Elie Holzer: “Jews, Non-Jews, and Teaching the Hasidic Homily: Hermeneutic Approaches and Pedagogical Deliberations”

Avinoam Rosenak: “Machshevet Yisrael as an Encounter: Jewish Philosophy or Judaism as a Philosophy—Educational Implications”

Chair: Jonathan Cohen

This session was part of “Jewish Learning and the Non-Jew,” the 2017 Melton Coalition for Creative Interaction conference, hosted by 91�첥’s William Davidson Graduate School of Jewish Education. The Melton Coalition for Creative Interaction is a collaboration of the three centers endowed by Samuel M. Melton ��”l at 91�첥, , and .

Elie Holzer is a practice-oriented philosopher of Jewish education, who serves as Associate Professor at the School of Education, directs the Stern Institute for the Study and Advancement of Religious Education and holds the R. Dr. David Ochs Chair for Teaching Jewish Religious Studies, at Bar Ilan University. He also serves on the faculty of the Mandel Teacher Educators Institute in the US. His research integrates text-based Jewish studies, philosophical hermeneutics, pedagogy, and ethical-spiritual traditions. His book, A Philosophy of Havruta: Understanding and Teaching the Art of Text Study in Pairs (Academic Studies Press), won the 2014 National Jewish Book Award in Education.

Avinoam Rosenak is a senior lecturer at the Hebrew University. Rosenak was the head of the department of Jewish Thought and he teaches in the Melton Centre for Jewish Education and the Department of Jewish Thought at the Hebrew University. He is a research fellow at the Van Leer Institute in Jerusalem and The Israeli Democracy Institute. His books include: The Prophetic Halakhah, (Magnes 2007); Rabbi Kook (Zalman Shazar 2006); Halakhah as an Agent of Change: Critical Studies in Philosophy of Halakhah, (Magnes, 2009); Cracks: Rabbi Kook, his Disciples and their Critics, (Resling press 2013); and Jewish Thoughts: In the Teachings of Aviezer Ravitzky (Zalman Shazar Center, 2015).

Jonathan Cohen teaches Philosophy of Education at the Hebrew University’s Seymour Fox School of Education and is currently the Director of the University’s Melton Centre for Jewish Education and co-director of the Melton Coalition for Creative Interaction. He is chiefly interested in the implications of modern Jewish thought for the philosophy of Jewish education. Within this sphere, he has placed special emphasis on the hermeneutic perspectives of modern Jewish thinkers and their importance for the teaching of canonical Jewish texts. He is the author of Philosophers and Scholars: Wolfson, Guttmann and Strauss on the History of Jewish Philosophy (1997) and the editor, with Dr. Elie Holzer, of Modes of Educational Translation (2008). His article on “Concepts of Scripture in Martin Buber and Franz Rosenzweig” appeared in the collection edited by Benjamin Sommer: Jewish Concepts of Scripture (2012).

Ofra Backenroth and Alex Sinclair: “‘Present Absentees’: On the Place of Non-Jewish Israeli Narratives in Israel Education”

Meredith Katz and Jeffrey Kress: “Middle School Students and ‘The Other’ in an Online Jewish History Simulation Activity”

Chair: Barry Holtz

This session was part of “Jewish Learning and the Non-Jew,” the 2017 Melton Coalition for Creative Interaction conference, hosted by 91�첥’s William Davidson Graduate School of Jewish Education. The Melton Coalition for Creative Interaction is a collaboration of the three centers endowed by Samuel M. Melton ��”l at 91�첥, , and .

Ofra Arieli Backenroth is the associate dean of the William Davidson Graduate School of Jewish Education of 91�첥 and an adjunct assistant professor of Jewish education. Her interests reflect an integration of the arts in Jewish education, Hebrew language, Israeli literature, and teaching Israel. Dr. Backenroth earned an MFA in dance education from Teachers College, Columbia University, and a BA in comparative literature and an education diploma from Tel Aviv University. She is a fellow at the Institute for Israel Studies at Brandeis University.

