MCSJE News & Events -I- December 2024 | |
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Meet This Year's SCRoLL Lab Student Researchers
The Student-Centered Religious Learning and Literacy Lab (SCRoLL Lab) provides opportunities for Brandeis students to develop social scientific research skills, as they participate in a range of collaborative empirical studies. This year's student researchers include: Ayden Kligfeld ’26, Talia Sherman ’25, Kenny Sicat ’26, Sheindl Spitzer-Tilchin, MA ’25, Ayla Wrubel ’25, and Harry Xiao ’25.
Under the guidance of the lab director, Professor Ziva Hassenfeld, the lab's research explores how children read, translate, comprehend, and discuss texts.
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Meet This Year's Undergraduate Teaching Fellows
MCSJE's Undergraduate Teaching Fellows Program offers professional learning to Brandeis undergraduates who are working in supplemental Jewish education. This year’s cohort includes: Elinoa Bader ’26, Liana Bernstein ’27, Hannah Churwin ’27, Miriam Herstein ’27, Simone Hotter ’26, and Rachel Lavine ’27.
Working in collaboration with other student fellows, under the mentorship of a master educator, Robin Kahn, they explore their own Jewish journeys, reflect on their teaching, develop new inquiry skill, and gain insight into their students’ learning.
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Learning from Children's Ideas About October 7th
Lauren Applebaum and Sivan Zakai are the leaders of a project at MCSJE that examines how contemporary Jewish children make sense of what it means to live in these extraordinary times. In a new article based on their research, they share four important lessons around discussing October 7th and the war in Jewish classrooms.
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MCSJE events are free and open to the public. Registration is required. | |
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Association for Jewish Studies Boston In-Person Gathering
Date: Sunday, December 15
Time: 11 - 2
The AJS Conference will kick off with AJS Gatherings, social events hosted by institutional partners in select locations around the world. AJS Gathering hosts will open their doors to AJS members and conference attendees for cultural and social events.
The AJS Boston Gathering will be hosted by Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies/Steinhardt Social Research Institute; Hadassah-Brandeis Institute; Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Studies in Jewish Education; Department of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies; Schusterman Center for Israel Studies; and Tauber Institute for the Study of European Jewry.
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Learning About Learning: Conversations with Scholars of Jewish Education
Fluid Meanings of the Yarmulke Across Educational Contexts
Dr. Anastasia Badder
Date: Thursday, January 23, 2025
Time: 1 - 1:30 ET via Zoom
In her recent article, Anastasia Badder asks: How do congregational school students experience moments in which they were confronted with Jewishness outside of the classroom, in their secular schools and public spaces? And taking a material approach, how does the presence (and absence) of yarmulkes influence those experiences? In this session, she will discuss findings from fieldwork she conducted as an ethnographer and teacher in a Jewish congregational school researching the ways children learn about and how to do Jewishness.
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Spotlight on Jewish Education after October 7th
Panelists Jonathan Krasner (Brandeis University), Matt Reingold (community educator/independent scholar), Amanda Winer (research consultant), Sivan Zakai (HUC-JIR) with Jon Levisohn (Brandeis University)
The attack on October 7th, the ensuing war, and the changed environment in the US have all led to questions about how American Jewish educational institutions have responded, and how they should. What do we know about the impact of the last year on schools, synagogues, camps, Israel trips, and other initiatives? How have educators been affected? How have children? What new trends are emerging? In this session, a group of scholars and educational leaders offered ideas for educators and educational institutions one year into this new environment.
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Learning About Learning: Conversations with Scholars of Jewish Education
Jewish Creativity: An Essential Aspiration for Jewish Education
Professor Miriam Heller Stern
Habits of creative thinking have sustained the Jewish people through centuries of crisis and opportunity. How might the enterprise of Jewish education reclaim and teach creativity? Weaving together a wide range of theory and research, including affective neuroscience, Jewish philosophy and education, and studies of creativity and arts education, Miriam Heller Stern discussed a framework for fostering Jewish creativity that can be pursued across the Jewish educational ecosystem.
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