‘Frightening proportions’

This article deals with Rabbi Meir Kahane’s assimilation doctrine, an under-studied aspect of previous published research on Kahane. The present study suggests that this doctrine is catalysed by a palingenetic myth of decline and rebirth, which also catalyses Kahane’s ideology. By proposing this, this article aims to offer a new perspective on the understanding of what drives Kahane’s ideology. It is further suggested that Kahane’s palingenetic myth is in part built around a myth of ‘intraracial antagonism’ between the American Jewish Establishment (AJE) and the ‘common Jew’. Following Bruce Lincoln’s theory of myth, it is here contended that Kahane’s assimilation doctrine is presented as ‘ideology in narrative form’. The study surveys the alleged causes and effects of assimilation, and what solutions Kahane presents to put an end to it. Among the alleged causes, Kahane singles out the AJE’s purported gutting of Jewish religious education, which is said to have alienated Jewish youth from their religion. Aside from curtailing Jewish continuity, Kahane for example identifies Jews engaging in social causes that allegedly run counter to Jewish interests as one alleged effect of assimilation. To end assimilation Kahane promotes a solution of campaigning in Jewish communities to ultimately put a stop to intermarriage, to instil hadar and ahavat Yisroel among Jews by the means of a regenerated Jewish educational system, and to encourage Jews to ‘return’ to Israel.

Ecclesiastes as a representative of Jewish theological education

This article deals with the study of the author’s personality of the Book of Ecclesiastes as a representative of theological education. Many Western scholars of the Book of Ecclesiastes assume that its author was a Jewish teacher. Since the author calls himself Ecclesiastes (ἐκκλησία, gathering of people) or Qoheleth (qahal, gathering), it seems that he gathered people for teaching. A reference to this is in the book itself: “In addition to being a wise man, the Preacher also taught the people knowledge” (Eccl 12:9). Thus, he appears to have served as a teacher of young people (Eccl 11:9) and had a group of disciples to whom he gave practical advice about life. It was a time of great changes in Israel, new circumstances of life demanded new answers, and Ecclesiastes, through studying the Holy Scriptures and through personal experience and reflection, made a critical analysis of the reality around him and those teachings that were spread among the Israelites. On the basis of this analysis, he provided answers to young people, trying to form a holistic worldview and save them from temptations: “The conclusion, when all has been heard, is: fear God and keep His commandments, because this applies to every person. For God will bring every act to judgment, everything which is hidden, whether it is good or evil” (Eccl 12:13–14). These words have not lost their relevance today. As a result, this work can be useful for analyzing the modern education system, through the prism of Jewish religious education, which is closely related to Christian education.

Sanctifying Security: Jewish Approaches to Religious Education in Jerusalem

While Schmitt’s Political Theology paints modern theories of the state as secularized theological concepts, prominent threads of Jewish religious education in 20th century Jerusalem have moved in a different direction, that is, toward the re-sacralization of such secularized theological concepts. Orthodox Jewish schools in Jerusalem, or yeshivot, take an orthopractic approach to religious education as informing all aspects of life, rather than a delimited set of doctrines or beliefs. As such, questions of security fall within the purview Jewish religious education. To look more closely at the relationship between orthodox Jewish religious education, sanctity and security, I spent seven months enrolled as a student-observer in three Jerusalem yeshivot taking daily field notes, conducting interviews, attending classes, and studying related sacred texts. By examining both Jewish sacred texts and ethnographic data from contemporary Jerusalem yeshivot, this article highlights how geo-political ideals of security in modern Jerusalem are being re-sacralized by contemporizing ancient sacred texts and approaching religious education itself as a means of eliciting divine aid in the securitization process for Jewish Jerusalem.

How Economics Helped Shape American Judaism

The United States presents an economic environment unlike any other in the millennia-long experience of the Jewish people. As the “Great Experiment” in democracy and religious freedom, America broke with its European roots in ways that greatly reduced the economic penalties imposed by society on Jews per se. The major focus of this article happens to be how economics helped shape American Judaism. American Jews were subject to no special taxes and faced no laws restricting their freedom. Although anti-Semitism was not completely absent, other minority religious and ethnic/ racial groups also faced challenges in America. The article explores the economic forces that facilitated and supported these and other changes in American Judaism. It deals first with the immigrant experience and a change in economic incentives associated with upward educational and occupational mobility and then looks specifically at how this context affected the economics of Jewish religious education in the twentieth century.

Jewish Pupils’ Perspectives on Religious Education and the Expectations of a Religious Community

This chapter presents a case study of the Jewish High School in Berlin — the only Jewish secondary school in contemporary Germany. The focus is on the re-establishment of this school in 1993 and the associated hopes of the religious community, on the one hand, and the religious self-understanding and expectations of the pupils regarding religious education, on the other hand. The chapter begins by setting out current developments in the Jewish educational system in Germany and the hopes that Jewish parents and religious communities have of it. It then gives an account of the re-establishment of the Berlin Jewish High School and its Jewish profile. Next, the chapter presents quantitative data that provide an insight into the religious self-understanding of the young Jews in the school. The analysis focuses on the similarities and differences between young Jewish people from German and Soviet backgrounds. Afterward, a qualitative analysis of the expectations and desires of the pupils in relation to their religious education is provided. Finally, the chapter discusses what, realistically, might be the outcomes of an approach to Jewish religious education that embraces a student community so diverse in religious, cultural, and social terms.