Jewish Education

The education of children has always been something of which Jews have been proud. The obligation to teach one’s children is already articulated in the Torah (“and you shall teach them to your children”), reiterated in the ritual recitation of the Shema (ditto), and enacted in many rituals and settings. A prime example of such education is the Passover seder, which is intended to provoke the curiosity of children (“Why is this night different?”), following which the founding history of the Jewish people is recounted. Other examples, such as an aleph-bet primer found in the Cairo Genizah, are found throughout the Jewish world.