Thousands of graduates of Jewish day schools will head off to college this September. But unlike graduates of public school, they will begin their higher education with credentials in Hebrew, Tanach and Talmud, along with mathematics, English literature and biology. And many of these students will enter secular colleges, bringing their uniquely Jewish worldviews into college history courses like the ones I taught at Brooklyn College, a diverse public university in New York City. They will share classrooms with students who know nothing of Jewish history or culture, and they will confront, for perhaps the first time, curricula that emphasize larger narratives, which place the Jewish experience alongside that of other minority groups.
Are these day school graduates prepared for this secular approach to studying the past? How will they cope with seeing a history that they were taught to view as central suddenly placed in this new, broader context?
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