Zvi Grumet, Author at The Lookstein Center

From The Editor: Spring 2026

by Zvi Grumet | May 7, 2026 | Hebrew Language and Culture

By the time I entered the elementary school I attended, it had been around for nearly 50 years and was already in decline. Despite the challenges, there were two things which left a lasting impression. The Jewish studies, which occupied the first half of the day, were all conducted in Hebrew, Ivrit beIvrit; some of the teachers were dedicated, die-hard Hebraists who provided me with a very solid foundation. The Hebrew that I learned gave me access to Israeli songs popularized after the Six Day War and to classic Jewish texts—the siddur, Humash, and even to Gemara (yes, Aramaic and Hebrew are closely connected). The language enabled me to act as a translator when my father’s cousin came to visit from Israel, and even enabled me, years later, to attend a regular Israeli yeshiva—in Hebrew.

Aside from the Hebrew language, the school was suffused with Israeli culture.

From The Editor: Winter 2026

by Zvi Grumet | Jan 22, 2026 | Personalizing and Differentiating Jewish Studies

For many years I believed that I was a good educator. Students, alumni, and parents told me so. I was mostly effective at exciting my students to learn, drawing them in, and teaching them content and skills they remembered for a long time. Students thought that I was fair and sensitive and really committed to their success. Hey, I even learned how to admit my mistakes and learn from them.

And then I got married and started raising children.

From The Editor: Fall 2025

by Zvi Grumet | Sep 25, 2025 | Challenging Texts, Topics, and Events

The year was 1982. I was studying in Jerusalem for the year and my roommate invited me to join him on one of his visits to an elderly recent immigrant from the Soviet Union now living in an absorption center. When we arrived, I was introduced to the elderly gentleman, who told me that his name was Mr. Morehdin (although I suspected that the name was not his original one). While he had a difficult life in the Soviet Union, having spent time in Siberia, he chose to share with us that day how he survived a Nazi concentration camp. One day a Nazi guard summoned him, having heard that he was Talmud scholar. The guard had been told that there were disparaging statements in the Talmud about gentiles, and even laws discriminating between gentiles and Jews in civil matters.

From The Editor: Fall 2022

by Zvi Grumet | Sep 22, 2022 | Attracting, Retaining, and Cultivating Good Teachers

Three incidents stand out when I think of the staffing issue. One: A student beginning a graduate program in Jewish education asked its leadership how one could support a family on the salary of a Jewish studies teacher. The Director responded, “That’s why people go into administration.” Two: A key executive of a Jewish university was asked about a group of Jewish high school teachers’ response to a policy decision with communal repercussions. The executive responded, “Who cares what high school teachers have to say.” Three. A national Jewish organization which was concerned with attracting and retaining Jewish studies faculty was asked to address…

From The Editor

by Zvi Grumet | Jun 1, 2022 | Teaching Jewish History

“Imagine that you could travel back to any period in history. What moment or event would you want to observe? What people would you want to meet? What would you ask them?” Many of us have asked and been asked these hypothetical questions. They are designed to inspire curiosity, drive thinking, and spark the imagination. They represent, to some extent, a considerable component of what historians try to do—to use the tools at hand, books, documents, records, artifacts, testimonies, and more to explore the past, and for some perhaps to create a virtual time machine through which they can re-create that past.

Letter from the editor

by Zvi Grumet | Sep 18, 2019 | The Internal Life of the Jewish Educator

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…

Creating Mutually Beneficial Dialogue Between Different Groups of Educators

by Zvi Grumet | Apr 10, 2019 | Discussions

I recall that in my early teaching years, as a high school teacher I yearned to be able to learn from a variety of pedagogical techniques from elementary and middle school teachers. At the same time, in conversations with some elementary and middle school teachers, I repeatedly heard them seeking high school teachers who could enrich and deepen their content. Since making Aliyah, part of my work has taken me to visit many schools, from elementary to high schools. Although there have been exceptions, it seems like the generalizations I experienced years ago are, for the most part, still valid.And I wonder how we can create the kind of mutually beneficial dialogue between different groups of educators – those who have strong pedagogy and those who have deep and broad content knowledge – to create more meaningful, substantive, and pedagogically sound educational encounters for our students.

Can We Talk?

by Zvi Grumet | Mar 10, 2019 | Can We Talk? Spring 2019

It is easy to get the sense that in today’s public sphere so much of our discourse happens at each other as opposed to with each other. Sound bites and 140-character messages do little to help others understand our positions, and the louder we shout the less we are heard….