Introduction

Jewish education in the English-speaking world has concerned itself with the subject of Israel since the emergence of modern Zionism (Attias 2015; Chazan 1978, 2004, 2014; Dinin 1944; Kuselewitz 1958). Jewish high schools currently attempt to educate students to be personally and collectively prepared to live a Jewish life on college campuses when outside an immersive Jewish framework for the first time, committed to their Jewish identities with Israel as an integral value (Attias 2015).

The study of Israel in this context has been referred to as “Israel education” since at least 2007 (Avidar 2016). Scholarship in the field of Israel education has included diagnosing the challenges it faces (Chazan 2004; Chazan et al. 2013; Grant and Kopelowitz 2012; Zakai 2014), describing how it is practiced in formal and informal educational settings (Pomson and Deitcher 2010; Aharon and Pomson 2018; Grant 2011; Hassenfeld 2016, 2018; Pomson et al. 2009, 2014; Reingold 2017, 2018; Saxe et al. 2017; Sinclair 2006), and prescribing ideal visions of the practice (Alexander 2015a; Chazan 2016; Grant and Kopelowitz 2012; Horowitz 2012; Isaacs 2011; Levisohn 2020; Zakai 2022). In a previous article, we identified six models of what it means for a young Jewish learner to receive an Israel education—understanding modern Israel, Jewish peoplehood, learner-centered Israel education, Jewish visions for a better world, Jewish civic education, and social activism—and identified their shared philosophical challenges (Alexander 2012; Davis and Alexander 2023), for which we proposed a seventh model for Israel education—Mature Zionism—as a solution, arguing that the discipline should help learners conceive of their own visions of the Jewish good in dialogue with scholarly criticisms of Israel through what we call a pedagogy of the sacred and a pedagogy of difference.

However, the literature on Israel education is limited regarding teacher knowledge of the discipline. Research on practitioners of Israel education has traditionally focused on the identity, thinking, or orientation of the teacher (Avidar 2016; Kopelowitz and Wolf 2013; Pomson et al. 2014); practitioner action research (Backenroth and Sinclair 2014; Reingold 2017, 2018, 2022); or calls for more research (Sinclair et al. 2013). Pomson et al. (2014) identified an “explorers” versus “exemplars” paradigm in their extensive evaluation of Jewish day school teachers, finding some educators seek to explain why Israel is personally meaningful to them as opposed to facilitating students to explore the meaning of Israel for themselves. Kopelowitz and Wolf (2013) reported on Israel education from the educator’s perspective (their worldviews and practices) as part of a project for the iCenter. Reingold (2017, 2018, 2022) focused on teaching complex Israel education in the Jewish day school environment, and Backenroth and Sinclair (2014) identified developing pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) of Israel education for Jewish education graduate students. Zakai’s (2018) and Avidar’s (2016) ethnographic case studies concerned Israel educators’ teaching of conflicting narratives. While these studies provide helpful insights regarding various characteristics of the practice of the Israel educator, the research lacks a systematic study following the methods of the wisdom of practice to develop a theory of PCK for the field.

PCK and Wisdom of Practice

PCK is a theoretical framework to understand teacher knowledge that embodies a mixture of the content and pedagogical knowledge necessary to successfully engender students’ understanding of a specific subject matter. Educational scholar Lee Shulman (1986a) originally argued that PCK embodies “the most powerful analogies, illustrations, examples, explanations, and demonstrations—in a word, the ways of representing and formulating the subject that makes it comprehensible for others” (p. 9). This theoretical framework to understand teacher knowledge reveals how teachers decide what activities, exercises, and experiences lead to student learning. Science and mathematics teacher education represent the most researched discipline of PCK (Ball 1988; Berry et al. 2016; Lampert 2001), but there are studies of teachers of history (Tuithof et al. 2019; Wineburg and Wilson 1991), English (Grossman 1990), music (Duling 1992; Mateiro et al. 2012), economics (Ayers 2016), physical education (You 2011), civics (Journell 2013), and the Bible (Chervin 1994; Dorph 1993; Shiprovitch 2022; Yaniv 2010). Israel education, however, lacks such an inquiry.

Shulman (1986b) initially offered two main components of PCK: knowledge of instructional strategies and student understanding. Additional knowledge categories have been identified through empirical research on PCK: “purposes,” “curriculum,” “media,” “assessment,” “subject matter,” “context,” and “pedagogy” (Park and Oliver 2008, p. 265). Identifying teachers’ PCK relies on a variety of sources, including “educational research, scholarship in the disciplines, educational materials and experienced teachers’ wisdom of practice” (Shulman 2004, p. 217). One critique of the wisdom of practice tradition is that it offers a skewed picture of pedagogy in any given discipline because of a focus on lead, excellent, or outstanding teachers when average, mainstream teachers’ practice could be more realistically replicated in the field. However, exemplary teaching does not mean ideal or perfect, but rather good practice that can be replicated by new and in-service educators (Holtz 1993). In her acclaimed study of American high schools, Sarah Lawrence Lightfoot (1983) referred to the examples to be considered in this approach to examining leading cases as “good enough” educational practice. As education is so complex and multifaceted, “good” teaching embodied by exemplary educators is the example researchers should strive to understand to improve teacher knowledge (Cohen and Holtz 1996).

