New Publication: Covenant--Global Jewish Magazine

Covenant, a publication of the Global Research on International Affairs (GLORIA) Center, is now available. Below is the table of contents for the current issue. You can read previous previous issues online as well. For a free subscription email: covenant.subscribe@idc.ac.il.

Vol. 1, No. 3 (October 2007 - Cheshvan 5768)

o Benjamin Balint, “Blushing for the Jewish State: The Case of Tony Judt”

o Interview: Barry Rubin and Judith Roumani, “Antisemitism, the World's Obsession:”

o Jonah Cohen: “Integrating Education in Jewish Day Schools: Toward a Jewish Great Books Program”

o Stanislaw Krajewski, “Jews, Communism, and the Jewish Communists in Poland, Europe and Beyond”

o Tiberiu Weisz, “The Kaifeng Stone Inscriptions Revisited”

o Fiction: Dalia Rosenfeld, “The Ceiling”

Here is an excerpt from one of the articles:

Integrating Education in Jewish Day Schools: Toward a Jewish Great Books Program

by Jonah Cohen

Quid ergo Athenis et Hierosolymis, quipped Tertullian, what has Athens to do with Jerusalem? Answer: quite a bit. The metaphor that western civilization rests on two opposing cities, Athens and Jerusalem, highlights one of the major difficulties confronting Jewish day schools nowadays. How do we coordinate secular curricula and influences (Athens) with Jewish courses and values (Jerusalem)?

This is, to be sure, hardly a new problem. When Rabbi Joseph ben Gamla established the first communal Jewish schools in first century Palestine, he was responding in part to the cultural influences of Roman imperial rule upon the young men of Israel; when Maimonides sought to harmonize Judaism and Aristotle, he was reacting to the trendy neo-Aristotelianism of medieval Spain; and when the Cheyders and Talmud Torahs were instituted, they were attempts to conserve Jewish learning and self-esteem amid the various humiliations of 18th and 19th century Europe. In each period, across the world, Jewish educators have wrestled with the question of how to synchronize their ancient heritage with the prevailing worldview of the dominant culture. Each generation, so it seems, must struggle to reconcile Athens and Jerusalem.

Ours too is facing this question. With the unprecedented freedom now enjoyed in modern liberal democracies, numerous Jewish day schools have emerged that, consciously or not, attempt to solve the age-old problem of integrating Jewish education with the surrounding society. These attempts have included adding secular classes solely because the state requires it; blending secular and Jewish studies through a historical or Zionist approach; and offering small pieces of Jewish electives and cultural activities as supplements to the more valued college preparatory curriculum.

None of these solutions is entirely satisfactory.

Read the whole thing.

Jonah Cohen is chair of the history department at The Dr. Miriam and Sheldon G. Adelson School, the first Jewish high school in Las Vegas, Nevada, where he is currently developing a Great Books curriculum.

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