With the new Jewish and academic year, Lookjed moves to Volume XVIII. In this opening digest I would like to review some of last year's highlights and offer some previews of new initiatives planned for the coming year.
1. New venues for Lookjed
Over the years I have upgraded Lookjed with internal links; Bookjed and the Lookstein Announcements appear as HTML webpages. While I believe that arranging for these mailings to be delivered to your individual inbox remains a most effective form of communication, it is clear that many educators are involved in social media venues that have the potential to allow for more immediate interaction.
In order to engage Jewish educators in these new venues, I have been experimenting with Twitter and Facebook for the past few months, and have just opened a Lookjed group on LinkedIn. My plan is to have the ongoing conversation remain on Lookjed (archived at [
www.lookstein.org] ), with links to individual posts of particular interest highlighted on Twitter. The Facebook group offers an open platform for educators to post and converse. The LinkedIn group will focus on available positions in Jewish education, and I hope to also use it for longer posts and essays on topics raised in Lookjed or of general interest to the community of Jewish educators.
I encourage you to sign up for the Lookjed social media groups that may be of interest to you. Please recommend to colleagues – especially to younger educators who are just entering the field – that they look at these resources and consider signing up, as well.
Lookjed Facebook group - [
www.facebook.com]
Lookjed Twitter feed - [
twitter.com] [
twitter.com]
Lookjed LinkedIn group - [
www.linkedin.com]
2. Looking back at 5765 (Volume XVII)
Some of the Lookjed topics that garnered sustained discussion were:
- Day School Education and Biblical Criticism
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www.lookstein.org]
- Teaching Midrash as part of the Tanakh curriculum
[
www.lookstein.org]
- Getting kids passionate about prayer
[
www.lookstein.org]
- Understanding by Design and Jewish studies
[
www.lookstein.org]
- Peshat and Derash
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www.lookstein.org]
Aside from the ongoing topics that are largely "grassroots" driven, Lookjed featured a number of special mailings in a series entitled "Creative Responses to Educational Challenges."
Some of this year's "Creative Responses to Educational Challenges" include:
- Integrating the Arts in Secondary Jewish Education
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www.lookstein.org]
- The Challenge of Understanding Israel in Today's World
[
www.lookstein.org]
- The Tikvah Curricular Integration Course
[
www.lookstein.org]
I encourage educators who have developed specific programs that would be of interest to the larger community to contact me about arranging to share them in this series.
Lookjed also served as a platform for the dissemination of a weekly Dvar Torah produced by the Center for Modern Jewish Leadership, as well as links to articles of interest to Jewish educators "from the Tradition archives." In the coming year we look forward to hosting links to the newly revamped Virtual Bet Midrash of Yeshivat Har Etzion.
3. Bookjed
Bookjed, the monthly listing of book reviews and announcements of interest to Jewish educators appeared 11 times in the course of the past academic year, making teachers and administrators aware of new and notable publications with educational implications.
Among the books reviewed were:
- Bezalel Naor's new translation of Rav Kook's Orot
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listserv.biu.ac.il]
- A Temple in Flames by Gershon Bar-Cochva and Aaron Horowitz [
listserv.biu.ac.il]
- Spinoza, the Outcast Thinker by Devra Lehmann
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listserv.biu.ac.il]
- Torah from Alexandria Edited by Michael Leo Samuel
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listserv.biu.ac.il]
Please be in touch with me if you or a colleague has published a book that should be highlighted on Bookjed, or if you are interested in writing a Bookjed review.
Wishing all a Shana Tova,
Shalom Berger
shalom@lookstein.org
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/17/2015 11:10AM by mlb.
