Abstract
This article contributes new insights into German-Jewish psychologist Kurt Lewin’s work and its considerable influence on American Jewish educational theory and practice since the 1940s. Though he died in 1947, Lewin’s theories about the emotional needs of the Jewish child and the principles of effective Jewish education continued to influence American Jewish pedagogy long after his passing. Lewin, a social psychologist who fled Hitler’s Germany in 1933 and eventually landed at MIT, argued for the importance of inculcating a notion of “group belongingness,” or attachment to the Jewish social group, in the Jewish child as a critical factor in his or her healthy emotional development. According to Lewin, positive and joyous childhood experiences with Jewish culture would shield Jewish children from debilitating feelings of inferiority and self-loathing. Rabbis and educators across the ideological spectrum relied on Lewin’s work to explain to parents how a Jewish education could help nurture happy, well-integrated American Jewish children. For American Jews in search of both acceptance and ethnic preservation, Lewin offered appealing scientific evidence of the psychic benefits of Jewish education and the potential of positive Jewish experiences to produce both proud, committed Jews and loyal American citizens. The impact of Lewin’s work on American Jewish life and thought is evident in the 2013 Pew Study, in which 94% of American Jews reported that they are proud to be Jewish.
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Notes
Along these lines, Lewin explored the concept of the self-loathing Jew in his 1941 essay, “Self-Hatred Among Jews,” which was also later included in the 1948 volume Resolving Social Conflicts. There, as in “Bringing Up the Jewish Child,” Lewin argued for the critical importance of cultivating a positive sense of loyalty to the Jewish group as the cure for Jewish self-hatred (Lewin 1948c).
Lewin borrowed this concept of the “marginal man” from Robert Park and the “Chicago School” of sociologists, who studied the process of assimilation among immigrant groups. See Park (1928).
Citations that follow are from the 1949 article in The Synagogue School. See also Revitch (1954).
In the 1950s, the American Jewish Committee published Lewin’s and Bettelheim’s contrasting views together in a volume, promoting discussion of their different approaches. See Bettelheim and Lewin (n.d.).
While we cannot know for sure the extent of Lewin’s influence on Sklare in how the sociologist devised his definitions of the “good Jew,” we do know that Sklare was intimately familiar with Lewin’s work, having written about it and edited essays that discussed it throughout his career. See, for example, Himmelfarb (1982), Sklare (1993, 191–192).
In March 2014, the Mandel Center for Studies in Jewish Education at Brandeis University hosted a conference on the theme of “Rethinking Jewish Identity and Education,” in which participants explored the origins, nuances, and implications of Jewish identity as a concept and an educational goal. An edited volume of papers from this conference is forthcoming.
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Furman, J.J. Accentuate the Positive: The Influence of Kurt Lewin’s ‘Bringing Up the Jewish Child’ on Postwar American Jewish Life. Cont Jewry 37, 29–51 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12397-016-9181-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12397-016-9181-6