Alex Sinclair is Director of Programs in Israel Education and an adjunct assistant professor in Jewish Education for 91�첥. His main area of expertise is Israel Education, a subject on which he has published academic articles, written numerous op-eds, and lectured widely. He is also a Tanakh Education Consultant for 91�첥’s Legacy Heritage Instructional Leadership Institute. In addition, he is a senior consultant for Shaharit, an Israeli non-profit that works to bring diverse communities together to create a new kind of Israeli politics. He is the author of Loving the Real Israel: An Educational Agenda for Liberal Zionism.

Meredith Katz is a clinical assistant professor of Jewish education at 91�첥, teaching courses in constructivist pedagogy, curriculum development, the teaching of Jewish history and research methods. She is also a Project Director for the Jewish Court of All Time, an online Jewish history simulation. Research interests include Jewish history education and online pedagogy.

Jeffrey S. Kress is the Bernard Heller Associate Professor of Jewish Education at the Jewish Theological Seminary. He is also a coordinator of the Research Center at the Leadership Commons of the Davidson School. He has a degree in Clinical Psychology and has written on Jewish identity, experiential Jewish education, and social, emotional, and spiritual issues in Jewish education.

Barry W. Holtz is the Theodore and Florence Baumritter Professor of Jewish Education at the Jewish Theological Seminary and co-director of the Melton Coalition for Creative Interaction. His most recent books are an edited volume of the collected writing of Professor Joseph Lukinsky ��”l entitled Maybe the Lies We Tell Are Really True (91�첥 Press, 2016) and the Rabbi Akiva: Sage of the Talmud (Yale University Press, forthcoming in March 2017).

Marc Silverman: “‘Free Jews’ and Their Views on Jewish Culture and Its Interface with Other Peoples’ Cultures”

Yossi Turner: “Jewish Learning and the Non-Jew: Toward a New Particularist-Universalist Paradigm”

Chair: Jeffrey Kress

This session was part of “Jewish Learning and the Non-Jew,” the 2017 Melton Coalition for Creative Interaction conference, hosted by 91�첥’s William Davidson Graduate School of Jewish Education. The Melton Coalition for Creative Interaction is a collaboration of the three centers endowed by Samuel M. Melton ��”l at 91�첥, , and .

Marc Silverman, presently retired, served as a senior lecturer in the Hebrew university’s Seymour Fox School of Education and Melton Centre for Jewish education for over thirty years. He teaches, researches, writes and publishes articles in two main interrelated educational fields: Philosophy of Education, Moral, progressive, radical and Jewish educational thought; and the intellectual history, sociology and ideologies of current Jewish cultural and educational movements and trends. His monograph on the pedagogy and philosophy of Janusz Korczak entitled A Pedagogy of Humanist Moral Education: The Educational Thought of Janusz Korczak is scheduled to be published by Palgrave-Macmillan this March 2017.

Yossi Turner is professor of Jewish Thought and Philosophy at the Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem. His work is in the area of the philosophy of Jewish existence, education, culture and society and he his published books include The Relation to Zion and the Diaspora in 20th Century Jewish Thought (Hebrew) and Faith and Humanism: an Inquiry in Franz Rosenzweig’s Religious Philosophy (Hebrew), among others.

Jeffrey S. Kress is the Bernard Heller Associate Professor of Jewish Education at the Jewish Theological Seminary. He is also a coordinator of the Research Center at the Leadership Commons of the Davidson School. He has a degree in Clinical Psychology and has written on Jewish identity, experiential Jewish education, and social, emotional, and spiritual issues in Jewish education.

Adriane Leveen: “Biblical Narratives of Israelites and their Neighbors”

Matt Goldish: “Reading the Gospel through Talmudic Eyes: John Lightfoot’s Revolution”

Chair: Lori Fireman

This session was part of “Jewish Learning and the Non-Jew,” the 2017 Melton Coalition for Creative Interaction conference, hosted by 91�첥’s William Davidson Graduate School of Jewish Education. The Melton Coalition for Creative Interaction is a collaboration of the three centers endowed by Samuel M. Melton ��”l at 91�첥, , and .

Adriane Leveen is Senior Lecturer in Hebrew Bible at Hebrew Union College. Her new book, Biblical Narratives of Israelites and their Neighbors: Strangers at the Gates will be published by Routledge Press. Leveen’s book Memory and Tradition in the Book of Numbers was published by Cambridge University Press (2008).

