The mission statement of RAVSAK, the network of Jewish community day schools throughout North America and abroad, speaks to the lofty goal of “fostering authentic Jewish pluralism.” But what exactly is pluralism? Diana Eck, writing an introduction for the Pluralism Project at Harvard University, posits four points that define the term. Pluralism, she writes, “is not diversity alone, but the energetic engagement with diversity…. [P]luralism is not just tolerance, but the active seeking of understanding across lines of difference.” She notes that pluralism “is not relativism, but the encounter of commitments,” which means “holding our deepest differences, even our religious differences, not in isolation, but in relationship to one another.” The fourth critical component, in Eck’s view, is dialogue because “the language of pluralism is that of dialogue and encounter, give and take, criticism and self-criticism. Dialogue means both speaking and listening, and that process reveals both common understandings and real differences. Dialogue does not mean everyone at the ‘table’ will agree with one another. Pluralism involves the commitment to being at the table—with one’s commitments.”

Pluralism is a term that we often hear used and defined according to our own predilections and experiences. Living together with diversity is an ideal that is fraught with tensions; finding common ground requires strength, vision and a good sense of humor. This is especially true when we confront diversity in our Jewish beliefs and observances.

The notion of creating a Jewish institution characterized by a commitment to ideological pluralism is not new. As long ago as 1934, Mordecai Kaplan envisioned a “community center” that would aim “to be affirmatively Jewish without committing itself to any specific type of Jewish religion.” He believed that an organization that would strive “to unite on an equal plane all types of Jews, Orthodox, Reformist, and Conservative, believers and non-believers, Zionists and non-Zionists, the recent immigrant as well as the Americanized Jew” would be able to offer “the best that can be obtained in education, music, art, and literature.”1 Kaplan expected that this trans-denominational approach to Jewish life and learning was to become the cornerstone of Jewish communal renewal in the years after the Great Depression.

Michael Kay’s essay clearly outlines the three modes by which a school needs to address, project and facilitate pluralism among its community. However, I suggest that we must first explore why pluralism should be the core ideology of a Jewish communal institution such as the community day school. In order to do this, we must articulate how pluralism is a fundamental Jewish value. We must recognize that pluralism is not simply a modern concept to allow for civilized discourse among a broad cross-section of society but is the central narrative which our community should embrace and engage with. Towards that end, to be a truly pluralistic community, we must train our students—the next generation of communal leadership—in the art and skills of pluralism and community-building.

In his essay, Michael Kay sets forth a three-pronged approach to developing a strong “hybrid community.” Based on my experience in a small school located in the geographically isolated region of West Texas, Kay’s model of pluralism can only be strengthened by partnering with our local communities. In our school, reaching out to the community and involving rabbinic leadership demonstrates for our students that pluralism is not just a static ideal to be achieved within the walls of our schools. Instead, it is a vibrant and dynamic part of our larger Jewish community.

As much as I am a “Conservative” rabbi and educator, I try to get beyond labels and stereotypes in search of new ideas and synergies.

Jewish community day schools embrace pluralism as a philosophy and core value. Rather than having a specific religious philosophy (hashkafah), pluralistic schools embrace the concept of Jewish Peoplehood (Klal Israel). Kay defines three levels of pluralism: atmospheric, informational and interactional. His definition provides a framework for school leaders to identify and assess the ways in which they honor diversity and commonality. In order to promote atmospheric pluralism, a school leader may be asked to create an environment that is perceived as welcoming, an environment where children from different religious backgrounds can outwardly live their religious life in a comfortable and safe setting. For instance, will the students have tefillah opportunities which meet their needs? Is the kashrut standard comfortable for all children to partake in shared experiences? Does the concept of communal activities respect the boundaries of Shabbat observance?

Michael Kay outlines the challenges facing the growing pluralistic school community in its desire to provide an effective educational program that addresses the complex, multiple needs of a parent and student body deliberately composed of diverse elements.

Buzzwords make me nervous. They make me nervous, first of all, because often it’s not clear what people mean when they use them. A buzzword often stands in for a vague cluster of values to which we are all committed, but its fuzziness can stand in the way of people being challenged to think carefully about what they mean when they use the word and about what it would look like to put that commitment into practice in a thoughtful way.

My daughters go to an intentionally pluralistic Jewish day school. This means that there are children from Orthodox, Conservative and Reform Jewish families who attend the school, as well as children from families who have very little religious (as opposed to cultural or historical) identification as Jews. Even though the school has won an award for pluralism from the Jewish community, no one is quite sure just what that means. Consequently, every couple of months we have discussions long into the night concerning the meaning of pluralism. During one of these discussions, I presented some of the ideas developed below and was immediately subjected to a barrage of criticism. One parent was quick to point out that tolerance of difference was not at all what was needed. Instead, difference needed to be embraced and engaged so that we could grow and develop together with those who are different.

