For many years, Jewish educators have relied on the phrase “Jewish identity” to describe their educational goals. We hear about “strengthening Jewish identity” or “deepening Jewish identity.” The Mandel Center’s new book, Beyond Jewish Identity: Rethinking Concepts and Imagining Alternatives (Academic Studies Press, September 2019), argues that this formulation is a problem. What does it actually mean? What are the unintended consequences of talking that way?

This is the first book to examine critically the relationship between Jewish education and Jewish identity. It looks at the costs of framing Jewish education in these terms and provides educators, policy makers, scholars and policy-makers new ways of thinking and talking about the desired outcomes of Jewish education.

Edited by Jon A. Levisohn (Brandeis University) and Ari Y. Kelman (Stanford University), the essays collected here argue that the use of “Jewish identity” as an educational goal hampers efforts to think seriously and aspirationally about Jewish education, and offer new possibilities for thinking about what Jewish education can be for.