Spertus Institute. 100 Years of Jewish learning for a better world
Spertus Institute. 100 Years of Jewish learning for a better world

Dr. Jon Levisohn

Education

  • PhD, Stanford University, Stanford, CA
  • MA, Stanford University, Stanford, CA
  • AB, Harvard College, Cambridge, MA

Bio

Jon A. Levisohn is the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Associate Professor of Jewish Educational Thought at Brandeis University, where he also directs the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Studies in Jewish Education. He is the author and editor of several books and over 80 articles on the purposes and practices of Jewish education, as well as on historical interpretation. These include “Mature Love, Nuanced Loyalty, and Redemptive Vision: Conceptualizing the Desired Outcomes of Israel Education” (in Israel Education: The Next Edge, 2020), Teaching Historical Narratives: A Philosophical Inquiry into the Virtues of Historical Interpretation (Bloomsbury, 2024), “What Avodat Hashem is Not” (Tradition, Fall 2026), and Jewish Literacy (Rutgers, forthcoming). He has lived and studied in Israel for three years, including two at Yeshivat Sha’alvim and one at the Hebrew University. For over thirty years, he has taught for, consulted to, and served in leadership roles for dozens of Jewish educational organizations. He lives in Newton Centre, MA, with his wife Emily Beck, in their empty nest.

 

Publications

  • Jewish Literacy (Rutgers, forthcoming)
  • “What Avodat Hashem is Not” (Tradition, Fall 2026)
  • Teaching Historical Narratives: A Philosophical Inquiry into the Virtues of Historical Interpretation (Bloomsbury, 2024)
  • “Mature Love, Nuanced Loyalty, and Redemptive Vision: Conceptualizing the Desired Outcomes of Israel Education” (in Israel Education: The Next Edge, 2020)

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