Do we need a national curriculum for Jewish studies? - The Jewish Chronicle

“Who knows One?” goes the Seder table song — which is designed to engage children at the end of a long evening rather than test their knowledge.

But if you were actually trying to assess what children in our community know about Judaism and Jewish culture, it would not be so easy because there is no common benchmark.

One yardstick might be passes in GCSE or A-level religious studies and Hebrew, though the numbers of Jewish children taking A-level in these subjects is very low and they are set by bodies outside the Jewish community.

The Board of Deputies’ Jewish studies inspection service, Pikuach, evaluates each school according to the goals the school sets itself — not by any community-wide curriculum.

A group of educators from across the community recently tried to draw up a broad framework for “Jewish cultural literacy” , published in summer as part of the report After Covid — The Future of Jewish Education in the UK.

It was designed to apply across a broad section of the community for schools, youth movements and chedarim (if not the Charedi sector). The team of educators, convened by the London School of Jewish Studies and UJIA, identified 14 areas of knowledge, five skills and 10 values that they thought should serve as the foundation of “literacy”.

The knowledge topics included familiarity with “key stories” in the Tanach, the Jewish calendar and Jewish history; skills encompassed the “ability to conduct in-depth textual analysis of Torah (in English); and values ranged from commitment to tzedakah to valuing the state of Israel and “pride in Jewish identity”. It was the first attempt, at least for some time, to draw up such a framework and its content will provoke argument.

Some areas were omitted “for example, tikun olam, conversational Hebrew or in-depth Talmud study” because it was felt these were not “universally recognised as part of Basic Jewish Literacy, no matter how strongly some feel that they are”.Some no doubt would find it unthinkable to exclude fluency in Hebrew from the literacy list but the educators’ aims were more realistic, stating that familiarity with Hebrew should entail “reading” and “key words and expressions”.

The framework did not go into detail: for example, what constitutes a “key story” in the Bible. Different parts of the community will have different expectations. And knowledge of “great literary works of Jewish tradition” begs the question of what to include in this category — which could conceivably stretch from Yehuda Halevi’s Kuzari to Philip Roth’s The Counterlife.

But there is another question raised by this exercise: whether the framework needs some kind of curriculum and evaluation scheme as a follow-up.

Some might argue that the general education system already overburdens children with tests — and so importing them into Jewish studies would be unwelcome. The ultimate success of Jewish education lies not in how many facts children know but whether they grow up to be involved in the Jewish community as adults and tests may have little role to play in that.

On the other hand, having goals to work towards can provide motivation. The popular Etgar Challenge has proved one creative way of encouraging a basic foundation of general Jewish knowledge for primary children.

So what if there were a voluntary Jewish awards scheme with attainment levels in subjects such as knowledge of Tanach, analysis of Torah, modern Jewish history? Or a diploma to give sixth-formers something to strive for?

After Covid: The Future of Jewish Education in the UK can be found at lsjs.ac.uk

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Jewish Education