Traditionally-Jewish fraternities and sororities are not often considered sites of Jewish community. In this session, Jenny L. Small discusses findings from interviews with fraternity and sorority life (FSL) educators, revealing their perspectives that students in these organizations bear distinctly gendered burdens around Jewish heritage and continuity. The educators in this study lacked a strong understanding of Jewish identity and how students express those identities through FSL; however, effectively supporting these organizations can help them function as sites of belonging for Jewish college students during turbulent times on campus.

Originally recorded: 3/20/25

At the Mandel Center, we are committed to advancing the field of Jewish educational scholarship, especially scholarship on teaching and learning, in order to make a deep and lasting difference on the lives of learners and the vibrancy of the Jewish community. That’s our mission.

To learn more about the Mandel Center, and sign up to attend upcoming virtual and physical events, visit our website.

Learning About Learning is a production of the Jack, Joseph, and Morton Mandel Center for Studies in Jewish Education at Brandeis University, and is engineered and edited by Nathan J. Vaughan of NJV Media LLC.

The field of Jewish education has now been split into two sub-fields, referred to as “formal” or “informal” (or “experiential”) education. But this division is artificial and proving profoundly limiting, distorting, and even harmful. What might be the ultimate potential of the field were we able to employ a balanced and integrated use of the full range of educational competencies, across all settings? In this session, Tali Zelkowicz shares recent work, in which she applies both/and thinking to surface a more expansive and integrative vision of Jewish learning that can empower and endure.

Originally recorded: 2/27/25

At the Mandel Center, we are committed to advancing the field of Jewish educational scholarship, especially scholarship on teaching and learning, in order to make a deep and lasting difference on the lives of learners and the vibrancy of the Jewish community. That’s our mission.

To learn more about the Mandel Center, and sign up to attend upcoming virtual and physical events, visit our website.

Learning About Learning is a production of the Jack, Joseph, and Morton Mandel Center for Studies in Jewish Education at Brandeis University, and is engineered and edited by Nathan J. Vaughan of NJV Media LLC.

In her article, "When a Yarmulke Stands for All Jews: Navigating Shifting Signs from Synagogue to School in Luxembourg," Anastasia Badder asks: How do congregational school students experience moments in which they were confronted with Jewishness outside of the classroom, in their secular schools and public spaces? And taking a material approach, how does the presence (and absence) of yarmulkes influence those experiences? In this session, she discusses findings from fieldwork she conducted as an ethnographer and teacher in a Jewish congregational school researching the ways children learn about and how to do Jewishness.

Originally recorded: 1/23/25

At the Mandel Center, we are committed to advancing the field of Jewish educational scholarship, especially scholarship on teaching and learning, in order to make a deep and lasting difference on the lives of learners and the vibrancy of the Jewish community. That’s our mission.

To learn more about the Mandel Center, and sign up to attend upcoming virtual and physical events, visit our website.

Learning About Learning is a production of the Jack, Joseph, and Morton Mandel Center for Studies in Jewish Education at Brandeis University, and is engineered and edited by Nathan J. Vaughan of NJV Media LLC.