THE ELIZABETH T. AND ABRAM P. PIWOSKY MEMORIAL LECTURE
FOR EMERGING SCHOLARS IN JEWISH EDUCATION
Creating 21st Century Readers
in Jewish Education

Ziva R. Hassenfeld, Ph.D.
Thursday, May 19, 2022, 7:00 pm ET Online

Jewish studies is at a crossroads. Tasked with enormous and competing responsibilities including textual literacy, Jewish literacy, decoding skills, reading skills, language skills, cultural transmission, identity development, and spiritual inspiration, the Jewish studies teacher faces a near impossible challenge. The laundry list of competing outcomes often results in hodgepodge curricula with constant moving targets. In response, this talk offers a new focused answer to the goal of Jewish studies in Jewish day schools: inducting students into a Jewish literate practice. I will offer a new vision for what Jewish studies classes could be and how they can prepare students for the reading demands of the 21st century.
Ziva R. Hassenfeld, Ph.D. is the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Assistant Professor in Jewish Education at Brandeis University, and Assistant Director of Research for the Mandel Center. She studies reading comprehension from a sociocultural perspective, focusing on how children develop interpretations of the Hebrew Bible as a case of student reading development. She uses a variety of qualitative methods including ethnographic observation, stimulated recall interviewing, and think-aloud interviewing.

In addition to her research, Ziva is a passionate educator. She has taught Hebrew Bible in a variety of settings, including at JCDS, Gann Academy, Genesis/BIMA at Brandeis, Silicon Valley Beit Midrash, Stanford Hillel, Congregation Beth Jacobs, and Congregation Emek Beracha. She is a Wexner Fellow and Davidson Scholar, class of '25.
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