“You Never Told Me”

The need for research of this type is particularly urgent, given the recent claims by many Jewish day school graduates, learning about Palestinian narratives for the first time on college campuses, that their Israel education did not include the Occupation and flaws of Zionism, especially from the perspective of critical social theory (Alexander 2015a; Troy 2023). “You never told me” is a slogan that was popularized by a campaign of the same name of the anti-Occupation group IfNotNow formed in 2014 (https://www.ifnotnowmovement.org/), which called for American-Jewish educational organizations such as camps, youth groups, and day schools to include an honest teaching of the Israeli Occupation and Palestinian points of view. Advocates of this position claim that they were lied to by Israel educators and deprived of an honest Israel education (Our Open Letter to Fellow Alumni 2017). Zakai’s (2022) research into children’s thinking about Israel supplements this claim with data on the anger elementary school students feel when excluded from discussions about potentially traumatic or challenging issues in Israeli society and politics.

The Current Study

To supplement the limited number of studies on what Israel educators know about their practice, this study provides a theory of PCK for the field grounded in a phenomenological inquiry into the wisdom of practice of exemplary Israel educators in English-speaking Jewish high schools, specifically exploring how teachers of Israel education integrate the influence of the “you never told me” phenomenon into their practice and how the phenomenon affects four components of their PCK—purpose, curriculum, instructional strategies, and context. Similar to Fernández-Balboa and Stiehl (1995), this study assumed the subject matter knowledge expertise of the participants. As Israel education is a relatively new field “devoid of a history of practice” (Shulman 1987, p. 12), the wisdom of practice study was utilized to identify the PCK of Israel educators to outline model examples of teaching in the field that can aid novice teachers in their studies as well as in-service Israel educators with professional development. The teachers interviewed were recognized for what they did as examples of “good enough” teaching that could be replicated by others.

On the basis of this research, we suggest a model with eight design principles for how to do Israel education effectively in Jewish education frameworks, both formal and informal, to equip young Jews in their formative years, before entering universities where they will live independently for the first time, to intelligently consider the harsh complexities of Israel.Footnote 1

Methods

The Research Field

This study was approved by the Ethics Committee of the University of Haifa, Faculty of Education. Utilizing snowball sampling (Patton 1990), 20 exemplary Israel educators at English-speaking Jewish high schools in the USA, Israel, Australia, and Canada were selected to participate. Written consent was obtained from the interviewees to participate in the study, and when required, employers provided approval for their teachers to participate.

All the schools—day schools in the USA, Australia, and Canada, as well as study abroad programs in Israel—represented by these teachers were similar in being immersive Jewish education frameworks emphasizing Israel education as a mechanism to deepen Jewish identity and prepare for life as a young Jew with a connection to Israel on a university campus. No Jewish high school in the USA, Australia, or Canada was represented by more than one teacher. The schools in Israel were represented by more than one teacher, since there were only three study abroad institutions for English speakers in Israel relevant for this study and Israel education is an important part of the curriculum in these schools. We initially sought to include teachers based in the United Kingdom and South Africa, but we were unsuccessful in finding teachers there who would or could participate.

Eight participants were based in the USA (four at Community PluralisticFootnote 2 and four at Modern OrthodoxFootnote 3 high schools), five in Israel (three at Community Pluralistic and two at ReformFootnote 4), four in Australia (one each at Community Modern Orthodox,Footnote 5 Community Pluralistic, Modern Orthodox, and Reform), and three in Canada (Community Modern Orthodox, Community Pluralistic, and Modern Orthodox). A total of 12 men and 8 women were interviewed, and they ranged from their late 20s into their early 60s. All teachers interviewed were currently employed by a Jewish educational institution, were on temporary leave, or had recently left their positions, so their “wisdom of practice” was still fresh in their minds. All participants taught quarter, semester, or year-long Israel education courses to high school students in 10th grade or above (for the number and length of courses taught per domination and per country, see Appendix 1). No matter their country or the nature of the Israel education course, all participants integrated “you never told me” into their teaching.

Israel education courses exist as part of the Judaic Studies subject matter offerings in the day school curricula. Each semester-long study abroad program requires students to take an Israel education course combining class learning with field trips as an integral aspect of their experience. Another distinction between the classes taught in the USA, Australia, and Canada to courses at study abroad programs in Israel was that the latter focused on Jewish history from the time of the Bible whereas the former deal only with the modern period.

All but one of the institutions of the participants in the USA and Canada required students to take either a semester or year-long Israel education course, with some having elective offerings as well. The required courses, mostly for 11th- and 12th-grade students, ranged from history curriculum focused on the rise of Zionism to contemporary Israel to theme-based courses such as society and politics of contemporary Israel, dilemmas of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state, the Israel-Palestine conflict, Israel in the media, and the campus Israel conversation with a focus on the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement.

In Australia, except for one school that offered Israel education quarter-long electives in 11th and 12th grades, formal Israel education courses took place as semester- or quarter-long courses in 10th grade, focusing on contemporary Israel like their North American counterparts. Unlike their counterparts, in the Australian schools, the courses were taught before or after required Holocaust education courses, they supplemented Israel education that took place as part of each school’s required experiential education programming, and they were taught in 10th grade because the bulk of Australian high school education in 11th and 12th grade is dedicated to matriculation courses.

