Jewish Education in France : 19th – 20th Centuries
Call for Articles: Jewish Education in France : 19th – 20th Centuries.
We are seeking proposals for chapter contributions to an edited volume.
Argument
Education is the reflection of society, which chooses from its past the knowledge and values that it wishes to transmit to the generation of tomorrow, adding its own interpretation to them. The history of education is therefore the history of society. Thus, the history of Jewish education in France in modern times is in fact the history of the Jews of France, through its demographic changes and its identity questions, in the face of national issues that have crossed its community path. The dynamics develop in both directions: the school influences the community because it shapes the citizens of tomorrow, and it is influenced by the community which gives it impetus and dynamism.
Today, the Jewish school has become one of the strong links in the organized Jewish community in France. Its history is older and to fully understand the evolution and its impact on community life we must go back to the beginning of the Emancipation of the Jews of France. The challenge is to transform the Jew of yesterday into an Israelite, aware of his civic duties and his confessional particularity. At the same time, the Guizot law dealing with the organization of primary education and school control insists on the importance of moral and religious instruction in state schools, according to the diversity of religious affiliation. of every citizen: Catholic, Protestant or Jewish. The progression of secular education and the Law of Separation lead to a new conception of the Jewish school, which will evolve according to demographic and spiritual changes within the Jewish community of France.
The Jewish school in France is therefore at the intersection between the modernization of education on the one hand and national education policy on the other. At the same time, it evolves in the context specific to Jewish education and responds to its main challenge: the continuation of the Jewish people through the transmission of Jewish tradition and its culture.
Chronological benchmarks and thematic tracks
First Part: Education and Identity – from the Revolution to the Great War
• The educational role of the Central Consistory
• Religious instruction manuals
• Consistorial schools in Paris and in the provinces
• Tensions and conflicts around Jewish education in French Algeria
• Lucien de Hirsch school
Second Part: Education and Memory – The Interwar Period
• The professional schools of the ORT
• Schools of Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe in Paris
• The Yechiva of Neudorf (Strasbourg) and the Yechiva Hahkmei Tsarfat (Aix-les-Bains).
• Informal education: the EIF movement
• The Maimonides College
Third Part: Education and Renewal – after the Holocaust
• The French-style Jewish school: visions, programs, and realities
• Novardock in Paris: The Refuge organisation
• The impact of community institutions on the development of the Jewish school
• The place of the State of Israel in Jewish education
• The Talmud-Torah and community life
• The educational role of the Lubavitcher Movement
• The development of Jewish schools at the end of the 20th century
Towards a professionalism of Jewish education
• The association contract: an issue for the Jewish school
• Kindergartens, educational psychology, and nursery schools
• Specialized education and supervision of academic difficulties
• Training of teachers and directors
Each chapter contribution to this volume must address some of the questions raised in at least one of the emphases outlined above and must be in French and no more than 10,000 words, including all notes and images. Contributions will be due by April 1, 2022.
To participate, please send a proposal, in French, of no more than 500 words and a brief c.v. to Yehuda Bitty at yehudab.@herzog.ac.il by October 15, 2021. You will hear during November 2021 if your proposal to contribute a chapter to the volume has been accepted. We will accept proposals from authors at any stage from advanced graduate students to senior scholars.
For questions, please feel free to send an email to the editors, at yehudab@herzog.ac.il or p.petitohayon@fsju.org