Visions of Jewish Education
The Visions Unit (VU) was conceived and founded by the late Professor Seymour Fox in 1990 with a project he launched in the development of alternative visions of contemporary Jewish education. After recruiting Dr. Daniel Marom to co-direct the project, VU worked closely with renowned scholars of Jewish Studies and Jewish Education: Professors Isadore Twersky and Israel Scheffler of Harvard University; Menachem Brinker, Moshe Greenberg and Michael Rosenak of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and Michael Meyer of Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati.
This work was done in collaboration with Harvard University’s Philosophy of Education Research Center, which was directed at the time by Israel Scheffler. As well, VU benefited from contributions of various groups of Jewish educational leaders from all over the world who served as staff, fellows, graduates and associates of the Mandel Leadership Institute. During this period, VU also undertook over seventy experimental presentations of the project, developed a demonstration site at a day school in a North American city and generated various publications related to the work.
The principal publication that was generated from this work was Visions of Jewish Education, edited by Fox, Scheffler and Marom. This volume includes the six scholars’ visions as well as chapters by Fox and Marom on the translation of vision in practice. Published in 2003 by Cambridge University Press, it has since been sold in almost three thousand copies and has become required reading in courses for educational leaders all across the English speaking world. It was subsequently published in Hebrew by Keter Books with a special introduction for Israeli readers by Avi Katzman and Daniel Marom in 2006 and will appear in French in 2010, published by Presses Universitaires de France.
A Visions of Jewish Education internet library was also developed by VU’s Dr. Erin Henriksen as a supplement to the book, including materials that were produced in the work of the project that were not published in the book. The book also generated a five year Visions of Jewish Education Project in North America, the proceedings and products of which were also made available on-line.
Other publications that emerged from the project were Mandel monographs, including Jewish Education & Jewish Continuity: Prospects and Limitations, by Seymour Fox and Israel Scheffler; Vision at the Heart: Lessons From Camp Ramah On the Power of Ideas In Shaping Educational Institutions, by Seymour Fox, and Spiritualizing Halachic Education: A Case Study in Modern Orthodox Teacher Development, by Rabbi Jeffrey Saks. A related publication was Daniel Pekarsky’s portrait of a vision-guided school in New York, entitled Vision at Work: The Theory and Practice of Beit Rabban (2006, Jewish Theological Seminary Press).
Three new visions of Jewish education emerged from VU’s work in North America appeared in various formats. Daniel Marom published an historical study of Horace Kallen’s philosophy of cultural pluralism and its implications for Jewish education today . Rabbi Jack Bieler’s monograph A Vision of Modern Orthodox Education was published on the North American project’s internet site and was downloaded in thousands of copies within days. Finally, the University of Chicago Press recently published Michael Fishbane’s Sacred Attunement: A Jewish Theology, which emerged in the wake of VU’s work with him over the last few years and was accompanied by Daniel Marom’s journal article on some of its educational implications. Fishbane’s work has been aroused much attention in scholarly and educational circles in Jewish and non-Jewish communities around the world and will be the focus of three colloquia in the coming year.
VU concluded its work in North America in 2008, but some of the products it generated are still planned for publication in various formats and will be announced on this site.