Description
Book Synopsis73rd National Jewish Book Awards Finalist
Charts how changes to Jewish education in the nineteenth century served as a site for the wholescale reimagining of Judaism itself
The earliest Jewish Sunday schools were female-led, growing from one school in Philadelphia established by Rebecca Gratz in 1838 to an entire system that educated vast numbers of Jewish youth across the country. These schools were modeled on Christian approaches to religious education and aimed to protect Jewish children from Protestant missionaries. But debates soon swirled around the so-called sorry state of feminized American Jewish supplemental learning, and the schools were taken over by men within one generation of their creation. It is commonly assumed that the critiques were accurate and that the early Jewish Sunday school was too feminized, saccharine, and dependent on Christian paradigms. Tracing the development of these schools from their inception through the first
Trade Review
Fills a major gap in the history of Jewish education in America. This is the first detailed study of the decades between the founding of the first Jewish Sunday School in 1838 and the development of the alternative model of the Talmud Torah during the earliest years of the 20th century. A significant contribution to the fields of religion, education, and history. -- Melissa R. Klapper, Rowan University
Meticulously researched and elegantly written. Featuring tremendous original historical research and vivid prose, this is an engaging and impressive addition to the study of religion in the United States and American Jewish history. -- Jodi Eichler-Levine, author of Painted Pomegranates and Needlepoint Rabbis: How Jews Craft Resilience and Create Community
Jewish Sunday Schools is an engrossing, cohesive history of the unsung, integral role of women in American Jewish religious education. * Foreword Reviews *
This title offers a window into the formation of the American Jewish community. A very well-researched book of interest to anyone who ever attended or sent their child to a Jewish Sunday school. * Library Journal *
Yares skillfully details early framings of nineteenth-century American Judaism while placing those framings within the context of American religion. Jewish Sunday Schools will provoke and inform those thinking about current issues in American Jewish education. -- Karla Goldman, author of Beyond the Synagogue Gallery: Finding a Place for Women in American Judaism
