Ed-Jew-Cation — Learning, Not Literacy: Judaism Unbound Episode 339 - Diane Tickton Schuster
Diane Tickton Schuster, the editor of a new book entitled Portraits of Adult Jewish Learning: Making Meaning at Many Tables, joins Dan and Lex to ask what "Jewish education" means, and why it doesn't serve us when we think of it only (or primarily) as something that children experience. Also, Banksy makes an appearance (he says cryptically...)!
[1] You can purchase Portraits of Adult Jewish Learning via this link! To learn more about Diane Tickton Schuster, click here, and to learn more about The Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Studies in Jewish Education, head to www.Brandeis.edu/Mandel.
[2] For our Judaism Unbound mini-series that explored Jewish Education (though, as we spoke about in this episode, it largely focused on childhood education), see the following episodes:
- Episode 186: Re-Imagining Jewish Education (Miriam Heller Stern)
- Episode 187: Child-Centered Jewish Education (Rebecca Milder)
- Episode 188: The Art of Jewish Education (Alicia Jo Rabins)
- Episode 190: Jewish Camps, Jewish Utopias (Avi Orlow)
- Episode 191: Jewish Kids Groups (Ana Robbins, Neshama Littman)
- Episode 192: Online Jewish Learning (Danielle Eskow)
- Episode 193: Overhauling Jewish Education (Dan Mendelsohn Aviv)
- Episode 199: Learning Judaism (Abby Eisenberg)
- Episode 200: Educating Ourselves (Benay Lappe)
[3] Dan references a recent episode featuring Janet Krasner Aronson, exploring how Jewish communal population studies are crafted. To listen in, head to Episode 337: Let’s End “Good Jew”/“Bad Jew” - Janet Krasner Aronson.
[4] Here are the two photos mentioned in the episode, that serve as “book-ends” (literally!) to Tickton Schuster’s book:
“Discussing the Talmud” by Isidor Kaufmann (1853–1921); image courtesy of the Art Renewal Center, www.artrenewal.org. This image kicks off Tickton Schuster’s book, and helps illustrate what many people think of, when they hear “Jewish Education.”
“Agency Job” by Banksy, sometimes titled “Cigarette Break.” This image, in Tickton Schuster’s words, “plays with our perceptions of the boundaries of art; [Banksy] requires us to shift our understanding of what it means to “frame” an image.”
[5] Purchase Diane Tickton Schuster’s earlier books, mentioned in this episode, at either of the following links: Jewish Lives, Jewish Learning: Adult Jewish Learning in Theory and Practice, Portraits of Jewish Learning: Viewing Contemporary Jewish Education Close-In.
[6] For a few other past Judaism Unbound episodes, whose guests are featured as authors (or whose organizations are discussed) in Portraits of Adult Jewish Learning, see Episode 145: Studying Jews Differently - Tobin Belzer and Episode 156: Creating Jewish Theatre - Aaron Henne. For a bonus episode, which looks at Exagoge, the production by Theatre Dybbuk featured in Tickton Schuster’s book, see Bonus Episode: The Dybbukast Season 2, Episode 8 - Adapting Exagoge.
[7] Diane Tickton Schuster mentions that as an American-Jewish community, we have been reckoning with the ways in which we have counted some Jews, but not others, in the past and present. For more on this, see Episode 232: Why the Uncounted Count - Ilana Kaufman and/or Episode 293: Beyond the Count - Ilana Kaufman, Ari Y. Kelman.
[8] For a past episode related to the essay entitled “Portrait of an Emerging Jewish World, Learning from New Latinx Immigrant Jews,” written by Lourdes Arguelles and Anne M. Rivero, see Episode 57: Becoming Jewish on the Web - Juan Mejia.