A joint IJJER-IARJE special issue IJJER International Journal of Jewish Education Research, 2013 (5-6), 3-12. Multiple identities in Jewish Education Introduction Fostering and strengthening Jewish identity formation is an important purpose of Jewish education; some would argue even its overriding purpose. Yet what is meant by Jewish identity, and how our educational purposes are understood to nurture its construction, has become an increasingly contested issue. For some, Jewish identity is characterized by a set of external established and measurable markers (for example, determined by rabbinic tradition, or theoretical understanding of Jewish peoplehood, or an image of an educated Jew), for others it is an emergent self-understanding shaped by the ways in which we align ourselves with certain others (an us ) and distinguish ourselves from others ( them ). For others still, the very language of Jewish identity discourse is itself a reification and objectification of Jewish life that creates the very problems it then identifies and seeks to solve (for example, the problem of falling levels of Jewish engagement). Talk of coherent identities, hybrid identities, Jewish identity as a cultural category or as a committed form of life; identity as content, identity as character, as story or as an understanding of purposes, these constructions can be found to inform our approach to the many communal projects we set for ourselves (the most recent one being the Pew report) and determine the categories and lenses that shape contemporary Jewish scholarship, including the articles in this publication. These differences also reflect different theoretical sensitivities and approaches. The rich semantic field in which the word identity operates means that it comes to signify different ranges of meaning in different contexts. Our vocabularies may seem similar on a surface level, yet they often mark out quite different territory. Moving between 3
Introduction modern and postmodern worldviews and across alternate disciplinary understandings of who we Jews are can create situations in which our dialogues often seem to speak at cross purposes. Yet moving between different worldviews and disciplinary framings can also bring us into dialogue with voices from within the Jewish interpretative tradition that offer us new conceptual resources through which to reconfigure identity discourse in constructive ways. This too is something you will find in the papers included in this volume. The title of this publication comes from a conference held in Israel in 2009 1 that went by the same name. The conference sought to bring together people from across disciplines and from Israel and the Diaspora to explore the intersection between contemporary Jewish identity discourse and the field of Jewish education. This publication is not, however, a set of proceedings of the 2009 conference. Rather, it is the result of an understanding that emerged in the conference that a body of research that both contributed to our thinking about Jewish identity formation and its implications for Jewish education, and to a more nuanced understanding of the identity issues present in different contexts in which Jewish life is played out, would constitute a substantial contribution to the field. An open call for papers was made that sought conceptual, empirical and programmatic research on the topic of Jewish identity and Jewish identity formation. In this context a set of questions were posed: What definitions of Jewish identity inform the research and practice of Jewish educators? How can we conceptualize, study, document identity formation in Jewish Education in diverse national contexts, across varying ages and located in different educational settings? How do multiple identities interact in the contexts of formal and informal Jewish education? What implications follow from our particular conceptions of Jewish identity for the field of Jewish education? We chose the title Multiple Identities in Jewish Education because it is purposively ambiguous and open. The term multiplicity simply points to their being more than one by definition it points to the presence of difference, but holds back from offering an interpretation 1 The 2009 IARJE conference, co-sponsored by the Mandel Leadership Institute and Oranim Academic College of Education. 4
Multiple identities in Jewish Education of what that difference amounts to (in a way in which terms such as pluralism, cosmopolitanism and hybridity do not). Multiple identities does not tell us whether difference is to be considered substantive or incidental, whether it represents loss (where difference is created by a loss of coherency) or a gain (where difference allows for relationships that give rise to the emergence of the new). This attitude and orientation toward multiplicity is something that was then left to each author to establish (implicitly or explicitly) within the context of their work. While the articles in this volume are formally grouped together by language (English and Hebrew), the more significant organization is a conceptual one. They are grouped together in roughly three sections according to their purposes and method. The first three papers in the English section (Zelkowitz, Rosenak, Schachter) together with the first article in the Hebrew section (by Ross) all seek to structurally reframe the way we think about Jewish identity formation through the introduction of new categories and distinctions. Each of these re-framings might be seen to respond to a particular concern in the modern postmodern debate. While implications for the field of Jewish education are hinted at in each of these cases, the actual application is largely left to the reader to explore. The next group