It is often said that Judaism is a religion of deed, not creed. In Jewish day schools, that distinction is often taken one step further. Schools teach texts, practices, language, and history, but often hesitate to name faith as an educational goal. In pluralistic settings in particular, educators are wary of imposing theology or defining belief.
And yet, Jewish education is deeply engaged in faith formation, even when it is not named as such.
The opportunity is to ensure that our students come through their experience with an opportunity to learn about and learn with those who may be different than themselves, different across a variety of categories, whether it’s socio-economic, whether it’s learning differences, whether it’s with ideological differences, the value is in experiencing themselves as part of a diverse kehilla. The challenges, I would say, are divided into two broad categories. Most of the kinds of diversities that are challenging for schools boil down to economics;
Each morning at 10:30 AM, 50 middle school students at the Ottawa Jewish Community School (OJCS) have to decide where to go for minyan. They can choose to go downstairs to the “Traditional Egalitarian” minyan where they sit in a circle, use a siddur which includes the Conservative version of Birkhot Ha’Shahar and the imahot in the Amidah, and students of any (or no) gender are welcome to function as shaliah tzibur. Or they can choose to go upstairs to the “Traditional” minyan where they sit on either side of a mehitzah, use a siddur which features Orthodox liturgy, and boys are welcome to function as shaliah tzibur. There are students who reliably land in the same minyan morning after morning and there are students who move back and forth for all kinds or reasons.
Models of healthy, open, frank conversation in public or private discourse are all too rare. In public discourse, what little evidence of listening that we do hear is primarily in the service of stockpiling rhetorical…
