Education
We are privileged to host Professor Adam Mendelsohn in this episode. He discusses important findings from a recent set of surveys conducted by the Kaplan Centre for Jewish Studies. Although at first glance, the South African community survey is not immediately relevant to Jewish education, it is obvious to me that these results are very significant indeed. Schools are embedded in a community and serve the needs of that society, while also shaping that society. Many of the survey findings discussed shape and are shaped by the Jewish education system. This is an important conversation to set the scene for deep questions such as: What is the purpose of Jewish education in SA? In Cape Town? What are the best approaches? And how shall we proceed? I hope you enjoy this episode as much as I enjoyed speaking with Adam. You can read about our guest's bio below. Kaplan Centre: http://www.kaplancentre.uct.ac.za/ Surveys: http://www.kaplancentre.uct.ac.za/kaplancentre/reports Adam D. Mendelsohn is Director of the Kaplan Centre for Jewish Studies & Research and Associate Professor of History at the University of Cape Town. He is the author of The Rag Race: How Jews Sewed Their Way to Success in America and the British Empire (New York University Press, 2014) and co-editor of Jews and the Civil War: A Reader (with Jonathan D. Sarna, New York University Press, 2010) and Transnational Traditions: New Perspectives on American Jewish History (with Ava Kahn, Wayne State University Press, 2014). He was Chief Historian of the exhibition The First Jewish Americans at the New-York Historical Society, and co-curator of By Dawn’s Early Light at the Princeton University Museum of Art. He is co-editor of the journal American Jewish History. Much of his work focuses on the relationship between Jews in America and the British Empire prior to mass eastern European migration, a time when these fledgling communities were beginning to grapple with the challenges of living in liberal societies. While the time-period that he focuses on has remained consistent – the mid-nineteenth century – the themes he has explored have been more varied: economic mobility, cultural production, and religious innovation. His latest project draws on “big data” – a large database of Jewish soldiers who served in the Civil War – to reconsider the experience of Jews during this period.