Pseudonyms are used for the participants and their educational institutions. If an informant identified the community, city, or country in which they lived, the name was replaced with [community] or [nationality].

Data Collection

Data were gathered through two individual, 90-min, semi-structured phenomenological interviews (Moustakas 1994), conducted via Zoom. Participants were asked questions about their background, the course(s) they taught, and the components of their PCK (see Appendix 2 for the interview protocol). Each interview was recorded and transcribed verbatim. The second interview took place after a review of the first to allow for reflection and follow-up questions to ensure validity. Additionally, documents and materials were gathered from the research participants between the first and second interviews if needed to clarify their experiences for the interviewer and help inform follow-up questions.

Data Analysis

Qualitative data analysis was implemented utilizing the transcendental phenomenological approach as posited by Moustakas (1994), which also included the researcher bracketing their personal thoughts and opinions. Specific statements in the interview transcripts providing descriptions of the research participants’ experiences were first identified, then reviewed to eliminate repetition while being gathered into themes for each interviewee. These were then synthesized into generalized categorical descriptions of the experience, which for this study was the wisdom of practice of exemplary Israel educators (Eddles-Hirsch 2015; Moerer-Urdahl and Creswell 2004). This led to transforming the described experiences into a theory of PCK for the field of Israel education.

Positioning

While the authors have no conflicts of interest, we were not objective bystanders with no personal interest in the phenomena under investigation in this study. In addition to both having made aliyah from the USA, we are products of the sorts of Jewish educational institutions in which the participating teachers were employed. We also have experience professionally in Israel education. The first author is an Israel educator for visiting groups to Israel including teaching Israel education courses in gap year institutions. The second author, in addition to a long career in educational research, is an ordained conservative Rabbi with decades of experience in Israel and Jewish education in the USA and in Israel. As is always the case with qualitative research, we entered the field with a variety of preconceptions, many of which are spelled out in previous publications. Nevertheless, as participants in the phenomena under investigation, we were also in possession of cultural knowledge that was extraordinarily useful for interpreting the data collected.

Findings

Our main finding was that “you never told me” played a significant role in all four categories of the PCK of these Israel educators. We identified three sources for the influence of “you never told me”: the teacher’s personal experience, alumni feedback, and the American Jewish communal discourse. We found “you never told me” impacted the participants’ PCK in the four categories as follows: (1) knowledge of purpose as to preparing for Israel conversations to fortify Jewish identity; (2) knowledge of curriculum as to current events being a curricular resource and regarding the fundamental curricular topics of the Israel-Palestine conflict, religion and state, Jewish identity beyond religion, and the diversity of Israeli society; (3) knowledge of instructional strategies as to creating a supportive environment and practicing the Israel conversation; and (4) knowledge of context as to Israel education in a “right-wing” environment, navigating stakeholder demands, and parents as “elephants in the room.”

Three Sources for Influence of “You Never Told Me”

The participants integrated “you never told me” in their practice due to their (1) personal experience of not learning about these matters as a part of their own Jewish educations; (2) hearing from alumni of their schools how they appreciated the time at their schools but questioned the educational value of what they learned about Israel, as it was directly challenged by what they experienced on a college campus; and (3) the contemporary American-Jewish communal discourse on the need for a complex Israel education. These interview excerpts provide examples of each source:

The first thing I do in my first class, I talk about the fact that I’m a graduate of Golda Meir High School, and that Golda Meir High School failed me (Joey).

We find students from our school and from other schools in the past have left the school, then come back to the schools and gone, “Why did you only teach us that?” (Devorah)

Been influenced by some of the material that’s come out of the States, and you know, is that we don’t want kids to engage with anti-Israel perspectives and be surprised about hearing things that they’ve never heard before (Haim).

Following Snook’s (1972) theory on education and indoctrination, Israel educators seek to avoid indoctrination in their courses by teaching content that is believed to be empirically true (to the best of their knowledge), applying methods incorporating multiple, even conflicting, perspectives so students gain a broad perspective, all with the intention to deepen mature connections not to an imagined Israel but an actual country with its own set of challenges. Such an approach embodied by “you never told me” was preceded by a similar phenomenon in Jewish education with the introduction of biblical criticism to Bible curricula, first introduced by the Jewish Theological Seminary in the 1960s. Just like Jewish students having found it difficult to incorporate complexities when confronted with nontraditional viewpoints on the origins of the Bible, “you never told me” describes a similar encounter when confronting challenging perspectives to orthodox positions on Israel (Dorph 1993; Zielenziger 1989).

“You Never Told Me” Impact on Knowledge of Purpose

Preparing for Israel Conversations to Fortify Jewish Identity

When defining the purpose of teaching their Israel education courses, participants often considered their students’ identity development after high school graduation. As the following excerpts reflect, they considered that if students heard criticisms of Israel for the first time after graduation, especially on campus, this might negatively impact their Jewish identity and connections to Israel.

People who have had a Jewish day school education, which has included a Zionist, either informal or formal Zionist education, to have discovered narratives that they have found deeply disturbing and has, for some of them, undermined their positive connection to Israel or has challenged that (Jesse).

