Jewish history has been the orphan of Judaic curricula for as long as there have been Jewish schools, with rare exceptions. Text study has never evolved into an analysis of the environment that produced those texts. The reasons for this pedagogic lacuna have to do with the belief in the primacy of text mastery above all else, and the suspicions of heterodoxy surrounding a secular methodology towards understanding the Jewish experience.
There have been Jewish history books written by “traditional” authors dating back to the medieval period, but except for dating certain key events in our past, they lack critical analysis. In 2022, schools wishing to teach Jewish history suffer from a lack of properly trained students of Jewish history with proper teaching credentials. In addition, most talented Jewish-history teachers create their own sourcebooks since proper Jewish-history textbooks are quite rare. It should be noted that in Israel, they are more successful in this endeavor.
It is my belief that Jewish history instruction should begin in high school since a sense of historical time is not developed in the younger years. It is also my belief that there are so many resources available online that instructional materials must include carefully curated audiovisual realia, recreations, videos etc. Primary sources are available in the original or in translation and must be studied in order to understand the time period under analysis. Analysis is the key, not just data. Why is this person or event important? What changed as a result of this event or personality?
Year One should focus on ancient Jewish history through the Geonim. Year Two should cover the middle ages in Spain and Western Europe. Year Three should focus on Eastern Europe through World War I, and the United States. Year Four is dedicated to the study of the Shoah and Zionism. Research projects should be included in each semester.
Last year I attended a back-to-school night at one of our local high schools with one of my grandchildren and sat in on a Jewish-history class. The teacher was technically proficient and clearly had studied Jewish history. I hope this teacher is able to sustain excitement about the subject, but the teacher needed more depth than a few college courses. If we are serious about teaching Jewish history—and that is not necessarily a given——we need to invest in proper pedagogic and content training for our teachers.
Dr. Wallace Greene earned his MA and PhD in Jewish history from Yeshiva University in rabbinics and medieval Jewish history. He has taught at YU, Queens College, Upsala College and The Frisch School. He is currently a consultant to The International March of The Living and was the associate producer of three television programs on the Shoah.
