Knowing which Way to Turn: Orienting Congregational Jewish Education in Europe

Much research on part-time Jewish educational programs has focused on curricular content and pedagogy. Yet classrooms involve diverse exchanges about curricular subjects as well as those that appear little related to Jewish studies; both are motivated by assumptions about which things count as Jewish matters of concern and appropriate orientations to those things. Drawing on ongoing ethnographic fieldwork, this article proposes bringing a semiotic ideological lens to quotidian interactions as means to get at the “tacit curriculum” and aims of part-time schools, to better grasp what draws families to these schools, and to recognize the nuanced learning happening therein.