The Chosen Few: How Education Shaped Jewish History, 70-1492 (original) (raw)

AI-generated Abstract

Botticini and Eckstein explore the historical transition of Jews from agricultural practices to urban trades, attributing it to a proactive investment in education stemming from religious changes after the destruction of the Second Temple. Their model suggests that literacy provided a competitive economic advantage during the Islamic commercial revolution, while also arguing that high educational costs led to significant demographic changes, including conversions to other religions. While their contributions provoke valuable discussions on religious participation and economic behavior, the authors' assumptions regarding historical literacy and demographic trends remain contentious, highlighting the need for careful scrutiny of their claims against existing scholarship.

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History of Jewish Education Survey

This paper summarizes the development of education and schooling from the time of Abraham through the Temple era, Mishna, and Medieval Europe. It then addresses the rise of Franco-Germanic "hashkafic" domination of Europe and preoccupation with Talmud resulting in the decline of Tanach study. Based on the above content, it ends with an analysis of the current problems in Jewish education, and suggestions for improvement.

From Farmers to Merchants, Conversions and Diaspora: Human Capital and Jewish History

Journal of the European Economic Association, 2007

From the end of the second century CE, Judaism enforced a religious norm requiring fathers to educate their sons. We present evidence supporting our thesis that this change had a major influence on Jewish economic and demographic history. First, the high individual and community cost of educating children in subsistence farming economies (2nd to 7th centuries) prompted voluntary conversions of Jews that account for a share of the reduction from 4.5 to 1.2 million. Second, the Jewish farmers who invested in education gained the comparative advantage and incentive to enter skilled occupations during the urbanization in the Abbasid empire in the Near East (8th and 9th centuries) and they did select themselves into these occupations. Third, as merchants the Jews invested even more in education-a precondition for the mailing network and common court system that endowed them with trading skills demanded all over the world. Fourth, the Jews generated a voluntary diaspora within the Muslim Empire and later to Western Europe. Fifth, the majority of world Jewry lived in the Near East when the Mongol invasions in the 1250s brought this region back to a subsistence farming economy in which many Jews found it difficult to enforce the religious norm, and hence converted, as it had happened centuries earlier.

The Goals and Curricula of Jewish Education: A Historical Account

This article is an analysis of curricula used in Jewish schools in America since the 18 th century. The paper suggests that different perspectives on the purpose of Jewish education inform the content and styles of these curricula. Schools intended to promote Jewish culture and prevent assimilation focus more on Jewish cultural content such as Hebrew and Jewish history. Schools intended to promote Jewish religious commitment and Jewish literacy include more Jewish textual study and religious training. The article concludes with an account of the impact of these differences and the status of Jewish schools today.

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