If my goal is to prepare them for becoming independent Jewish adults that no one has ever introduced to them, the idea that there are imperfections or disagreements or conflict within Israeli society, not just with surrounding Arab nations. It’s irresponsible (Jordan).

The teachers aimed “to give them [students] a broader toolkit” (Shayna) to prepare “for the real-life conversation that they’re going to have, not in the classroom, but in life” (Jacob). They emphasized the importance of preparing for university life, as they imagined their students in various informal campus contexts such as a “ski lodge” or “chemistry class” (Joey), “lounge or lab” (Arielle), or “dorm room” (Brian), where students might well be challenged by what their non-Jewish peers might say about Israel or be prodded to talk more about it substantively because they identify themselves as Jewish or are identified by their peers as such. Two teachers put it succinctly:

You [student] are in a statistics class and you have a study partner who maybe is Arab or maybe isn’t. And you get into a conversation about something and now you can be a thoughtful partner in that conversation (Arielle). They [students] can have something semi-intelligent to say about it, or semi-balanced or semi-nuanced, which isn’t just “Israel’s all good” and “Here are cherry tomatoes” (Brian).

While such an emphasis on the integration of “you never told me” into the purpose of Israel educators’ practice may seem to reflect a reactive as opposed to proactive orientation, this preparation for the transition to adult life fits into the context of educating students toward envisioning what it means for them to be Jewish and how Israel fits into that conceptualization for when they may be challenged for the first time about that identity choice.

“You Never Told Me” Impact on Knowledge of Curriculum

Current Events as a Curricular Resource

Utilizing a diversity of resources with an emphasis on current events, the teachers’ curricular knowledge prioritized content and learning plans to teach multiple, even conflicting, narratives on historical events or contemporary issues regarding Israel that students would encounter outside their “Jewish bubble.” They emphasized educating about current events in Israel or utilizing news items and opinion pieces as curricular resources to learn about contemporary issues in Israel. Participants would “let it [current events] go for the whole period” when students exhibited increased engagement in the discussion (Shifra).

So as things come up, you know, the Gaza warFootnote 6 was last year like, well, we’ll really embrace those and use those, then as a way to talk about the issues we want to talk about (Arielle).

Last spring, when the conflict escalated to have that and to look at what was going on from it, from all the points of view, “Why was there an escalation of violence? What was it about?” It kind of fell right into much of the curriculum that we have (Julian).

Current events catalyzed learning about Israeli history or contemporary issues in Israeli society and helped students imagine how they could engage with Israel outside of the Jewish high school course setting, such as on a college campus.

There’s a lot of current events also like once a week, the students do an independent project where they have to choose a current events story and sort of look at cause and effect historical significance. So we zip back a lot between the past and the present (Liel).

The big essential question, like “Jewish versus Democratic State, can we do both?” Big essential question, like, “How does Israel treat its minorities?” Big essential question, like, “How does Israel balance prioritizing the safety of its citizens with the freedom of movement of the Palestinians?” They start to get those questions that we delve deeper in the second semester through the current events also. (Shifra).

Fundamental Curricular Topics

Participants focused on four main curricular topics in an attempt to address possible claims of “you never told me.”

The Israel–Palestine Conflict. The Israel–Palestine (or Arab–Israeli) Conflict represented a fundamental content area to address “you never told me,” because it encompasses “some of the key things they’re [students] going to have to deal with in conversations and in behavior on campus” (Jesse). When teaching about the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, participants paid particular attention to teaching conflicting narratives on the events of 1948 and the establishment of the State of Israel, with a focus on the Palestinian refugee crisis as “one of the things… they [students] face the most on a college campus” (Jacob). With preparation for campus in mind, the content was framed through the lenses of Atzmaut or independence for Israelis and Nakba or catastrophe for Palestinians.Footnote 7

When they go off to say, college or elsewhere they’re not shocked or taken aback by like, wait, the Nakba. Well, that’s not a thing, is it? Like, what are you talking about? (Alex).

That when we’re teaching about Independence Day we teach about Nakba, when we teach about what—like the Jewish claim to Israel, we talk about the Palestinian claim to Israel (Devorah).

Some of the teachers emphasized teaching about these campus “hot topics” (Hannah) so that students would not feel “they’ve been lied to” (Julian) and would be empowered to participate in challenging conversations on Israel. Deir YassinFootnote 8 is a common historical event on which participants focused in discussing the Israeli–Palestine Conflict because of its relevance to the campus Israel conversation.

“But did you know that in Deir Yasin there was this, that, and the other?” and my students would say, “yes, I do know” (Efraim).

What ends up happening if he [the student] takes a history of the Middle East class and suddenly, you know, hey, they start talking about Deir Yessin and you say, “well, what the heck was that?” Well, no, we learned that (Julian).

Participants exposed students to Palestinian perspectives, even within learning environments that held Zionism to be an integral part of their institution’s Jewish identity.

How does a Palestinian from Yafo see the story? … You don’t have to buy into that story, but what is the story that they’re telling, and why do they—why is that their truth? I think it’s just a way of getting kids to get out of their own shoes for a little bit (Arielle).

