Jon A. Levisohn

• About me

I teach at Brandeis University, where I also direct a research center for Jewish education. My primary research focus is on the purposes of Jewish education. For example, a recent paper argues for thinking about Jewish education as oriented towards learning the languages of Judaism. I have also published books and articles on the teaching and learning of history, the teaching and learning of Jewish texts, and more. My current book project is about the concept of Jewish literacy. 

• Download my current CV (June 2025)

• Other pages

  • • My Brandeis ScholarWorks Page (includes a list of publications)

    • My page at the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Studies in Jewish Education (MCSJE) site

    • My academia.edu site (includes access to most publications)

• Recent media

  • • Learning About Learning podcast and YouTube series

    • Valley Beit Midrash (November 2025), "Why Jewish Knowledge Matters: Rethinking Jewish Literacy"

    • Pholoso Ministries Podcast (October 2023), "How to Study the Bible in Context" 

    • Prizmah Podcast (July 2022), "Educating Jewish Producers" (with Stephanie Ives and Rafi Cashman)

    • Opening Doors: Jewish Education Podcast for NRJE (June 2022), "How Is the Study of Sacred Texts Possible for Secular People?" (with Ruth Calderon)

    • Makom Salon (February 2021), "Love of Israel in a Time of Populism" (with Pnina Agenyahu)

• Selected recent scholarship

  • • "The Purpose and Methods of Philosophy of Jewish Education: A Critical History of Seymour Fox's Theory of Vision," chapter in an edited volume (available here)

    • "Becoming a Speaker of Jewish Language," Journal of Jewish Education 91:3 (2025)

    • Teaching Historical Narratives: A Philosophical Inquiry into the Virtues of Historical Interpretation (Bloomsbury, 2024)

    • "From Interpretive Rights to Interpretive Responsibilities: Another Reading of the Oven of Akhnai," Sources 4:3 (2024)

    • "Teaching and Learning the Norms of Judaism Beyond the Beit Midrash" (forthcoming, draft available here)

    • "A Kaplanian Vision of What Jews Ought to Know," Mordecai Kaplan Center for Jewish Peoplehood (2024)

    • Envisioning Zion, Journal of Jewish Education 89:1 (2023), pp. 39-35

    • "Individual and Collectivism in a Time of Plague," in Torah in a Time of Plague, Erin Leib Smokler, ed. (2021)

    • "A New Paradigm of Jewish Literacy" (2019) and "Producers Not Possessors: A Direction for Jewish Education in Turbulent Times" (2021), produced as a fellow of the Applied Research Collective for American Jewry at NYU (scroll down for the two essays)

• Other

  • • Statement on the Bronfman Report (March 16, 2022)

    • Are you looking for Jon D. Levenson?