MCSJE News & Events -I- March 2025

NEWS

Shaul Kelner Receives National Book Award

Mazel tov to Professor Shaul Kelner, who received the Amer­i­can Jew­ish Stud­ies Cel­e­brate 350 Award of the National Jewish Book Awards, for A Cold War Exo­dus: How Amer­i­can Activists Mobi­lized to Free Sovi­et Jews. Shaul, who coordinates the MCSJE Senior Fellows Program, is associate professor of Jewish studies and sociology at Vanderbilt University.

MCSJE IN THE NEWS

A Cold War Exodus is Scholarly, Accessible, and Indispensable

In a review, MCSJE Professor Jonathan Krasner says Shaul Kelner's new book is "destined to become an indispensable book on the American Jewish campaign to free Soviet Jews" and offers his "enthusiastic recommendation" of the text to readers.

MCSJE RESEARCH

A History of Impact: MCSJE Faculty Offer Current Perspectives on Their Scholarship

In this new series, we’ve asked MCSJE faculty to reflect back on impactful pieces from their body of scholarship. Here, Jon Levisohn reflects on his 2017 article, "Theories of Transformative Learning in Jewish Education: Three Cases":

"Around ten years ago, I started to wonder about how Jewish educators and educational initiatives use the framework of 'transformation.' I believed that the impulse to describe a program as 'transformative' was more than just marketing; it pointed to a desire not just to teach content or skills but to affect students or participants in profound and lasting ways.

I quickly learned that the field of 'transformative education' was dominated by a particular theory developed by Jack Mezirow. But the theory actually rested on shaky empirical grounds, and in any case, there’s no reason to squeeze all kinds of transformation into one model. 

So in this paper, based on close study of three Jewish educational initiatives, I worked out three other models. If Jewish educational initiatives want to be 'transformative,' as many do, they now have multiple models of transformation that they can use to think about the work that they do and the impact that they aspire to have. Since then, I have heard from numerous educators that the articulation of multiple models has helped them define for themselves what they mean by 'transformation.'"

Two Research Articles from Ziva Hassenfeld

MCSJE Professor Ziva Hassenfeld recently released two new articles: one on a Jewish perspective on teaching Bible in public schools, published in The Leaflet, and a second on how day school students make sense of Biblical Hebrew, published in Journal of Jewish Education.

UPCOMING EVENT

MCSJE events are free and open to the public. Registration is required.

Learning About Learning: Conversations with Scholars of Jewish Education

Fraternities and Sororities as Jewish Communal Spaces

Dr. Jenny Small '99

Date: Thursday, March 20

Time: 1 - 1:30 ET via Zoom

Traditionally-Jewish fraternities and sororities are not often considered sites of Jewish community. In this session, Jenny L. Small will discuss findings from interviews with fraternity and sorority life (FSL) educators, revealing their perspectives that students in these organizations bear distinctly gendered burdens around Jewish heritage and continuity. The educators in this study lacked a strong understanding of Jewish identity and how students express those identities through FSL; however, effectively supporting these organizations can help them function as sites of belonging for Jewish college students during turbulent times on campus.

PAST EVENT

Learning About Learning: Conversations with Scholars of Jewish Education

Using Both/And Thinking to Repair a Rift in Jewish Education

Dr. Tali Zelkowicz

The field of Jewish education has often been split into two sub-fields, referred to as “formal” or “informal” (or “experiential”) education. But this division is artificial and proving profoundly limiting, distorting, and even harmful. What might be the ultimate potential of the field were we able to employ a balanced and integrated use of the full range of educational competencies, across all settings? In this session, Tali Zelkowicz shared recent work, in which she applies both/and thinking to surface a more expansive and integrative vision of Jewish learning that can empower and endure.

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The Mandel Center offers a robust schedule of events to convene scholars, practitioners, and policy makers to advance thinking, generate new questions and, in some cases, generate new work for future publication. Watch our videos on our YouTube channel or listen to our podcasts on Spotify, Amazon, or Apple.