We Need a Hero: Toward a New Technique for Teaching Heroes in the Jewish Supplementary School

by Josh-Mason Barkin

Old magazines can surprise you.

In 1994, CAJE published an edition of its Jewish Education News dedicated entirely to Jewish heroes. Fifteen years later, flipping through dusty papers on a bookshelf, that issue of JEN inspired us to publish our new book on heroes, Eizehu Gibor: Living Jewish Values.

None of the many articles in that issue explicitly mention it, but there’s a tension throughout the Spring 1994 edition’s pages. On one hand, esteemed thinkers of Jewish education argue that we need to introduce our students to the mythological characters of Jewish history like Samson and Herzl. On the other hand, equally esteemed thinkers argue that we need to teach our students about everyday heroes, normal people who can show us how to live mitzvah-filled Jewish lives.

We teach Jewish values not because we want our students to know the Hebrew names for a bunch of ethical principles. Rather, we teach Jewish values because we want our students to live moral lives informed by the Jewish tradition and their connection to God. Knowing that kavod means respect is useless if you’re not a respectful person.

Recently, educators have been telling us a lot about this struggle to have the Jewish values they teach in the classroom translate into the way students treat each other. Suffice it to say that we hear a lot of frustration in those educators’ voices. We think Eizehu Gibor can help.

How do heroes fit into the equation of values internalization? And why are we publishing a new heroes book this year? Perhaps the best way to explain is to explore the tension between the “big heroes” and the “everyday heroes.”

Helping to Make Schools That Work: A Publisher’s Response to Jack Wertheimer

In the last couple months, you may have noticed Torah Aura Productions using a new mission statement: “Making success in Jewish education an achievable reality.”

We’re really excited about this new articulation of our mission because it so clearly sums up who we are and what we do. We’re in the business of helping Jewish schools succeed.

So it was with great pleasure that we read a new study from Professor Jack Wertheimer entitled Schools That Work: What We Can Learn from Good Jewish Supplemental Schools. It’s an analytical look at Jewish schools that suggests a path towards success. (You can download the entire report by clicking here.)

With the help of a team of top-notch researchers and funded by the Avi Chai Foundation, Professor Wertheimer looks at ten excellent supplemental schools and draws out common elements that contribute to their success.

What is important about this study is that it affirms a truth stated too infrequently: that supplementary schools can succeed. Perhaps more importantly, Wertheimer identifies the elements that help define “success” in schools, offering suggestions for replicating the excellence that he and his team found.

The study presents six “noteworthy characteristics of good schools.” Good schools (1) work on building friendships and community, (2) go beyond teaching facts to allow students to work on meaning, (3) use experiential education, (4) actualize a clear vision, (5) value themselves and their students, and (6) involve not only students but their families. Wertheimer makes it clear that it takes “a combination of traits to forge a strong school.”

Because we’re invested in making success in Jewish education an achievable reality, we take these six characteristics very seriously. Wertheimer’s work has pushed us to ask some meaningful questions about our work. How can we help enable schools to actualize these characteristics in their own authentic way? In what ways do these principles inform the curricular materials we publish? What does it mean to be a publishing company whose mission is to help Jewish educators and teachers achieve success?