The history of Jewish education in the United States traditionally concentrates on male figures such as Samson Benderly, Mordechai Kaplan, and their other male contemporaries. A new anthology edited by Dr. Carol K. Ingall, the Dr. Bernard Heller Professor of Jewish Education at The Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS), tells the stories of their female counterparts.
In ten profiles, the contributors to The Women Who Reconstructed American Jewish Education, 1910–1965 (Brandeis University Press, 2010) illuminate the impact of the often unheralded women who introduced American Jews to Hebraism and Zionism and laid the foundation for contemporary experiential Jewish education. Taken together, these ten portraits highlight the important and hitherto unexamined contribution of women to the development of American Jewish education.
Dr. Ingall has contributed four chapters to the anthology. Dr. Ofra Backenroth, associate dean of the William Davidson Graduate School of Jewish Education, has contributed a chapter, as have Lisa D. Grant, an alumna of The Graduate School, and Rebecca Bonim Wolf, adjunct assistant professor of Jewish History at JTS.
Dr. Ingall's other publications include: Moral Education in Middle Schools (Ablex, 1997); Transmission and Transformation: A Jewish Perspective on Moral Education (Melton Research Center, 1999), winner of the National Jewish Book Award in education; and Down the Up Staircase: Tales of Teaching in Jewish Day Schools (JTS Press, 2006).
She has written numerous articles for the Journal of Jewish Education, Religious Education, and Conservative Judaism, and has presented papers at the Network for Research in Jewish Education, the Association of Jewish Studies, the Association for Moral Education, and the World Congress of Jewish Studies. In May 2002, Dr. Ingall was the scholar-in-residence at Leo Baeck College in London.
Dr. Ingall received bachelor's degrees from Barnard College and the Seminary College of Jewish Studies. She holds master's degrees from the University of Chicago and the University of Rhode Island, and received her EdD from Boston University.