How do you define literacy? Young learners at a Jewish complementary school found themselves grappling with competing ideals as their teacher encouraged them to accept variation in transliteration and pronunciation, and let go of their concern to comprehend textual Hebrew. The end result was a language-learning experience that diverged from schooled expectations and allowed students and parents to position themselves as global citizens.
In a newly published article for the journal Language and Communication (Volume 87), CIP Research Associate Dr Anastasia Badder documents the learners' experience and its significance for Jewish communities and the wider understanding of what constitutes literacy. Dr Badder explains how opportunities opened up during fieldwork:
“The article benefits hugely from the regular collaboration and close relations I enjoyed with the community I was observing. Drawing on my own Jewishness, I had begun to attend services at both the Liberal and Orthodox synagogues in Luxembourg. The Rabbi of the Liberal synagogue asked if I might help teach the youngest class. I was very unsure. Another woman was joining as Hebrew teacher, and ultimately I agreed.
“I was able to observe and get to know the students and their families every week--at classes and other events. I was asked to babysit, and to attend dinner and social gatherings, alongside my ethnographic interviews. I even managed to shadow some students in their secular schools for several months. This shifting position helped me pay attention to the hopeful and future-facing, the resilience and creativity of students. Their stories helped me think about Jewish community, education, and literacy in new ways.”
In 2016 CIP team members Nadiya Takolia and Miriam Lorie traveled to the Salvation Army Headquarters in London to participate in a powerful inter-faith event.
On 10 March, members of many different faiths - including Jews, Christians, Muslims - came together to explore the topic of 'refugees' within Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Led by the Cambridge Inter-faith Programme, the workshop presented key texts dealing with the issue of refugees from each faith tradition. Introductions to each text were presented by key members of each faith - including William Cochrane, the International Secretary to the Chief of Staff at the Salvation Army - after which the participants divided into smaller groups to discuss the texts more closely.
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Scriptural Reasoning from Salvation Army IHQ on Vimeo.
The event was, however, made particularly unique through its incorporation of art, which offered a complementary and thought-provoking perspective on the refugee crisis. Participants had the chance to view stirring and challenging installation 'Sea of Colour' by Güler Ates, who created the piece with the help of women from local refugee groups. 'Sea of Colour' - which connects the suffering of refugees with that of Jesus, particularly the moment when he is stripped of his clothes - is currently being exhibited in the Salvation Army Headquarters as part of London's 'Stations of the Cross' exhibition.
The coming together of inter-faith dialogue, art, and expertise from multiple quarters made for an inspiring, significant evening that CIP felt privileged to be a part of.
Discover more
Presented by Coexist House and the Cambridge Inter-faith Programme, the first of thee panels on themes of South Asian Interfaith Relations at St Ethelburga's Centre for Reconciliation and Peace: 'The Promise of Intimacy: Searching for the Divine in Modern Times'
“The Promise of Intimacy: Searching for the Divine in Modern Times”
St Ethelburga's Centre of Reconciliation and Peace, London
6pm Thursday 31 May
Chair: Fatimah Ashrif (Coexist House)
Speakers:
Farhana Mayer (University of Oxford)
Luigi Gioia (Von Hügel Institute)
Christopher V. Jones (University of Oxford)
Many faith traditions have, in their different ways, offered pathways for those desiring a deeper intimacy with the Divine. We often hear of words such as 'spiritual', 'heart', and 'soul' , as a way of describing these dimensions.
A central theme shared across various Hindu, Islamic spiritual, and Roman Catholic mystical traditions is that the divine reality is not simply another entity far out there, dwelling perhaps on the top of the Himalayas or on the peripheries of the Milky Way, but is situated in the deepest interiorities of the human heart. Therefore, the ‘union’ with the divine involves processes of the cultivation of interiority through which the religious practitioner understands that the divine beloved is simultaneously extremely distant and intimately present.
In South Asia, such teachings lead some to believe in an underlying unity behind different faiths. We see this sometimes expressed at the level of popular spiritual piety. For example, the way in which the shrines of particular holy figures - such as Ajmer Sharif in India - become a meeting point of the faithful from many different traditions. Meanwhile, many have noted the popularity of 13th century Muslim mystic Rumi in the modern western world, amongst those of different faiths (and none), such as through incorporating his poetry and practices into their daily worship/spiritual practice.
Such practices are not often fully understood and might be perceived at best as syncretic or at worst unorthodox or even heretical by some more traditional voices.
The panel will seek to explore spiritual understandings as these might be expressed by different faiths and how these might be/ are practised. With a view to offering the audience a personal encounter with the very real and lived beliefs and practices of others, panelists will be asked to speak about the celebration of “Divine intimacy” within their traditions, their personal search, where it has taken them and what they have learned about themselves and the nature of Divinity, the spiritual tools they have used in seeking the divine and how this impacts their personal engagement with the world.
Read an extract from the article's Introduction:
“Parents and students of Luxembourg's Liberal Talmud Torah feel a tension between their commitment to liberal ideals and their obligation to ensure Jewish continuity. This Talmud Torah, like many others, revolves around Hebrew language learning, reading liturgical and biblical texts and studying the Talmud, learning Jewish histories and laws, and rehearsing ritual practices. Even the name, ‘Talmud Torah’, which translates literally to ‘Torah study’, is intended to evoke a sense of age and tradition. Generally, the goals of enrolling one's child in Talmud Torah are to pass on Jewish tradition in preparation for b'nai mitzvah and future community maintenance. However, for the parents of students in Luxembourg's Liberal Talmud Torah (hereafter LTT), these goals appear to be at odds with an equally important aim: encouraging one's child to be a successful (secular) student and future ‘global citizen’. In this Liberal school, parents simultaneously want their children to ‘learn how to be Jewish’ and to emerge from Talmud Torah and b'nai mitzvah as modern and liberal as the day they started.
“Hebrew is a key site for the negotiation of this tension for LTT parents, students, and teachers. While parents and teachers value Hebrew for the access it affords to liturgical texts and, therefore, collective ritual participation, they also fear the transformative potential of Hebrew literacy – too little Hebrew literacy and one has failed to do one's part towards Jewish continuity, too much Hebrew literacy and one risks becoming ‘religious’, a way of being parents are loathe for their children to take up.
“Finding a kind of middle ground between ‘too much’ and ‘too little’ literacy, LTT students learn to read (in the sense of orally realizing) textual Hebrew, which encompasses the Hebrew of the liturgy, Bible, and Rabbinic literature, for use in ritual settings (Benor et al. 2020b). They do not, however, learn to read for comprehension, nor do they learn Modern Hebrew for conversational use.
“Such literacy practices are not unique to this Talmud Torah. [...]
How to read the whole article
Continue reading Dr Badder's work (free, open access) via sciencedirect.com.
The full article is published and can be cited as:
Anastasia Badder, ‘I just want you to get into the flow of reading’: Reframing Hebrew proficiency as an enactment of liberal Jewishness, Language & Communication, Volume 87, 2022, pages 221-230, ISSN 0271-5309.
[ https://doi.org/10.1016/j.langcom.2022.08.003 ]
Contact the author
Dr Badder welcomes invitations to speak about her research and discuss its implications for religious literacy, including in interfaith settings.
View Dr Badder's contact details in the Faculty of Divinity directory.