of articles (Novis-Deutsch, Chamo and in the Hebrew section, Kizel) also offer a critique of the field and a reshaping of categories; however this reshaping emerges from an analysis of empirical studies carried out in the field. The final selection of articles (Laron and Mittelberg, Cohen, Lev-Ari, and Newberg) report on larger qualitative and quantitative research studies which seek to understand the contours of Jewish identity and explore the Jewish educational implications of their findings within specific contexts. In these cases there is a largely implicit understanding of the suitability of the variables being employed. These articles draw a detailed and rich picture of Jewish life as it emerges through these studies Reframing and Reshaping Identity Discourse The first article by Talia Zelkowitz raises a complex critique of the field of Jewish identity research, challenging both its modernist assumptions and its meta-narrative framing. Zelkowitz s concern is the Humpty Dumpty pathology she sees pervading Jewish Social Research 5
Introduction in which Jewish Identity is viewed as essentially broken and unable to be repaired. Zelkowitz argues that a pervading implicit modernist worldview, as evidenced in the either-or structure of much of our social science research, has led to a field pre-occupied with measuring the presence or absence of static variables (variables that reflect very specific idealizations of what was seen to constitute Jewish life before it was broken ). She then calls us to redirect our research efforts toward better understanding the complex, fluid, iterative process of Jewish identity formation as it is navigated and negotiated in the contemporary world. Such studies would allow new paradigms, metaphors, and understandings to emerge that could both illuminate the process of Jewish identity formation and guide us in our educational efforts. Avinoam Rosenak also seeks to shift the categories by which we understand identity and its construction away from modernist dualities. The separation of categories of body and mind, theory and practice in modernity gave rise to a polarization within philosophies of Judaism in which the central Judaism towards which socialization aimed was seen either as an ethical system (theory/mind) or Halakhah (practice/body), either Aggadah or Halakhah. Drawing on the life and writings of Rabbi S. R. Hirsch, Rosenak develops the concept of praxis as one that offers a middle ground position in which understanding and action become interdependent. Praxis involves a practical form of knowing emerging from one s participation in an act of performance (learning to ride a bike being a classic example). Praxis is linked to the formation of identity because understanding emerges through our acts of agency, but this then opens up the question of the limits of performative difference in Jewish life. How might we best understand Jewish plurality in a multicultural society? Developing the metaphor of cantelation marks (marks used to structure the performance of Torah reading) Rosenak explores how we can can be both faithful to the structure of Judaism and yet performatively open. The test of the veracity of Jewish forms of life then rests on our ability to show a coherent exegetical relation between the notes (halakhic guidelines) and the form (operative interpretation) our performances take (whether they be traditional or innovative, literal or figurative). This rich metaphor shifts the educational agenda in ways Rosenak only begins to explore, as it moves the purposes of Jewish education beyond the transmission of Judaism as a given fixed content to the capacity to construct a coherent exegesis concerning one s own 6
Multiple identities in Jewish Education praxis, or performance, of Jewish life. This has some resonance with Zelkowitz s call to move the Jewish social research agenda away from a concern with how identity measures up against fixed entities, to a concern with identity formation as the iterative fluid processes by which one navigates and negotiates Jewish life. Elli Schachter s paper sets out to explore a specific challenge modernist psychological theory poses to the discourse on Jewish identity. Framed in terms of the modern-post-modern structure debate in psychology, the chief concern here is whether multiple-identities are inherently problematic, showing a weakness in the psychological profile of the individual, or whether they might be considered a stable desirable state. The underlying question here is the extent to which the privileging of coherency as a marker of strong identity in psychology says more about the modernist assumptions underlying its conceptual categories than it does about the human condition. Setting out the debate through a discussion of Erik Erikson s notion of ego-identity (in which multiple identities are seen as impractical and immature and psycho-social maturity identified with wholeness ) and Gergen s counter-arguments (suggesting that in a post-modern world of continuing rapid change, complex and fluid identities might actually enhance ego resilience), Schechter draws from interviews conducted in previous studies to illustrate how it is possible for complex identities (inclusive of conflicting parts) to offer greater resources and greater flexibility for negotiating life. In Schachter, as in Rosenak, we find the call for a middle-ground position in which modern and post-modern polarities dissolve. While not developed in this paper, Shachter concludes by calling for the development of a new paradigm which is dynamic and contextually sensitive in which commitment and consistency can live alongside openness and change. Nicham Ross s article (which appears in the Hebrew section of the publication) shifts the interest in conceptual frames away from individual identity to collective identity. Asking the question What is the character of the Jewish collective? and How is it defined? Is it inclusive or exclusive? Ross offers a close examination of two thinkers Ahad Ha am and Mordecai Kaplan, juxtaposing their views on individual and collective identity and feelings of attachment and solidarity with the Jewish people and culture. Through this discussion he offers categories and lenses through which a nuanced set of distinctions emerge that can inform our understanding of the ways Jewish peoplehood can be 7
