‘Jewish heritage, tradition essential to our culture'

Does being religious enhance literary skills?

By JONAH MANDEL
agnon 311 (photo credit: Courtesy)
agnon 311
(photo credit: Courtesy)
Does being religious enhance literary skills?
The Education Ministry on Tuesday released the breakdown of the latest results of matriculation exams (bagrut) in literature, for the school year 2007/2008, and seven of the 10 high schools with the best averages, including the top five, were religious institutions.
Bar-Ilan University Prof. Ephraim Hazan, who also served as a supervisor over literature studies in the religious education system, was cited by Israel Radio on Tuesday as explaining that “the religious youth is more connected to the [Jewish] sources and the Hebrew language of the sources, while the secular youth is unfortunately disconnecting from it, in certain aspects.”
Ariela Zim agrees with Hazan’s thesis, but says that there is more to it. She would know, as it was her pupils in the Neveh Shmuel yeshiva high school, located in Efrat, who had the highest average score in the 2008 literature exams.
“When our students read Agnon, it really comes to life for them,” the jubilant teacher told The Jerusalem Post, referring to the Nobel laureate whose corpus is rich with references and allusions to the Jewish tradition and sources. “But you need to utilize the preliminary connection, to inspire the students, to impassion them.
“An important aspect is the method of teaching, which in our case, is a round table with all the implications – a group of us sitting together, debating, discussing, listening to one another – much like traditional Jewish scholarship,” Zim continued, contrasting that method to one in which a single authority puts forth a thesis.
“Our approach promotes the capacity to analyze and scrutinize texts,but more importantly, genuinely connects the students to the material.The students learn to ask questions, and to love the subject matter. Itbecomes part of their soul.”
Zim also noted that since the students’ abilities are ultimatelyevaluated by a written test, she takes care to develop oral and writtenexpression skills.
When asked by the Post if her pedagogic successcould not be attributed primarily to good teaching methods in general,Zim had no doubts as to the central role Jewish heritage has incontemporary Israeli culture.
“Any attempt to sever oneself from the Jewish heritage and tradition,while suggesting an alternative secular culture or identity, is doomedto fail,” she said. “Without tradition constituting a significant facet[in our culture], we won’t be able to make achievements in fieldsconsidered secular, and not only literature.”