From the very beginning, we’re always talking about narratives. There’s different narratives. I tell them what the Palestinian narrative is. I tell them what the more right-wing extremist narratives are about Israel that is not our moderate narrative... My kids are very aware that there’s multiple narratives (Daniel).

Learning conflicting narratives aided students in developing educated stances and prepared them for their inevitable encounter with critical perspectives on Israel outside the Jewish day school environment.

I had one student in the class who said, “I’m not for the right of return. I don't think that’s the right move for Israel to make. But for us to say this is different from our refugee experience, it’s just wrong because for two thousand years we’ve been davening [praying] to return to Israel, and we never gave up hope. So how is that any different from this third generation Palestinian who’s asking to go back to Acko?” And I thought that this was like a perfect moment of having that nuance in the discussion (Shifra).

Religion and State. Learning about issues involving religion and state provided students the opportunity to develop mature connections to Israel while confronting aspects of the country they may find to be shocking. One teacher described students finding out for the first time that Israel lacks legal civil marriage as “this bombshell for them” (Jordan). Grappling with this concept pushed students to consider whether the state should define Jewish identity on the basis of Jewish law, “Who is a Jew, I mean, classic, but like that whole conversation” (Hannah). Religion and state introduced students to the “real Israel” as opposed to the mythical country that used to be the focus of a majority of day schools’ Israel education curriculum, a topic at the heart of the “you never told me” critique (Pomson et al. 2009).

Jewish Identity Beyond Religion. Participants contrasted the liberal-religious Jewish identity common in their communities with the liberal-national Jewish identity prominent in Israel. One teacher emphasized that “the hardest thing for my students to grasp is that Jewish isn’t just a religion” and he therefore kept returning to the “idea of nationality” throughout the curriculum (Joey). Teaching about Israel’s complexities required clarifying how Israel’s Jewish character differed from students’ communities’ Jewish character to help students identify the role Israel played for them. (See Biale 2002; Yehi-Shalom 2020.)

I’m trying to point out the distinction between the job that Israel gets done for us in our psyche as [nationality] Jews, then the reality of Judaism in Israel on the ground. They are separate (Tal).

Diversity of Israeli Society. Israel’s Arab minority as well as the different Jewish ethnic groups, with a focus on Mizrahim, sat at the heart of teaching about the diversity of Israeli society. Navigating the topic of Israel’s Arab citizens “complicates” Israel for the students (Jordan) and helps them to “know Israel” not only “through the lens of the Conflict or the Palestinians” (Arielle). Reflecting on the importance of focusing on the historic tensions and contemporary discourse regarding Mizrahim in Israeli society, one teacher commented,

If you were in a school that had a significant Sephardi population and Ashkenazi population that were both familiar with each other, then this might be a little bit less eye opening. But I think from a, yeah, in [community], we’ve got this sort of Ashkenazi picture of Israel which yeah doesn’t reflect reality (Haim).

This content focus on the diversity of Israeli society reflected the curricular goal of exposing students to “multiple narratives of Israel” (Shayna). (See Shafir and Peled 2002).

“You Never Told Me” Impact on Knowledge of Instructional Strategies

The pedagogic strategies employed to counter “you never told me” emphasized the need to teach challenging aspects of Israel in a supportive, Jewish, and Zionist educational environment, because hearing criticisms of Israel could be detrimental to students’ Jewish identity if heard for the first time in a different setting. Lessons focused on students practicing participating in the Israel conversation outside the Jewish high school context, with a focus on college campuses.

Creating a Supportive Environment

Since participants assumed their students would hear critical arguments against Israel on social media or on campus after graduating high school, they claimed it was better to engage with these ideas from “people and a school who are still very supportive of Israel, but understanding some of the complexities” (Arielle) as opposed to in “an auditorium with a professor who might be hostile to Zionism or a campus that’s hostile to Zionism” (Jesse).

Teaching about modern Israel shifted to teach both Zionist and Palestinian narratives, and some of the complex issues because it would be better to hear it at Herzl School because eventually they are going to hear it at other places and not good if they say they didn't hear the whole story at Herzl School (Alan).

Kids are sort of like having a chance to kind of workshop these feelings in themselves. I guess it’s kind of a little bit of exposure therapy before. Especially, there’s this great fear for kids who plan to come back from Israel and go to [local] University where there’s a really powerful student union. There’s a really like, very vociferous and vocal, pro-Palestinian kind of presence for years, like going back to 2009. Hillel kids were sort of barricaded inside by pro-Palestinian protesters, and it was very terrifying. The university security had to get involved. So there is this sense of like, let’s talk about things before they become screaming things like Israel Apartheid Week or whatever (Liel).

Learning critical perspectives on Israel advanced the aim of teachers to deepen students’ mature attachment to Israel. Participants believed learning dedicated to multiple perspectives but rooted in a Zionist framework “will strengthen their [students’] connection” (Joey) and having conversations about difficult things happening in Israel would empower “students to ultimately be stronger” in their identities (Hannah), especially when these conversations were with someone who is “from the community and is an ardent Zionist” (Haim).

Practicing the Israel Conversation

To prepare students for life outside the Jewish high school context, many of the participants embraced the instructional strategy of having their students practice participating in the Israel Conversation to help deepen their identity conceptualization regarding their Jewishness and Israel.

