Jewish Studies 9 - 2 and 9 - 3

Dr. Saundra Sterling Epstein

Updated 3/22/10

WE ARE NOW STUDYING THE FIRST OF OUR FIVE APPLICATION UNITS, THE ISSUE OF "WHO IS A JEW?"  WE ARE LOOKING AT THE BASIC DEFINITIONS OF "JEW" ACCORDING TO THE DIFFERENT MOVEMENTS WE HAVE EXPLORED, THE LAW OF RETURN IN ISRAEL AND SPECIFIC ISSUES THAT ARE ADDRESSED BY THE VARIOUS MOVEMENTS AS FOLLOWS:

             ORTHODOX, PP. 208 - 216

             REFORM, PP. 217 - 227

             CONSERVATIVE, PP. 228 - 239

             RECONSTRUCTIONISM, PP. 240 - 249

(Please note that these pages are in our source book. ALL STUDENTS SHOULD HAVE THE SECOND HALF OF THEIR SOURCE BOOK WITH THEM IN CLASS DAILY AT THIS POINT.)

NOTE THAT THE ASSIGNMENT ON THE TEXT WORK -- "THE PLACARD ASSIGNMENT" IS DUE APRIL 9, 2010.

See assignments below for present work.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ninth Grade Jewish Studies begins by examining who we are as a Jewish community, or more accurately, as a community of communities.  We are in the midst of the following units as we explore the depth and breadth of our community of communities:

Unit I - History Before 1814, beginning of year through early October

Unit II - Reform Judaism, October

Unit III - Orthodox Judaism, November

Unit IV - Conservative Judaism, mid November - December

Unit V - Reconstructionist Judaism, December - January

Unit VI - Texts and how we craft our ideology, January - February

Unit VII - Who Is A Jew? Conversion, Identify, and related matters, March

Unit VIII - Proper Speech - something we all agree on, April - May

Unit IX - Kashrut - something we disagree on, May - June

Unit X - What unites us and agreeing to disagree, end of year

____________________________________________________________________________

Ongoing activities and assessed involvements:

Daily participation

Tracking Quizzes

Nightly Assignments

Competency Quizzes

Long range assignments

Chevrutah/group work

____________________________________________________________________________

Present Assignments:

Reading of all material in the course book as assigned, through pp. 249.

Long range project:  Compare two of the movements we have studied in their approach to "Who Is A Jew?"  Include at least three problems or concerns from each movement and how they resolve them as well as an overall summative comparison.  This assignment should be done as a 3 page paper and is due May 6, 2010.