CALL FOR PAPERS

Jewish Educational Leadership invites proposals for its upcoming winter 2025 issue focusing on

In one form or another, the study of Tanakh drives much of Jewish education. Whether Bible stories in early childhood, parashat hashavua in elementary school, or Humash and Navi in the older grades, Tanakh is a central pillar of Jewish education from early childhood through adulthood. The teaching of Tanakh, however, is intertwined with a multitude of challenges—technical, conceptual, and theological. This volume of the journal is devoted to addressing these challenges. We are interested in articles which address questions including (but not limited to) the following:

• What are our goals in teaching Tanakh?
• What do we ultimately want our students to gain from their encounter with Tanakh and how do our goals inform our instruction?
• How do we teach Tanakh meaningfully to students with limited access to the original Hebrew text? To what extent should the study of Hebrew language be incorporated into Tanakh classes?
• How do we balance between the desire for broad familiarity with the stories and historical sweep of Tanakh on the one hand and the need for in-depth analysis and meaningfulness on the other?
• How do we teach respect and reverence for Biblical heroes while maintaining fidelity to the Biblical texts which frequently describe their actions as less than laudatory?
• What is the role of classic and contemporary commentary in the teaching of Tanakh? At what age and toward what end should the study of commentary be introduced?
• How do we teach students to respect the integrity of the text while exposing them to the rich interpretive traditions of remez, derash, and sod?
• How do we teach the non-narrative portions of Tanakh—the legal portion, the poetry, the grand prophetic passages?
• While Tanakh is our foundational religious-theological work, it is ubiquitous in western culture and academic spheres as a collection of ethical, mythical teachings. To what extent should academic study of Tanakh be incorporated into student-learning in day schools? 

Articles should be 1000-2000 words in length, with no footnotes or academic references.

The journal is intended for teachers, educational leaders, and interested laypeople across a range of Jewish educational settings. Proposals should be 100-200 words and briefly share the focus of the proposed article and the key points the article will present.

Please send proposals or queries for all submissions to zvi@lookstein.org by September 8, 2024. Submissions will be reviewed and responded to on a rolling basis throughout the summer.