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Laura Levitt writes a response to the articles in a special issue of Shofar entitled "New Approaches to Teaching Jewish Studies." She notes that the collection of articles is presented in the spirit of collaboration and better practices. Considering the current situation in Jewish Studies as "the best and worst of times," Levitt examines the range of new and ever more sophisticated and nuanced studies of Jewish literatures, cultures, histories, ethnographies, languages, music, performance, and ritual practices against the backdrop of the precarious situation for scholars and Jewish Studies at today's universities. She speculates on how Jewish Studies might fit into a new interdisciplinary environment.

Doctoral dissertation / Open Access ; The shortage of qualified teachers has long been recognized as a significant concern faced by public and private schools in the United States and the rate at which early-career teachers leave the profession has materially exacerbated the problem. Numerous government and privately sponsored programs and initiatives have taken aim at ameliorating the elevated attrition rates of novice teachers however little, if any, progress has been made and current studies indicate that the exit frequency of new teachers leaving the profession in addition to the overall dearth of educators, will continue (García & Weiss, 2019). Within the private school sector, which includes parochial educational institutions, the retention challenge is at least as troubling, and Jewish day schools are no exception (Ben-Avie & Kress, 2008; Menachem, 2017). Various studies have examined what motivates novice public and private school teachers to depart the profession though very little attention, if any, has ever been focused on why novice Jewish studies teachers in Modern Orthodox Jewish day schools leave. The goal of this study, which employed a qualitative, phenomenological approach, was to shed light on the reasons why novice Jewish studies teachers leave the profession and to determine whether compensation and/or life cycle events were major influencers in the former teachers' decision making. Thirteen novice Jewish studies teachers who recently left the teaching profession after having taught in New York metropolitan area Modern Orthodox day schools were interviewed extensively about their backgrounds and reasons for their departures. The three factors suggested most often by the interviewees for their leaving, in descending order of priority, were the paucity of senior administration support and feedback, followed by the excess stress and workloads they faced and finally, inadequate compensation. The hope is that the fresh insights provided will encourage Modern Orthodox day school ...

Abstract: Critical pedagogy makes for an enriched approach to Jewish Studies because of shared principles and values also found in Jewish traditions and teachings. The first step of critical pedagogy is to pose the world as a problem. This article agrees with scholarship suggesting that whiteness and racism are fundamental problems of our time. After synthesizing Jewish Studies with a critical pedagogical approach that focuses on the problems of whiteness and racism, the next important step in critical pedagogy is reflection—in this instance, reflection on the relationship between Judaism, whiteness, and racism. This article uses critical whiteness studies as a theoretical framework for reflecting on these relationships. There are two overarching schools of thought in critical whiteness studies—one being that whiteness can be rearticulated to "antiracist white," and the other arguing that whiteness must be abolished. The following article builds upon the latter, making a proposal for one way that Judaism might contribute to liberation movements led by Black, Indigenous and People of Color toward the abolition of whiteness and racism. Finally, the article explores cultural action, the third step of critical pedagogy, at the ideological and material levels. Bringing critical whiteness studies to Jewish Studies reveals one of the many possible ways that Judaism can help to dismantle whiteness and racism.