Help them make that personal connection to what they’ve been learning…they can articulate the connection between certain topics and their own Zionism. Both for them to be able to think through and express themselves in terms of what they’ve learned, and also in how they’re now understanding their own Zionism (Jesse).

How are they thinking about Israel in relation to themselves? How are they gaining a new understanding of Israel? How is this new understanding, changing, shifting, or contributing to the ideas they have about the country? (Jordan).

They described this instructional strategy as one of “open debate” (Alan), “conflict pedagogy” (Joey), “complicating pedagogy” (Tal), or an educational “jungle gym concept” (Jesse), because it helped students “feel part” of or “belong to the narrative” (Alexa). Teachers utilized small group projects, activities, and conversations to model having an “intimate conversation with someone,” as these discussions would typically not take place in a classroom but more likely in a “dorm setting” with “a couple of people” (Jacob). One participant described participating in deep discussions on Israel as impacting the students to have a “more sophisticated approach” regarding “what they’re hearing on campus” (Jesse).

Teachers incorporated role-playing scenarios involving Israel on campus to breed familiarity with the Israel conversation there and because it “takes it from the theoretical to ‘how am I going to change who I am because of this?’” (Hannah). They described students discussing “things that they’re going to hear on campus they’ve got to rebut” (Molly) and case studies of real-life campus scenarios such as when Jewish students received eviction notices supposedly to replicate the Palestinian experience, because “that is something that many of these kids are going to deal with, many of them within six months” (Julian). Participants were adamant that the scenarios were not to prepare students with practical skills to advocate for Israel, but rather to empower them to participate in conversations that, if they were not properly prepared for, could ruin the personal and collective commitment to Judaism and the Jewish people with Israel as an integral value that they may have developed throughout their Jewish education.

I don’t believe that we should be teaching to BDS in terms of like, “how do we respond to BDS?” I don’t view my classroom as an Israel advocacy space. But at the same time, if the first time that they hear that Palestinians believe that there was ethnic cleansing at Deir Yassin, the first time they hear that is on a university campus by looking at an apartheid wall. And they have no clue what is being talked about. That’s a failure of the Jewish day school system (Jordan).

Let’s have this discussion that you can defend yourself in a proper forum and you can do so at least somewhat wisely or more intellectually, rather than, you know, not being able to defend yourself. Or in some cases, we end up having some of our students who become totally repulsed by Israel and go on the other side of it. And don’t think that’s the answer, either (Julian).

They contended that having positive emotional memories of debating difficult topics when it comes to Israel and its complexities in high school would strengthen students’ Jewish identities in relation to Israel, because when the Israel conversation came up on campus, a student would already have “had that emotional discussion and dealt with it” (Shifra).

The analogy would be, I held on to loving my 10th-grade math teacher. I don’t really remember what we did. But I wouldn’t say it was they remember me as much as we talked about those things (Tal).

Participants believed that helping students develop their own positions on Israel served the purpose of preparing them to navigate complicated discussions concerning Israel and afforded them the opportunity to think about the role they wanted Israel to play in their own lives and identities.

“You Never Told Me” Impact on Knowledge of Context

Teachers’ pedagogic and content choices are not made in a vacuum. Beyond the four walls of the classroom, the communal and institutional context directly and indirectly influenced the choices made by the participants in addressing “you never told me.”

Israel Education in a “Right-Wing” Environment

Participants considered how to do Israel education within what they described as communities or institutions that were “right-wing”Footnote 9 on Israel, being careful in the content presented and the methods they used.

They’re so overloaded, and I believe certainly in a community like [this], which is extremely strong in its Israel identity, but also has a distinct political slant in its Israel identity, which the general consensus is, [community] leans rightwards. They have permission to criticize Israel if they want to (Jordan).

They were cognizant of communal pressure to stick to a specific Israel narrative. One teacher commented that stakeholders care more about their approaches to Israeli politics than “God and religion,” which she described as “unfortunate” (Devorah). Participants were careful to not disrupt the communal approach to Israel, acknowledging the context that being in a right wing community “not everything can be done” (Shifra), even as they taught toward feeling affinity with Israel and being proudly Zionist while being empathetic toward differing opinions.

Navigating Stakeholder Demands

Participants navigated stakeholder demands or restrictions as to what or how material was taught. Teachers’ curricula may have been dictated by administrators to include certain units or speakers or focus on certain historical time periods. They tried to come up with solutions that would still address “you never told me.” If a school did not allow a Palestinian speaker, a participant would bring in a Jewish, Israeli, anti-Occupation activist (Shifra) or utilize multimedia to bring in those perspectives (Devorah). Even when “Israel advocacy,” as a unit or even as the name of a course, was thrust upon them (Joey, Jordan), they emphasized their educational approach to preparing students for the campus conversation as opposed to facilitating advocacy training.

And when the unit [Israel advocacy] was designed, I was very transparent, that I’m not teaching how to be an Israel advocate, that’s not my job, that’s not how I see myself. Instead, what we do in this unit is introduce students to, “what are the controversies that are happening on campus?” (Jordan).