Pluralism as a goal or even an acceptable societal manifestation is an essentially liberal concept. It suggests the recognition of variety and diversity in the world. In contrast, those disposed to an authoritarian personality and fundamentalist views prefer uniformity and do not welcome intellectual and theological pluralism since they believe they have discovered “truth.” Nor do they desire much social pluralism if it involves the endorsement of relationships and behaviors that are not sanctioned by their ideology.

Pluralism might be the word of the day—but what version of pluralism do we aspire to? And does it matter? Isn’t simply being “a good pluralist” enough? In this article I argue that it is important to be clear about what form of pluralism we endorse because different kinds of pluralism will lead us to justify our curricula choices and structure the educational experience of our students in different ways.

The pluralistic spectrum of Jewish practices and behavior is often baffling to Israel educators who have spent their lives in systems differentiating between being “religious” or “secular.” The teachers can be loosely divided into two groups. Orthodox teachers come to the U.S. with excellent Jewish knowledge, but, especially in Jewish community schools, have a difficult time understanding the pluralistic Jewish community. The other group I will call kibbutz teachers who have a better understand of a heterogeneous world, but little understanding of the Jewish precepts and practices which are at the heart of the community school.

One of the most revolutionary paradigmatic changes Judaism has experienced in modern days is the introduction of pluralism as a core constitutive value. Some may see this as one of the greatest achievements of modern day Judaism expressing the true nature of the old faith. Others may believe it is sacrilegious and poses the greatest danger to the Jewish future. Still others will claim that the clash between modernity and Judaism simply left no choice but to adopt a pluralistic approach. All of them would agree that it would not be possible to explain current day Judaism without employing the pluralistic category.

When a Jewish day school defines itself as a “pluralistic school,” it means that its ideology entails legitimacy to various Jewish lifestyles and attitudes. This appreciation of the plurality of the Jewish culture might be expressed in admissions and staffing, as well as in curricular and cocurricular choices.

Roee is fast; indeed, he is very fast. Most importantly for our discussion of pluralism, Roee is a fast Jew.

As with other philosophies, competing claims are made about the effects and suitability of pluralism as an approach to Jewish education. Some people enumerate its potential to shape students who will be at home in Jewish tradition and prepared to determine their beliefs and practices as well as to understand and respect divergent ideas and beliefs; others, just as passionately, assert that pluralism leads to relativism and confusion. In order to understand just what effects pluralism has on adolescents, I studied a group of students enrolled in an intentionally pluralist day high school when they were freshmen and, again, when they were seniors. During the freshman year the school, which I am calling Tikhon, socializes its students into its view of pluralism. By the end of the senior year these same students reflected on their understanding of what pluralism is and how it has influenced them. This article discusses some of what we learned.

As a Jewish community high school named after the very concept of community (kehillah means community in Hebrew), Kehillah Jewish High School defines and identifies itself as a pluralistic school. Since the school’s opening in 2002, we understood pluralism in terms of the breadth and depth of our community. We wanted to open our community to as wide a spectrum of Jewish students as possible, educating them in Jewish traditions, texts, and practices. We debated and eventually decided on a Jewish studies curriculum, put policies relating to observance and ritual in place, and actively sought out diversity, in personnel, in ideas, and in programming.

When it comes to Judaic studies and Jewish life on campus, every school faces a challenging balancing act between honoring Jewish heritage and celebrating Jewish difference. Honoring heritage means teaching the enduring traditions and texts of Judaism as well as Jewish history. To celebrate difference means embracing the particular stream of Judaism to which our school is connected and giving students the opportunity to analyze the significant differences that exist among these streams. Given that we live in a pluralistic world, balancing these two educational aims is necessary if our students are going to have a sense of their own Jewish identity in relation to other Jews and people of other faiths. Balancing heritage and difference is challenging because of time restraints and the nature of faculty instruction, and because honoring heritage and celebrating difference isn’t only about curricular decisions but factors into the broader culture of the school.

For most of the past forty years, the three Jewish day schools in MetroWest, New Jersey, had little contact with one another. (“MetroWest” is the federation area covering Essex, Morris, Sussex and Northern Union counties.) Occasionally, there would be meetings among professionals, but for the most part, the Joseph Kushner Hebrew Academy/Rae Kushner Yeshiva High School (Modern Orthodox), Solomon Schechter Day School of Essex and Union (Conservative), and the Hebrew Academy of Morris County (Community/RAVSAK) operated in separate spheres. Though only a short car ride apart, these three day schools might as well have been located in different parts of the country.

