INVESTIGATING PROSPECTIVE JEWISH TEACHERS' KNOWLEDGE AND BELIEFS ABOUT TORAH: IMPLICATIONS FOR TEACHER EDUCATION

Teaching the Torah in liberal settings demands a set of skills and a sophisticated knowledge of the Bible. It presupposes an open approach to the text that posits multiple interpretations, and demands close reading and explication of the text as in a literary-critical approach. In this article, the author describes the knowledge and beliefs of six different cohort groups of prospective Jewish educators regarding the authorship of the Torah and their understandings of two central narratives in the book of Genesis. She explores the tenacity of their early beliefs in the face of a variety of pedagogic interventions question and speculates about the nature of that tenacity.