Introduction constructed. A primary concern running through the paper is to explore how Jewish essentialism might intersect with a national identity that is flexible and pluralistically open. Challenging and Reshaping Categories in Dialogue with Empirical Studies Continuing a focus on the collective, Nurit Novis-Deutsch examines the effect of multiple identities on our perceived relationship between self and Other. Can Jewish educators be committed to fostering strong Jewish religious identities on one hand and commitment to values of pluralism and openness towards others on the other? Are these two goals irreconcilable? While Gordon Allport s theory of groups (in which the strength of us is determined in inverse proportion to our rejection of a them - the Other ) suggests that this to be the case (and Novis-Deutsch provides plenty of studies in support of this), she argues that this picture lacks sufficient nuance. The first set of distinctions she introduces pluralize our understandings of Jewish Identity (as worldview, religious-praxis and historical-ethnic category). The second points to alternate traditions of social science research (Social Identity Theory) which offers different ways of framing the relevant variables that impact on prejudice. Finally she introduces the distinction between identity as a meaning structure and identity as a social construct. The second half of the paper plays out these possibilities in relation to two fascinating case studies from which she develops a conception of transformative identity in which our identity is seen as invented and reinvented. This allows a narrative route for reconciling pluralism with religiosity. While Novis- Deutsch remains an Allportian throughout, these alternate framings allow her to establish possibilities for Jewish religiosity and pluralism to co-exist in given contexts. The broader implicit message of the paper, however, is that the assumptions lying behind our conceptual frameworks contribute to and shape the problems we see, the questions we pursue, and our interpretation of findings. Quite a postmodern message. Nurit Chamo s paper challenges the perception that the curriculum of the State secular school system in Israel is indeed a secular curriculum. Utilizing six categories identified in the Shenhar report as constituting the mosaic through which Jewish secular schools convey Jewish content, Chamo seeks to illuminate the multiple ways Judaism is conveyed, 8
Multiple identities in Jewish Education exploring both the implicit and explicit ways in which the general curriculum in secular schools operates as a Jewish curriculum. The empirical base for this exploration is data gathered from her work with seventeen schools involved in the Twinning program between Tel Aviv and Los Angeles between 2001 and 2006. Through an analysis of this material, she establishes a variety of emergent variables that give shape to the way these areas are experienced within the school community and come to impact on students Jewish identity formation. This Jewish identity is, for Chamo profoundly unconscious, leaving students with an inability to articulate their identity in productive and meaningful ways. Chamo concludes the paper with a set of educational policy recommendations; in particular, she calls for expanding and deepening identity discourse within the schools. The final paper in this section by Arie Kizel (to be found at the Hebrew end of the publication) offers a critical assessment of the New Mizrachi narrative in Israel. Kizel takes the exploration of multiple identities into a new arena, examining how narrative construction can be a vehicle for addressing issues of power and presence within multicultural society. Presenting a three stage model for the development of resistance narratives, he applies this model as a lens through which to analyze the evolution of the New Mizrachi narrative through an empirical analysis of source documents since the 1990 s. The first stage involves offering anti-narrative challenges to the existing hegemonic narrative, the second seeks to dissolve the boundaries that the hegemonic discourse has determined while presenting itself in a positive light (through actions, values and skills), whereas the final stage is either a stage of liberation or entrapment. Kizel concludes that the new Mizrachi narrative hasn t yet broken through to the position of liberation. This places it under existential threat economically, socially and intellectually. Large scale studies seeking to describe the contours of Jewish Identity and/or Jewish Education The opening paper in this section by Laron and Mittelberg is set in the context of Israeli teacher education. The study on which it is based set out to explore Israeli Student-Teachers sense of their own Jewish Israeli identity and the ways in which they feel connected to the larger Jewish world, arguing that this is a weak point in their 9
