Ziva R Hassenfeld
Biographic Data
| ID | 123703 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Ziva R Hassenfeld |
| GIVEN NAMES | Ziva R |
| FAMILY NAME | Hassenfeld |
| SIGNATURE | HASSENFELD Z R |
| AFFILIATIONS | Brandeis University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-3069-9962 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 10 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 1 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 10 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2017 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
The case of Ivrit b’ Ivrit
This study examines how bilingual students compare to monolingual students in their acquisition of textual Hebrew. Using a case study of 42 5th and 6th grade students at a private Jewish elementary school located in the northeastern United States, we consider how students with different linguistic backgrounds approach the task of translating biblical text. By analyzing students’ textual Hebrew translation abilities and their refusal behaviors, we…
Bridging Sacred Tradition and Secular Aspiration
This study examines how a Jewish coming-of-age ritual—the bar/bat mitzvah—serves as a point of intersection between sacred practices and secular aspirations. Drawing on a multi-sited ethnography of seven families from non-Orthodox congregations in Silicon Valley, the research highlights how the bar/bat mitzvah serves both as a religious milestone and as a structured rehearsal for adulthood. Through participant observation, in-depth interviews, an…
Can Modern and Traditional Hebrew Instruction be Integrated in Jewish Education? An Assessment of Ivrit b'Ivrit Curriculum
This paper presents findings from research conducted over two years examining students' biblical Hebrew comprehension levels in full-time private Jewish schools. The study included teacher interviews, classroom observations, student assessments, parent surveys, and three rounds of task-based interviews with 43 students focused on reading and translating biblical Hebrew. This paper makes three primary contributions. First, it presents findings on …
Negotiating the Task of Translation
This paper speaks to translation as a powerful window into students’ developing religious literacy practices. It considers how 10- and 11-year-old North American Modern Orthodox Jewish students read and translate the Hebrew Bible refracted through their own cultural and religious expectations: in other words, how students use translation to negotiate their knowledge of biblical Hebrew with their lived experiences of family and gender in the conte…
Curriculum on the Front Line
Kids Reading Tanakh
This essay examines two fourth-grade students' task-based read-aloud interviews on the biblical text of Numbers 13. Taking up the New London Group's call for a pedagogy of multiliteracies this article examines how educators and adults might sensitize themselves to the interpretive identities children bring to their reading of biblical texts. This work is intricately tied to child development, as we move religious education from a deficit model an…
Studying Sacred Texts as a Pathway to Positive Youth Development
In many religious education classrooms, the meaning of a sacred text is treated as something stable and authoritative. A teacher's job is to transmit that meaning to students. This study reports on a year-long intervention conducted in a seventh grade Hebrew Bible classroom in which students were asked to find their own meaning in the biblical text. The study found that religious text classrooms can offer a unique opportunity to support positive …
Resources of Jewish Culture
This article offers a conceptual framework for understanding the diversity of pedagogies found in Talmud classrooms. It looks at how two different Orthodox Talmud teachers responded to an academic article about constructivist learning practices in the context of a professional development program. The case study presented in this article helps to illuminate Lev Vygotsky's theory of learning. Ultimately, this article argues that whether Jewish stu…
Traditional Judaism
Post-boomer American Jews pose many challenges to established frameworks for understanding the organization of the American Jewish community. In an analysis of 58 in-depth interviews with post-boomer American Jews, we found a preference for people who described themselves as not religious, and we found a near-total absence of the language of ethnicity. Instead, interviewees volunteered tradition as a replacement for both and as part of a rational…
The Social Self
Studying Sacred Texts as a Pathway to Positive Youth Development
In many religious education classrooms, the meaning of a sacred text is treated as something stable and authoritative. A teacher's job is to transmit that meaning to students. This study reports on a year-long intervention conducted in a seventh grade Hebrew Bible classroom in which students were asked to find their own meaning in the biblical text. The study found that religious text classrooms can offer a unique opportunity to support positive …
Traditional Judaism
Post-boomer American Jews pose many challenges to established frameworks for understanding the organization of the American Jewish community. In an analysis of 58 in-depth interviews with post-boomer American Jews, we found a preference for people who described themselves as not religious, and we found a near-total absence of the language of ethnicity. Instead, interviewees volunteered tradition as a replacement for both and as part of a rational…
The Social Self
Resources of Jewish Culture
This article offers a conceptual framework for understanding the diversity of pedagogies found in Talmud classrooms. It looks at how two different Orthodox Talmud teachers responded to an academic article about constructivist learning practices in the context of a professional development program. The case study presented in this article helps to illuminate Lev Vygotsky's theory of learning. Ultimately, this article argues that whether Jewish stu…
Studying Sacred Texts as a Pathway to Positive Youth Development
In many religious education classrooms, the meaning of a sacred text is treated as something stable and authoritative. A teacher's job is to transmit that meaning to students. This study reports on a year-long intervention conducted in a seventh grade Hebrew Bible classroom in which students were asked to find their own meaning in the biblical text. The study found that religious text classrooms can offer a unique opportunity to support positive …
Kids Reading Tanakh
This essay examines two fourth-grade students' task-based read-aloud interviews on the biblical text of Numbers 13. Taking up the New London Group's call for a pedagogy of multiliteracies this article examines how educators and adults might sensitize themselves to the interpretive identities children bring to their reading of biblical texts. This work is intricately tied to child development, as we move religious education from a deficit model an…
Negotiating the Task of Translation
This paper speaks to translation as a powerful window into students’ developing religious literacy practices. It considers how 10- and 11-year-old North American Modern Orthodox Jewish students read and translate the Hebrew Bible refracted through their own cultural and religious expectations: in other words, how students use translation to negotiate their knowledge of biblical Hebrew with their lived experiences of family and gender in the conte…
Curriculum on the Front Line
Can Modern and Traditional Hebrew Instruction be Integrated in Jewish Education? An Assessment of Ivrit b'Ivrit Curriculum
This paper presents findings from research conducted over two years examining students' biblical Hebrew comprehension levels in full-time private Jewish schools. The study included teacher interviews, classroom observations, student assessments, parent surveys, and three rounds of task-based interviews with 43 students focused on reading and translating biblical Hebrew. This paper makes three primary contributions. First, it presents findings on …
The case of Ivrit b’ Ivrit
This study examines how bilingual students compare to monolingual students in their acquisition of textual Hebrew. Using a case study of 42 5th and 6th grade students at a private Jewish elementary school located in the northeastern United States, we consider how students with different linguistic backgrounds approach the task of translating biblical text. By analyzing students’ textual Hebrew translation abilities and their refusal behaviors, we…
Bridging Sacred Tradition and Secular Aspiration
This study examines how a Jewish coming-of-age ritual—the bar/bat mitzvah—serves as a point of intersection between sacred practices and secular aspirations. Drawing on a multi-sited ethnography of seven families from non-Orthodox congregations in Silicon Valley, the research highlights how the bar/bat mitzvah serves both as a religious milestone and as a structured rehearsal for adulthood. Through participant observation, in-depth interviews, an…
Jewish Identity and Society (8 works) · Judaism (6 works) · Sociology (6 works) · Jewish and Middle Eastern Studies (5 works) · Pedagogy (5 works) · Psychology (5 works) · History (4 works) · Philosophy (4 works) · Art (3 works) · Hebrew (3 works)