Israel education and the dog that didn’t bark

In a famous Sherlock Holmes story, the British detective solves a case on account of “the dog that didn’t bark.” Something that should have happened but didn’t helped unlock an unsolved mystery.

My colleagues and I recently thought of this episode as we wrapped up a just-published review of Israel education research across developmental life stages from early childhood to adulthood.*

A boom in adult Jewish learning

Adult Jewish learning has expanded massively in recent decades. To offer some examples: The Melton School of Adult Jewish Learning (formerly The Florence Melton Adult Mini School) offers courses to thousands of adult learners around the world, and has expanded from in-person courses to on-line courses and global travel experiences; Limmud serves as a platform for adult Jewish learning conferences in 42 countries, reporting 40,000 attendees; and on a smaller scale in North America, the Wexner Heritage Program continues to run multiple cohorts each year to deepen the Jewish knowledge of emerging volunteer leaders.

Newer players such as the Hartman Institute and Hadar have become important contributors to this field in both the United States and Israel. In the last 10 years, podcasts have proliferated to offer instant enrichment, instruction and Jewish inspiration in the most accessible form. Online resources for adult learning continue to multiply, led by field leaders Sefaria, Chabad.org, and the Jewish Virtual Library.

Israel education among adults: Hiding in plain sight

Israel education for adults is occurring too, and probably quite widely, for example, at the Shalom Hartman Institute’s iEngage project, the Melton School’s many courses concerned with Israel, various for-profit Hebrew language ulpanim, in numerous podcasts and in any number of synagogues. We propose that on any evening in any communal center of Jewish life, there is likely to be a screening and conversation about a new Israeli film, a book talk about some Israel-related publication, or a lecture about some feature of Israel’s present moment. We can state with confidence that Jewish adults are seeking out and experiencing Israel education broadly defined.

The Research Gap

Why, then, invoke Sherlock Holmes? Because, despite Israel education being more intensively researched than almost any other field in Jewish education, adult learners remain largely invisible in the literature. Lisa Grant and Diane Tickton Schuster, two pioneers in the field of Jewish adult learning and research, argued almost 15 years ago that “adult Jewish learning has become a normative aspect of the North American Jewish communal landscape.” And yet, it is hard to find anyone other than Grant and Schuster themselves who has actually studied this corner of the landscape. Researchers overwhelmingly focus on children, adolescents, and young adults.

The silence is striking. It should at least give us pause about what it means. Why is a 65-year-old exploring the poetry of Amos Oz seen as less worthy of study than a 15-year-old analyzing political cartoons? Why do scholars examine the pedagogical choices of college instructors but not of those teaching retirees?

We assume that attention has been driven by a sense of where the stakes for Israel education are highest. Teens’ and young adults’ understanding of and relationship to Israel are still forming; decades of interaction with Israel lie ahead of these young people; what happens as a result of their Israel education experiences is far from foreclosed, as is the case for most educational experiences prior to adulthood. Such uncertainty raises the stakes.

Adults matter too

And yet, with such widespread appetite among adults for Israel-related content, and for making sense of Israel and its place in the world today, shouldn’t we try to understand which educational practices are more or less effective when directed at this population?

We also wonder whether in the two years since October 7, adult understandings of and relationships to Israel are quite as locked in as they used to be, or if they have become something different. A whole class of adults characterized as “October 8th Jews” are reassessing their learning and life choices, expressing more interest in learning about Israel and Zionism than ever before. Another subset of adults, some with long histories of commitment to Jewish life and learning, have grown increasingly skeptical of the Israeli government and military actions as the war has unfolded. We know very little about how both these types of adult populations are consuming Israel education and with what consequences.

Adjusting our priorities

If we are serious about understanding the evolving relationship between world Jewry and Israel, we cannot continue to ignore adults. They are not only consumers of Israel education but also leaders, philanthropists, parents, and grandparents who shape the frameworks within which younger generations encounter Israel. Investing in research about adult learners will help us identify which approaches resonate, which deepen understanding, and which promote constructive engagement with Israel in this fraught moment. The challenge now is to move beyond assumptions and anecdotes toward systematic inquiry.

Learning from Sherlock

Much like Sherlock Holmes who was only able to discover the solution to the crime by adjusting his focus to recognize what was missing, we also did not set out to discover that such a profound gap existed in the research literature. We wanted to understand how Israel is taught and learned at different developmental stages and for different ages. This novel approach helped us become Sherlockian and see how little is known about how adults learn about Israel.

The solution, dear readers, is elementary: funders, educators, and scholars alike must take up the task of studying how adults learn about Israel, what draws them in, and how their learning influences their choices and commitments. Only then can Israel education fulfill its potential across the entire Jewish life span.

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*This piece and the paper that inspired it were written with Matt Reingold, Senior Project Lead at Rosov Consulting and Sivan Zakai, Sara Lee Professor of Jewish Education, Hebrew Union College.