Kress, Jeffrey S. Development, Learning, and Community: Educating for Identity in Pluralistic Jewish High Schools. (Boston: Academic Studies Press, 2012). xi+202 pages. ISBN: 978-1-936235-30-8.
All Jews are agreed that the Jewish future, whatever it will look like, will be keyed to the education Jews receive. What should that education be like? Nearly all committed Jews have come to the conclusion that a day school education is ideal for maximizing a student’s Jewish identity. The inherent difficulty in day school education, however, is that at present it largely services an Orthodox clientele, and Orthodoxy, while claiming a larger share of North American Jewish public space than a few decades ago, is still a distinctly minority phenomenon among contemporary Jews.
The important thing about Jeffrey Kress’ new book is that it attempts to come to grips with the difficulties and the prospects of day school education in a pluralistic environment that is inclusive of, and respectful toward the non-Orthodox. It is a study of the practice of educating Jewish high school students enrolled in community day schools in order to maximize their Jewish identity.
Kress teaches at the William Davidson Graduate School of Jewish Education at the Jewish Theological Seminary, and from nearly the beginning of his tenure there, he found himself challenged by standard conceptualizations of “formal” versus “informal” models of education. This challenge ultimately led him, with generous support from the AVI-CHAI Foundation, to undertake research on Pluralistic Jewish high schools, often called “community schools”, where Jewish students from a wide variety of Judaic backgrounds and beliefs are enrolled.
Specifically, the author has intensively studied three such schools, identified for purposes of the study as “Abraham”, “Isaac” and “Jacob”. The study is meant in the first place for education professionals, and parts of it are densely written in the jargon of the scholarship of education. On the other hand, the book as a whole has much to interest the general reader.
That reader will be absorbed by Kress’ “thick” descriptions of Shabbaton experiences at the three schools, where students and faculty leave their school to experience a Shabbat together in a different location. In this Shabbaton experience, Kress, argues, formal and informal aspects of Jewish education are intermingled in interesting and important ways.
While concentrating on the Shabbaton experiences and their significance, the author touches at least briefly on many of the important issues and challenges facing these schools. How should these schools go about addressing a broad spectrum of Jews, particularly when current sociological trends within North American Jewry speak to us of the decline of collective identity? How can they teach this broad spectrum of students when the teachers at these community schools tend to be significantly more “traditional” than the students, if not outright Orthodox? How can they keep the students’ attention on the community-building issues they deem of crucial importance when what students really want to discuss is “Who is the hottest guy in the school”? (p. 147) Clearly there are ambient tensions inherent in the educational process “between strong [Jewish] commitments and openness to the idea that not everyone shares these commitments” as educators try to “stack the deck…in favor of Jewish growth”. (p. 38)
In his concluding remarks, Kress wants to impress on his readers two primary notions. The first is that “[s]chools function in ways that go well beyond the cognitive learning of points of content”. The second is that “identity is described both by…what one does, thinks, feels, etc… and by…what one considers important or central to who one is.” (p. 172) It is in relation to these two primary foci that this study of community school Shabbatons attempts to map the future of Jewish education in which a holistic educational approach will not merely “provide knowledge about Judaism but also…assist in the acculturation of students as participating members of the Jewish community”. (p. 15).
Ira Robinson
Academic Fellow, CIJR
Department of Religion, Concordia University
