Mandel Center News & Events -I- December 2021
NEWS
Announcing the Second Cohort of the Doctoral Fellows Program

The Mandel Center for Studies in Jewish Education (MCSJE) is thrilled to announce that Nadia Beider, Saul Kaiserman, Anna Hartman and Elana Riback Rand have been selected for the second cohort of the Doctoral Fellows Program.
 
MCSJE’s Doctoral Fellows Program provides intellectual and professional support to a small group of current doctoral students in North American and Israeli universities whose research is, in one form or another, related to Jewish education. The Doctoral Fellows Program is led by Ilana Horwitz, assistant professor and Fields-Rayant Chair of Contemporary Jewish Life at Tulane University. Learn more about the fellows and the program on our website.
First Books of the Mandel-Brandeis Series in Jewish Education Available for Pre-Order

The first two books in the Mandel-Brandeis Series in Jewish Education are now available for pre-order. The Mandel-Brandeis Series is a partnership between MCSJE and the Brandeis University Press. Inside Jewish Day Schools: Leadership, Learning, and Community by Alex Pomson and Jack Wertheimer and Making Shabbat: Celebrating and Learning at American Jewish Summer Camps by Joseph Reimer can be purchased on Amazon. More details about the book launches will be shared shortly.
MCSJE Research

MCSJE is excited to share the latest research, "Producers, not Possessors: A Direction for Jewish Education in Turbulent Times," from the Center’s director, Jon A. Levisohn. This work is a part of his initiative, the Jewish Literacy Project, and was produced while he was a Fellow at the Applied Research Collective for American Jewry at NYU.
MCSJE in the News

MCSJE professors’ thought leadership recently featured in the media:
UPCOMING EVENTS
Learning About Learning
A Conversation with Professor Miriam Heller Stern:
How the Study of Jewish History Informs the Arts

Date: Thursday, December 9
Time: 1 - 1:30 p.m. ET via Zoom
How does a Jewish theater company draw upon Jewish history to wrestle artistically with universal human questions? How do they weave new narratives through the work of interpretation? In recent work, Miriam Heller Stern has addressed these questions, and analyzed how the model of a creative company can be a powerful way of conceiving of adult Jewish learning. 
Spotlight on Adult Jewish Learning

Date: Monday, December 13
Time: 1 - 2:15 p.m. ET via Zoom

Adult Jewish learning is flourishing in synagogues, JCCs, board tables, leadership cohorts, service cohorts, and of course, online. Join us for this virtual session to talk with a group of experienced educators about what they’ve learned from their studies of adult Jewish learning opportunities—who the learners are, why they participate, what happens, and how they grow or develop through the experience. It features insights gathered from the research conducted for the MCSJE Portraits of Adult Jewish Learning project.

This Spotlight session will include the following panelists: Sarra Alpert (Avodah), Rabba Yaffa Epstein (Wexner Foundation), Dr. Jane Shapiro (Orot: Center for Jewish Learning), Dr. Diane Tickton Schuster, and Professor Jon Levisohn (moderator)
PAST EVENTS
Teaching Choices that Stay with Us: Pandemic Teaching Decisions and Their Lasting Impact for Jewish Education

In the summer of 2020, the Mandel Center with partial funding from the Lippman Kanfer Foundation for Living Torah, launched the Online Jewish Education project, a set of investigations of online teaching and learning in five diverse Jewish educational settings. During this two-session conference, the researchers of this study explored their findings and discoveries in discussions with study participants. Watch the videos from this conference.
Learning about Learning
A Conversation with Professor Laura Yares:
Learning at a Jewish Museum

What happens when young adults visit a Jewish museum? What do they learn about Jews and Judaism, and how are they changed by what they see, touch, hear and feel? In this talk, Laura Yares discussed findings from a pre-pandemic study of 30 young adult visitors to the National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia, and described the rich learning that can occur in episodic, leisure time Jewish educational settings. Watch the discussion and learn more about the project.
Stay Connected with the Mandel Center
 
Did you know the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Studies in Jewish Education is now on Facebook and LinkedIn? Stay connected with us and hear about our upcoming events and innovative research by connecting with our pages.

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