About

Ari Y. Kelman is the Jim Joseph Professor of Education and Jewish Studies and an Associate Professor, by courtesy, of Religious Studies at Stanford University. His research focuses on the forms and practices of religious knowledge transmission, with a specific research interest in American Jewry. Kelman holds a BA in Sociology from UC Santa Cruz (1994) and a PhD in American Studies from New York University (2003). He is the author of 'Shout to the Lord: Making Worship Music in Evangelical America' (NYU 2018) and 'Station Identification: A Cultural History of Yiddish Radio' (California, 2009). Additionally, he is the co-editor of 'Beyond Jewish Identity' (2019), the editor of 'Is Diss a System?: A Milt Gross Comic Reader' (2010), and co-author of 'Sacred Strategies: Transforming Synagogues from Functional to Visionary' (2011). Kelman maintains an active research agenda in collaboration with partners at Stanford and elsewhere, regularly publishing in scholarly and popular venues.

Research topics

• Sociology
• Political Science
• Computer Science
• Religious studies
• Law
• Engineering ethics
• Literature
• Internet privacy
• Aesthetics
• Business
• Demography
• Art
• Public relations
• Medicine
• Engineering
• History
• Philosophy
• Anthropology
• Theology
• Gender studies
• Psychology

Selected publications

• 8 American Judaism in the Twenty-First Century

  New York University Press eBooks · 2025-12-11

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Jewish Education

  Rutgers University Press eBooks · 2024-04-03

  book1st authorCorresponding

  Most writing about Jewish education has been preoccupied with two questions: What ought to be taught? And what is the best way to teach it? Ari Y Kelman upends these conventional approaches by asking a different question: How do people learn to engage in Jewish life? This book, by centering learning, provides an innovative way of approaching the questions that are central to Jewish education specifically and to religious education more generally. At the heart of Jewish Education is an innovative alphabetical primer of Jewish educational values, qualities, frameworks, catalysts, and technologies which explore the historical ways in which Jewish communities have produced and transmitted knowledge. The book examines the tension between Jewish education and Jewish Studies to argue that shifting the locus of inquiry from “what people ought to know” to “how do people learn” can provide an understanding of Jewish education that both draws on historical precedent and points to the future of Jewish knowledge.

  PublisherDOI

• Jewish Education

  2024-05-22

  reference-entry1st authorCorresponding

  Studying the various forms of education produced in different Jewish contexts offers a compelling window into the ways that Jews have conceptualized Judaism and Jewishness across time and space. Examining modes of teaching and learning offers insights into the ideas and values prioritized by teachers and students, into the various ways that non-Jewish culture has been appropriated and adopted by Jewish communities, and into the relationship of Jews to emerging media technologies. Considered broadly, not only in terms of school settings, but also including home- and family-based learning, the study of Jewish education is not limited to institutions that have historically been accessible only to males but can include the learning experiences of women and girls as well. The scholarly study of Jewish education begins in Antiquity and extends through to the present day. Modes of teaching and learning Jewish religious texts constitute the primary focus of most studies of ancient and rabbinic Jewish cultures. In the medieval period, with the availability of more expansive source materials, scholars have also begun to shed light on dynamics of Jewish family education, on systems for teaching and learning Jewish ritual, and on vocational and occupational training. In the modern era scholars have explored the changes to traditional Jewish education wrought by emancipation and chronicled the development of new educational systems designed to transmit new approaches to understanding Jewishness congruent with the conditions of modernity and post-modernity. In the twenty-first century, these systems have increasingly focused on the promotion of “Jewish identity” toward the ultimate end of Jewish continuity. The ubiquity of teaching and learning in Jewish history has meant that the boundaries of what properly constitutes “Jewish education” have been blurry and often overlooked. Until recently, much of the research on Jewish education has been historical in nature. As a result, we have organized this bibliography into three broad general sections: Overviews, Regions, and Themes. The first section includes references that seek to address broad, overarching themes in Jewish education either by tracing broad historical narratives or by examining specific orientations to the enterprise. The second section follows the majority of scholarship in Jewish education in approaches that are largely historical, national, or regional in scope. The third section takes a thematic approach to scholarship and research on Jewish education in order to emphasize particular areas of scholarly depth and concern.