Matt Goldish is the Samuel M. and Esther Melton Professor of Jewish History at The Ohio State University. His research focuses on Sephardim after the Spanish Expulsion, messianism, and early modern intellectual history.

Lori Botnick Fireman is Program Coordinator for the Melton Center at the Ohio State University. She has been a Jewish communal professional for 23 years. For the last 18 years, Lori’s work has focused on multi-generational informal Jewish education, including among other things, family Jewish education programs in synagogues, Holocaust education for teachers, and most recently adult Jewish education programs in the central Ohio community. As Program Coordinator for the Melton Center, Lori manages the Center’s outreach programs, conferences, and concerts, student scholarships, recruitment, development, and all aspects of the Melton Center’s public “face.”

Sarah Tauber: “A Jewish Professor and Christian Students Meet: Teaching and Learning in an Introduction to Judaism Course at a Christian Seminary”

Michael Gillis: “Teaching About Other Religions in Jewish Education”

Chair: Ofra Backenroth

This session was part of “Jewish Learning and the Non-Jew,” the 2017 Melton Coalition for Creative Interaction conference, hosted by 91�첥’s William Davidson Graduate School of Jewish Education. The Melton Coalition for Creative Interaction is a collaboration of the three centers endowed by Samuel M. Melton ��”l at 91�첥, , and .

Sarah Tauber is an assistant professor of Jewish Education at the William Davidson Graduate School of Jewish Education at 91�첥. Sarah’s recently published book, Open Minds, Devoted Hearts: Portraits of Adult Religious Educators, explores the role of clergy as teachers of adults in congregational settings. Sarah’s scholarly research on rabbis as teachers has taken on an interfaith dimension through her teaching at Union Theological Seminary and her leadership and participation in the Religious Education Association, an interfaith professional association of scholars of religious education.

Michael Gillis is a member of the faculty at The Melton Centre for Jewish Education at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He is also currently the Academic Director of the Department of Teacher Education at the Seymour Fox School of Education at the Hebrew University.

Ofra Arieli Backenroth is the associate dean of the William Davidson Graduate School of Jewish Education of 91�첥 and an adjunct assistant professor of Jewish education. Her interests reflect an integration of the arts in Jewish education, Hebrew language, Israeli literature, and teaching Israel. Dr. Backenroth earned an MFA in dance education from Teachers College, Columbia University, and a BA in comparative literature and an education diploma from Tel Aviv University. She is a fellow at the Institute for Israel Studies at Brandeis University

Ari Ackerman: “Universalism and Jewish Nationalism in the Educational Philosophy of Mordecai Kaplan”

Daniel Marom: “Jewish Educational Roots and Implications of Zamenhof’s Global Esperanto Movement”

Chair: Bill Robinson

This session was part of “Jewish Learning and the Non-Jew,” the 2017 Melton Coalition for Creative Interaction conference, hosted by 91�첥’s William Davidson Graduate School of Jewish Education. The Melton Coalition for Creative Interaction is a collaboration of the three centers endowed by Samuel M. Melton ��”l at 91�첥, , and .

Ari Ackerman is the dean of the Schechter Institute in Jerusalem, where he teaches course in the areas of Jewish philosophy and education. He received his Ph.D. in Jewish thought from Hebrew University and his critical edition of the sermons of Zerahia Halevi Saledin recently appeared (Beer Sheva University Press, 2013). He is currently working on a monograph on creation and codification in the philosophy of Hasdai Crescas.

Daniel Marom leads the development of curriculum and pedagogy at the Mandel School for Educational Leadership in Jerusalem. Marom’s research and publications focus on the educational ideas of Israeli and Jewish thinkers and he has developed model curricula for Israeli and Jewish education on the basis of these ideas in a wide range of settings. As a member of the founding group of the Mandel Foundation’s endeavors in Israel, he launched the Foundation’s publication program, editing its Monographs series and co-editing Visions of Jewish Education; Dialogue of the Disparate: Jewish Interethnic Encounter at the Shevach-Moffet High School in Tel Aviv; and Weekly Word from the Bible: Ancient Hebrew Culture for Toddlers according to the Educational Vision of Haim Nachman Bialik. He also established the Mandel Visions Unit in 2004 and directed it until 2010.