Teaching and Learning in Jewish Day Schools

Ziva R. Hassenfeld 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.

These investigations connect her to the worlds of biblical hermeneutics, both contemporary and rabbinic, as well as literary theory and criticism. Her recent publications can be seen in ScholarWorks.

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 25.

Sharon Avni, Professor of Academic Literacy and Linguistics at BMCC at the City University of New York (CUNY), is an applied linguist whose research focuses on language ideology, socialization, policy, and discourse in language education. Combining ethnographic fieldwork, sociolinguistic theory, and discourse analysis, Avni’s research primarily examines the field of Hebrew teaching and learning, use, and ideologies in informal and formal contexts in the US. Avni’s coauthored book, Hebrew Infusion: Language and Community at American Jewish Summer Camps was the winner of the 2020 National Jewish Book Award in Education and Jewish Identity. Her current book project Speaking of Hebrew: Language and the American Jewish Community explores the discursive, ideological, historical, and policy perspectives of contemporary Hebrew learning and usage in the United States.

Jonathan Krasner’s 2020 book, Hebrew Infusion: Language and Community at American Jewish Summer Camps (Rutgers University Press), co-authored with Sarah Bunin Benor and Sharon Avni, was the recipient of the 2020 National Jewish Book Award in Education and Jewish Identity. His 2011 book, The Benderly Boys and American Jewish Education (Brandeis University Press), was the winner of the 2011 National Jewish Book Award in American Jewish Studies. He was named as a 2012 finalist for the Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature.

He is currently working on a history of the American Jewish Day School movement and was the recipient of the Sylvia and Moshe Ettenberg Prize of the Network for Research in Jewish Education to support his research. He is inaugurating a day school archives project, which will involve a collaboration between the Mandel Center for Studies in Jewish Education and the Brandeis Goldfarb Library.

In addition to the history of American Jewish education, his research interests include the teaching and learning of Jewish history and social studies, Jewish youth, and Jews and sexuality. His articles have appeared in a variety of academic journals and edited collections.

Krasner is also the co-writer, with Dr. Jonathan D. Sarna, of the two-volume award-winning Jewish history textbook for young people, The History of the Jewish People: A Story of Tradition and Change (Behrman House, 2006, 2007), and the one-volume Jewish History: The Big Picture (Behrman House, 2008).

Krasner, who was a Wexner Graduate Education Fellow from 1994–98, received his doctorate in American Jewish Studies at Brandeis. He has a master’s in education from the Harvard University Graduate School of Education. From 2002–2014 he was an assistant and associate professor of the American Jewish Experience at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion. Prior to his academic career, he taught for ten years in Jewish day schools and was the founding history department chair at Gann Academy.

He is the past chair of the Network for Research in Jewish Education and serves on the editorial boards of the American Jewish Archives Journal and the Journal of Jewish Education. Krasner is also a member of the American Jewish Historical Society’s Academic Board, the Association for Jewish Studies, the American Educational Research Association, the History of Education Society, and the Organization of American Historians.

Krasner is also the co-founder of Keshet and a member of the executive board of Moving Traditions.

Sivan Zakai is the Sara S. Lee Associate Professor of Jewish Education at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion’s Los Angeles campus. She directs the Children’s Learning About Israel Project and codirects Project ORLIE: Research and Leaderishp in Israel Education. She is the author of My Second Favorite Country: How American Jewish Children Think About Israel, winner of the 2022 National Jewish Book Award in Education and Jewish Identity.

Jon A. Levisohn is Associate Professor and the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Chair in Jewish Educational Thought at Brandeis University, and directs the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Studies in Jewish Education. Professor Levisohn’s areas of specialization include philosophy of education, Jewish education, hermeneutics and the epistemology of the humanities, and scholarship of teaching classical Jewish texts. Levisohn’s recent volumes include Advancing the Learning Agenda in Jewish Education (2018, with Jeffrey Kress) and Beyond Jewish Identity (2019, with Ari Y. Kelman).