recent study Reconsidering Religious Gender Normativity in Graphic Novel Adaptations, Talia Hurwich learned that students often respond in deeply personal ways to visual representations of topics that may otherwise be suppressed by social norms around Jewish texts and practices. In this session, she discusses the role graphic novels can play in mediating between traditional religious practices and modern social change.
March 13
A discussion, reception, and book signing with Ziva Hassenfeld (Brandeis University), author of 'The Second Conversation: Interpretive Authority in the Bible Classroom.' This book is part of the Mandel-Brandeis Series in Jewish Education. It is now available for order from Brandeis University Press.
February 29
For over a generation, many American Jewish young adults have spent a year between high school and college in Israel—the “gap year.” How does the gap year contribute to North American Jewish education? How does it complicate that work? What does it mean for young adults to go from “here" to “there" to participate in this important educational experience? What do we know about the spiritual, intellectual, and emotional growth of those who do a gap year? What are the elements that contribute to growth among participants in the gap year, and what are the impediments to growth? This session brings together: Shalom Berger (Herzog College), Jonathan Schwab (Yeshiva University), Tilly Shemer (Shalom Hartman Institute), and Amy Weinreb (Masa Israel Journey) in conversation with Jon Levisohn.
February 8
Why Young Jews Love Yiddish | Over the last two decades, talk of Yiddish as an alternate path of engaging with Jewishness comes up in the Jewish press almost cyclically—a journalistic evergreen. In this session, historian and Yiddish podcaster Sandra Fox explains how Yiddish became culturally significant, why young people are flocking to learn Yiddish in larger numbers than ever before, and what the growth of Yiddish says about American Jewish youth culture.