Parents as Elephants in the Room

Participants considered parent reactions to what children learned in their Israel education courses, worrying their conflicting narratives approach toward Israel education might get them “into trouble from parents” (Arielle). One teacher summarized this, “I’m waiting in some ways for those angry phone calls from the parents. The ones that are like huge IDF, lone soldier donors and whatever. And it never comes” (Liel).

Discussion

The findings of this study have practical ramifications for the practice of Israel education as a subject matter course and for the integration of Israel education into Jewish education curricula and learning programs in both formal and informal frameworks. These data on the PCK of Israel educators rooted in the wisdom of practice of exemplary Israel educators—specifically their integration of purpose, curricular, instructional strategies, and contextual knowledge—can aid in constructing a theory of teacher knowledge for a field bereft of such research. Following recent trends in the learning sciences (Fishman et al. 2013), below are eight design principles for improving teaching and learning in the practice of Israel education, based on the findings of this study.

Israel Education Must Respond to the Challenges of Ethical Liberalism

Israel educators are challenged to achieve their objectives without addressing the weakness of the ethical liberalism that sits at the heart of liberal Jewish identity outside of Israel (Alexander 2012; Davis and Alexander 2023). Although this form of liberalism—also known as comprehensive, universal, or political liberalism—embraced in North American and other Jewish communities in liberal democratic societies facilitated the successful socioeconomic, cultural, and political integration of Jews, it was not as successful in encouraging commitment to distinct Jewish visions of the good life beyond liberal toleration (Alexander 2001, 2015b, 2019). This study shows how the challenge of ethical liberalism to the goals of Israel education is not only about the freedom to choose an identity that may be distinctly Jewish, but also the hostility students may encounter to a value choice of being committed Jews connected to Israel when living independently as students outside an immersive Jewish educational environment for the first time. Israel educators perceive the college experience to provide significant obstacles for students to opt for an interpretation of their Jewishness with connections to Israel because of the social and academic challenges on campus to these value choices. The findings here show how the PCK of Israel educators provides an educational model to help Jewish students who have chosen to commit to a Jewish identity with Israel as an integral value to contend with negative attitudes, criticisms, and delegitimization regarding Israel on campus. These critiques directly challenge the choice young Jewish students make in identifying as committed Jews and Zionists. The PCK of Israel educators incorporates pedagogic choices that give autonomy to students to develop their own stances while exposing them to nuanced content that challenges the commitments they are grappling with regarding their Jewish identities and connections to Israel.

Complex Israel Education Requires Inclusion of Scholarly Criticism

A significant number of academics writing about Israel, who identify with critical social theory (Marxism, neo-Marxism, postmodernism, postcolonialism), challenge the legitimacy of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state. Such scholarship problematizes Israel education as a valuable endeavor altogether (Butler 2014; Khalidi 2020; Pappe 1997; Said 1978, 1994; Silberstein 1999; Sternhell 1998). The criticism of Israel from this perspective (sometimes associated with post-Zionism) often argues that Israel represents Western imperial interests to impose an “alien hegemonic culture” (p. 73) in the area to strip the native Arab population of any political, economic, or cultural power (Alexander 2003). Such a critique claims Palestinian liberation from Israeli oppression must include replacing the foreign ideology of Zionism (Butler 2014; Khalidi 2020; Pappe 1997; Said 1978, 1994; Silberstein 1999; Sternhell 1998). Even if criticisms of Israel rooted in such thought are hampered by political, moral, and epistemological flaws (Alexander 2003), considering the strengths as well as the weaknesses of these scholarly critiques of Israel must be included in Israel education curricula to address “you never told me.” This academic criticism often sits at the heart of both the social and academic conversation Jewish students encounter for the first time on campus. Additionally, such an inclusion would ensure Israel education sustains its educational nature, as opposed to venturing into indoctrination, by being grounded in critical viewpoints rooted in academic scholarship (Alexander 2015a; Schwab 1978).

Commitment to Israel is Deepened Through Nuance

The findings of this study outline a pedagogy to educationally respond to the critique regarding young people not being prepared for leaving the Jewish bubble for the first time when arriving on campus. Israel educators must guide students to develop a nuanced understanding of Israel while deepening a sense of commitment to the country. The nuance has to do with the complexities of Israel, both in relation to Palestinians and the Conflict and to issues within Israeli society. Commitment relates to the role Israel plays in the Jewish identity of the learner. In emphasizing nuanced subject matter to deepen mature commitment to Israel, the PCK of Israel education incorporates a “pedagogy of the sacred” into dynamic or intelligent world views, on the one hand, and a “pedagogy of difference,” from or about other or opposing worldviews, on the other (Alexander 2015a; Davis and Alexander 2023). Teaching a more complete and complex picture of Israel empowers students to develop mature relationships with the ideas, people, and places to which they feel personally connected. Telling the whole truth, as one is given to understand it, as opposed to only one side of a story—educating not indoctrinating—is crucial to healthy identity development. Identities based on a one-sided reading of narratives tend to be fragile and rigid and are well suited for what philosopher Karl Popper (1963) called closed societies. Identities built on an understanding of complexity are robust and flexible and suited for open, diverse, democratic societies. Learning nuanced subject matter about Israel empowers mature commitment to the country as part of cultivating dynamic rather than dogmatic Jewish identities.

