By
– July 30, 2012
The author is a historian, and this is a scholarly study of the development of American Jewish educational models (mainly Reform) in the 1920’s and 1930’s. It discusses in depth the ways that these models resulted in a new way of teaching the Bible to American Jewish children. The first several chapters provide a very important context to this discussion, exploring the challenges of modernity, comparing European and American educational developments, and showing why and how the Bible came to replace the Talmud as the essential Jewish text. The transformation of the Bible into stories considered suitable for the education of children is a process that blends theories of cultural pluralism and the pedagogy taught by John Dewey with Jewish concerns about assimilation and the challenge of educating young American Jews in a way that was consonant with both Jewish and American values. The influence of three of the most important of twentieth century Jewish educators— Samson Benderly, Mordecai Kaplan, and Emmanuel Gamoran — pervades the study. Perhaps of most interest to children’s librarians are the final chapters of the books, where Bible textbooks used in supplementary schools are analyzed in terms of how they re-interpreted and universalized the original text and how they dealt with such problematic issues as sexuality, the supernatural, legal material, and strange customs. Although no contemporary Bible stories in either collections or individual form and no newer Bible textbooks are discussed, one’s understanding of these works will be enhanced by Schine’s insightful study. Recommended as important reading for Jewish educators and interesting reading for Judaica librarians.
Linda R. Silver is a specialist in Jewish children’s literature. She is editor of the Association of Jewish Libraries’ Jewish Valuesfinder, www.ajljewishvalues.org, and author of Best Jewish Books for Children and Teens: A JPS Guide (The Jewish Publication Society, 2010) and The Jewish Values Finder: A Guide to Values in Jewish Children’s Literature (Neal-Schuman, 2008).
