THE JEWISH CENTER MOVEMENT AND JEWISH EDUCATION

AbstractAlthough Levinas talks about ethics as a response to the other, most scholars assume that this "response" is not something tangible—it is not an actual giving of food or providing of shelter and clothing. But there is evidence in Levinas's own writings that indicate he does intend for a positive response to the Other. In any event, while he acknowledges that the other is the sole person I wish to kill, killing the other, within an ethical framework would be a violation of that response. The failure to respond to the other ethically requires us to ask if Levinas's project needs an educational philosophy or a model of moral cultivation to supplement it. This essay explores this question by putting into conversation Levinas's ethical project and his interest in Jewish education with John Dewey's philosophy of education and its relationship to the political community. This exploration will help us see what this field of research might offer in promoting the cultivation of ethical response as Levinas envisions it and what its limits are.

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Jewish Education in Morocco

Jewish Education ◽

10.1080/0021642730430105 ◽

1973 ◽

Vol 43 (1) ◽

pp. 23-28

Author(s):

Stanley Abramovitch

Keyword(s):

Jewish Education

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Some Uses of Justification in Jewish Education

AJS Review ◽

10.1017/s0364009400000192 ◽

1977 ◽

Vol 2 ◽

pp. 1-44 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Walter I. Ackerman

Keyword(s):

Jewish Education ◽

Modern Society ◽

Necessary Condition ◽

School Systems ◽

Coercive Power ◽

Educational Issues ◽

Rational Control ◽

The Relationship ◽

Educational Enterprise

The justification of plans and programs is a necessary condition of the relationship between systems of education, both obligatory and voluntary, and the publics they serve. Those who are responsible for the conduct of the educational enterprise in general and the schooling of the young in particular must provide those who support the system, financially and otherwise, with acceptable and defensible reasons for the efforts and activities of the schools. The idea of justification in education rests on the assumption that the process of schooling, whatever its form and content, is subject to rational control and that the authority for the conduct of schools is derived from the principles inherent in the justification offered. A proferred justification is most effective and likely of acceptance when the positions it generates on educational issues fit the general fabric of ideals and aspirations of the society to which it is addressed. If, as we believe, justification is a necessary part of the rhetoric which surrounds legislatively determined and state maintained school systems—i.e., systems whose right to existence is not subject to question or doubt in any modern society and where attendance is required by law—then it follows that it is of even greater significance for voluntary school systems which lack the coercive power of their governmental counterparts—i.e., Jewish education.

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