Israel Education is for Identity not Advocacy

Our findings discredit the “you never told me” claim that Israel education in Jewish high schools fails to expose students to Palestinian narratives or criticisms of Israel, at least as to the exemplary teachers we interviewed, who all emphasized conflicting narratives and learning more about the challenging aspects of Israeli history and contemporary Israel. Perhaps the real complaint of those claiming “you never told me” is political, not educational; they are irked by the Zionist identity of their teachers and schools. If this is the case, their claims are correct. The teachers of Israel education who were our participants and the schools they represented outwardly and proudly identified as Zionist. But this identification does not preclude teaching about perspectives that challenge and contradict one’s position. As emphasized by the teachers in this study and research literature on normative education (Alexander 2015b, pp. 107–124), navigating the fine line between education and indoctrination requires being exposed to value systems that differ from one’s own. The Israel education participants were not teaching their students to advocate for Israel, but rather to advocate for themselves. They aimed for students to feel confident in making informed choices about how they would identify as Jews and the relation of that identity to Israel. It is this emphasis on autonomous choice that differentiates between education and indoctrination. Our findings provide evidence that exemplary Israel educators today are intentional in not deceiving or lying to their students because they believe the best way to ensure the next generation continues to be proudly Jewish with sincere connections to Israel is to tell them the truth, at least as they are given to understand it, and to expose them to alternative and even competing narratives about that truth.

There is No Avoiding the Israel–Palestine Conflict

Our study of the PCK of Israel educators and its integration of a response to “you never told me” highlights the need to include the Israel–Palestine Conflict in the Jewish high school curriculum. While the scope of this study was not to determine how much needs to be focused on this conflict as opposed to other topics concerning modern Israel, it affirms the notion that if Israel education is to facilitate deepening Jewish identity and connections to Israel, the Israel–Palestine Conflict simply cannot be avoided. As emphasized by Zakai (2022), even young children are curious about it. For Jewish high school students, there is a pressing need to have a practical educational model for addressing this contentious subject in Israel education. However, the “you never told me” claim is not only about Jewish day schools. It includes supplementary schools and informal frameworks, such as summer camps and youth groups as well. These programs would also be well advised to not avoid the Israel–Palestine Conflict, and stakeholders of Israel education should focus their efforts on preparing Israel educators in formal and informal frameworks to incorporate this important subject into their practice.

Israel Educators’ PCK Applies to Informal as Well as Formal Settings

All of the insights from this study, not just those regarding the Israel–Palestine Conflict, should not be restricted to Israel education in formal settings such as Jewish high schools. The PCK of Israel educators in Jewish high schools provides a formula for educator training or professional development of frontline educators of young Jews in multiple Jewish educational frameworks, such as camps, youth groups, and Israel experiences. Stakeholders developing such programs can reflect on how their programs address knowledge of purpose, curriculum, instructional strategies, and context, and how they can train educators in integrating these different components of their PCK into the programs.

Israel Education is Not Only for Israel Educators

If Israel education is integral to Jewish education, then professional development for Jewish educators should include learning and teaching of Israel education, whether or not they intend to teach distinct Israel-related courses. For many Jewish education decision makers, Israel education is not an independent topic and should be integrated throughout Jewish education curricula (Berger 2008; Grant 2011; Grant and Kopelowitz 2012; Grinfas-David 2012). Integrating Israel into their Jewish studies classes should help teachers of Jewish studies develop their own PCK for Israel education as it relates to other subjects important to Jewish education.

Israel Education and the Impact of Stakeholders

Israel educators interviewed for this study integrated their knowledge of context with the other components of their PCK. While this supports the thesis prominent in the body of research on PCK regarding integration of PCK components (Van Driel et al. 2002), stakeholder influence was sometimes seen as a hurdle to overcome. Stakeholders concerned with the professional development of Israel educators should consider how they can aid frontline educators with navigating the challenges of context. Perhaps a greater conversation on context should be addressed communally. While Zakai (2023) states that a consensus on “Israel education for what?” may never be something that can be agreed upon, there should be a way to prevent stakeholder influence from being an obstacle to shared aims for Israel education. If Israel education is meant to be educational, then it would be wise for stakeholders in the field to brainstorm how outside influence can be limited so educators can do the work of education.

Conclusion

“You never told me” influences the PCK of Israel educators to adapt the purpose of the discipline in preparing students for campus, with a clear focus on a mature outlook to the Israel conversation. The wisdom of practice displayed in this research provides a model for helping students embrace their Jewish identities with connections to Israel as they graduate high school and continue to live independent Jewish lives for the first time. Considering the Hamas massacre of Israelis on 7 October and the subsequent war in the Gaza Strip, further research into Israel education should explore how teaching in the field may change to enhance this study’s findings regarding how teachers integrate previous generations’ disappointment with the idealization of Israel into their PCK.

The insights of this study can also help the broader Jewish community navigate a conversation many find difficult to even start, let alone participate in or lead. Jewish professionals, lay leaders, and active communal members can be empowered to have conversations about Israel rooted in the community’s values, while respecting and acknowledging the narratives of the other. If the wisdom of practice of exemplary Israel educators provides a blueprint for empowering Jewish high school students to participate in the Israel conversation on campus, there is no reason why such a model could not be applied for the broader community as well.