Introduction Israeli Jewish identity. The study gathered data on the practical lifestyle representation of these identities in order to explore what factors might lead to a stronger peoplehood connection. In this context it is a perfect companion piece for Ross theoretical exploration of individual and collective identity, and feelings of attachment and solidarity with the Jewish people and culture in the thought of Ahad Ha am and Kaplan. Methodologically, the framing of the study mixes decidedly modernist categories (their version of the private/public split; an ideational, disembodied conception of globalization; recourse to the kind of fixed and culturally loaded variables for measuring the strength of Jewish identity that Zelkowitz speaks against) with a postmodern concern with fluidity and emergence (a peoplehood paradigm that seeks to be dynamic, created and recreated and reformed rather than reified and fixed). This hybridity creates its own challenges. Based on quantitative and qualitative data, the key research finding from which Laron and Mittelberg advocate a course of future action was the lack of a sense of connection and feeling of closeness to world Jewry. This leads them to propose developing and teaching Jewish peoplehood didactics courses within teacher-education programs that engage Israelis with diaspora Jewry and Judaism, to prepare teachers to bring peoplehood education into schools and classroom. Erik Cohen s paper addresses the world of American Jewish Summer Camps. His interest is in the different ways aspects of a multiply informed, or hyphenated, identity can find expression across contexts - in this case, the multiple ways Jewish identity is expressed by youth attending Reform, Conservative and Orthodox Jewish Summer camps in the USA. Cohen sets out both to map the Jewish identities of youth attending the camps, and to explore potential differences between the identities of those youth whose personal religious affiliation corresponds with that of the camp, and those whose personal affiliation differs from the institutional setting. Employing a scale of symbols he has developed iteratively over the past decade, 132 symbols were presented to youth who were asked to select all the ones that expressed some aspect of their Jewish identity. This self-selection of symbols avoids the standard reified assumptions and implicit theories embedded in many questionnaires (concerning what form Jewish identity takes) and remains flexible and open in application (where the symbol Torah remains an open category of meaning in contrast to the phrase attends Synagogue more than once 10
Multiple identities in Jewish Education a month ). For example, symbols identified by the youth as important to their Jewish identity include: Hope, Memory, Friendship, Education, Hebrew, Spirituality, State of Israel, Brooklyn, and Future. This research design offers a way of capturing emergent fluid self-descriptions of the contours Jewish identity takes in the contemporary world, yet allows for comparisons between and within different populations and contexts. The next article in this section by Lilach Lev-Ari explores and analyzes multiple ethnic identities and identification among firstgeneration Jewish Israeli immigrants in London and Paris. Lev-Ari s research seeks to identify whether these immigrants can be described as having a transnational identity, maintaining a strong identification with Israel, or whether their identity is primarily European, having integrated either into the local Jewish community or local non-jewish society. In addition she seeks to explore the role of different variables in the construction of their multiple identities, relationships and identifications. Through her analysis Lev-Ari finds that these immigrants have predominantly fluid and dynamic diasporic identities which are undergoing a process of ethnicity reconstruction. While values, social norms, and narratives constitutive of Israeli identity are largely maintained in both communities, integration into the local Jewish and non-jewish community differs between the two communities and between age groups. She concludes that...the reconstruction of ethnic Israeli-Jewish identity and collaborative identification with local Jews has the potential strength to enhance the survivability of European Jewry at large. The final paper in this volume by Adina Newberg turns our attention to the renewal sector in Israel. Her goal is to offer a rich description of emerging phenomena in Israel in which secular Jews are re-engaging with Jewish tradition and life. Newberg s research is based on an immersive clinical model in which the aim is not to draw conclusions based on verifiable evidence, but to offer a thick description of a phenomenon through the active recruitment of as many different interpretations from as many members as possible, to ultimately reach a composite picture based on all the information gathered and a great deal of interpretation. This methodology requires the researcher to immerse herself in the organizational cultures and contents on which she is writing and gives rise to a distinct style of reporting wherein data is presented through an iterative process in which she weaves together different 11
Introduction experiences in order to draw out patterns, relationships, paradoxes and questions. It acknowledges that the researcher: has her own conscious and unconscious biases, frames of reference, and emotions, that may produce unintentional filtering (Miller and Mintzberg, 1983). Concluding the volume on this note, a style that is at the other end of the social science spectrum from the research language of variables and degrees of deviation that is represented in other papers in this collection, reminds us of the plurality of practice present within the field of humanities and Jewish social science research. Jen Glaser, David Mittelberg and Erik H. Cohen Editors of the Special Joint IJJER-IARJE Issue 12