At RAVSAK, we believe that being a pluralistic school is an unquestionable asset. As this issue of HaYidion confirms, the challenges that rise from the diversity we promote pale in comparison to the opportunities it bestows upon our students and their families. Reflective of the authentic variations within the communities we serve, RAVSAK schools are exciting laboratories for making a better Jewish life possible for our children.

Pluralism, relativism and postmodernism have created an atmosphere that make adherence to any particular mode difficult. This is all the more true when regarding cultural lifestyles that are dissonant vis-à-vis the prevalent mores. The following discourse will describe the Orthodox Jewish community’s reaction to this challenge and its pitfalls; and consequently suggest means to alleviate the distress to some extent. Although my discussion chiefly relates to this particular world, the fact remains that all religious and cultural traditions are in dire straits; and indeed, cultural continuity itself is challenged. Therefore, although the description will be specific, the suggested prescription can be applied universally.

The Hebrew term for Jewish Law is Halakhah. The term translates, literally, as “the way,” implying that there is a single way of Jewish law. Based on the name alone, one might think that in the instruction of Halakhah, the educational goal would be to convey to students a body of traditional legal literature, and that the optimal methodology would prioritize teaching the rationale and content of significant Jewish legal topics. In order to teach “the way,” we might aim to expose the students primarily to large swaths of Jewish legal codes such as Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah or Joseph Karo’s Shulkhan Arukh—sources that articulate the “best practices” of Jewish religious life—for recitation, memorization and personal application. After all, if we’re teaching the way, then we should hand it down whole cloth.

Teaching Tanakh in a pluralistic setting has all the expected complexities of teaching sacred texts and some additional ones. The first challenge is probably to have a working definition of the term “pluralism.” For these purposes I am defining pluralism as a sociological reality and as an educational philosophy. More specifically this means that the students come from diverse religious backgrounds and that I choose to engage them with Tanakh through a variety of methods and modes in order to cultivate certain habits of mind and habits of heart. An instructive way to think about pluralism and the teaching of Tanakh is to consider how pluralism affects each component of the instructional triangle: students, content and teacher.

Interview with Rami Wernik, Dean, Fingerhut School of Education

What does it mean to seriously address the challenge of being a community day school? At the turn of the twenty-first century, this question of vision engaged the leadership of many of the new schools being created as well as those already in existence. A vision began to emerge of schools whose parent body represented a range of belief and practice; an institution which would allow its students to grapple with texts, issues of Jewish life and meaning, and the value and formation of community, while at the same time respecting their diversity. As that vision took hold, and as funding sources supported the building of more community schools, the question arose as to where would the teachers for such a program come from. Already there was recognition that a special kind of teacher would be needed to bring the vision to fruition.

Much of the conversation on Jewish education in general, and pluralist Jewish education in particular, focuses on either the science or technology of the work. In my experience however, neither a scientific approach, by which I mean that which the educators must know, nor the technological approach, by which I mean that which they must do, are the most helpful ways in which to approach and achieve a genuinely pluralist Jewish education.

At JCDS, we support multiple expressions of Judaism even if they are in tension. We favor language of description and open possibility and avoid prescribing Jewish belief, practice, or priorities. And yet pluralism slides easily into relativism. If many paths are legitimate, provided they’re informed by meaningful Jewish learning, does it matter what a person chooses? If all paths are equally good, may one simply choose the path of least resistance? Can children make good choices in regard to their Jewish practice?

Spend a day in Israel, and the opportunities and challenges of a diverse population are instantly apparent. Spend a day at the N.E. Miles Jewish Day School (NEMJDS) in Birmingham, Alabama, and the story is the same. Traditional families—modern Orthodox, Chabad, Conservative—join Reform families, unaffiliated, and even a few non-Jewish families, to create a rich tapestry of diversity.

All schools, both independent and public, face challenges of various magnitudes, involving different constituencies. This situation is of course far from unique to the Jewish Community Day School world.

In 2002, Heritage Academy began its slow but steady re-visioning from a Torah U’Mesorah affiliated school to a RAVSAK aligned school. First, we began work on a new Mission Statement, one that would reflect the need to be more inclusive and embracing of the surrounding Jewish community. The board, faculty, and parents worked on this together, resulting in the important line: “dedicated to welcoming families from the spectrum of Jewish practice.” As one parent put it: “We were trying to create a vision and a practice that incorporated all the different denominations of Judaism into the daily life of Heritage Academy.”