  PublisherDOI

• Jewish Education

  Rutgers University Press eBooks · 2024-05-17

  book1st authorCorresponding
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• Ripples of Memory from Sand Creek

  Parks Stewardship Forum · 2023-09-15

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  On November 29, 1864, troops from the 1st and 3rd Colorado Regiments attacked an Arapaho and Cheyenne peace camp along the banks of Sand Creek in southeastern Colorado Territory. The soldiers killed some 200 or more Native people, razed what remained of their village, and desecrated the bodies of the dead. Initially celebrated by Colorado settlers as a heroic battle, in time the violence came to be known nationally as the Sand Creek Massacre. Almost a century and a half later, on April 27, 2007, the National Park Service opened its 391st unit: Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site. This essay explores the politics of memory surrounding the Sand Creek Massacre, focusing on the impact of the historic site in reshaping official and popular recollections in the 16 years since it opened to the public.

  PublisherDOI

• The Institutionalization of American Jewry

  2023-02-16

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  Ari Y. Kelman details the history (starting in the 19th century), development, focus, and ubiquitous nature of American Jewish institutions – from synagogues, charities, Federations, schools, fraternal associations, advocacy groups, and social service organizations to summer camps. While these institutions have been core to Jewish life in America, Kelman notes that a variety of factors – including neoliberalism, privatization, decentralization, and deinstitutionalization – have weakened these social structures. Yet, they continue to be important in Jewish life in many ways. Even challenges to the institutional structures of American Judaism took the form of new institutions. Thus, even the new ways of thinking and collectively identifying have continued to lead to the creation of institutions. Changes in information technology, communications, and even tax codes have all led, in different ways, to the need for Jewish institutions, even if of a different nature than in the past. Kelman concludes that, “Synagogues, schools, charitable organizations, political advocacy groups might all differ in their orientation and intention, but they all embody a common cultural form and they result from the process by which that form has emerged as definitive of American Jewish life in the 19th and 20th centuries, and into the 21st.”

  PublisherDOI

• The Other Dual Curriculum: Jewish Community High School Students’ Reflections on What Counts as “Jewish” Learning

  Journal of Jewish Education · 2023-10-02 · 2 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  ABSTRACTResearch on Jewish day schools has long focused on the challenges they face in managing the tension between the “Jewish” and “general” components of their “dual curriculum.” Interviews with 34 graduating seniors of a private, community Jewish high school found that students experienced another dual curriculum within the school’s approach to Jewish Studies. This other dual curriculum points to the central tension of liberal Jewish education, which is caught between two approaches: one that is fundamentally discursive, deliberative, and inquiry based and one that is essentially instructional and normative.KEYWORDS: Dual curriculumJewish day schoolslearningstudents AcknowledgmentsThe authors would like to thank our partners at Hillel High and the school’s graduating class of 2018, who gave us so much time and energy, and allowed us to conduct this study. We also wish to extend our gratitude to our research partners on the project, Marva Shalev Marom and Jeremiah Lockwood, and to the anonymous readers of the article’s first draft, whose insightful comments helped us focus our key insights.Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1 “Brad,” “Hillel High School,” and the names assigned to any other participant in this study are pseudonyms intended to maintain the anonymity of participants and the community. This project was conducted under the supervision of the Stanford University Institutional Review Board and corresponds with all guidelines pertaining to the ethical treatment of human subjects, including the maintenance of their anonymity.Additional informationNotes on contributorsAri Y. KelmanAri Y. Kelman is Associate Professor and the Jim Joseph Chair in Education and Jewish Studies at the Graduate School of Eduation at Stanford University.Ilana M. HorwitzIlana M. Horwtiz is Assistant Professor and Fields-Rayant Chair in Contemporary Jewish Life at Tulane University.Abiya AhmedAbiya Ahmed is Director of the Markaz Resource Center and Associate Dean of Students at Stanford Unviersity.

  PublisherDOI

• Identity and Crisis: The Origins of Identity as an Educational Outcome

  Academic Studies Press eBooks · 2022-09-27

  book-chapterOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  It is dubious whether identity can be manufactured, as it were, in a classroom" (Marshall Sklare, America's Jews, p. 161) E arly in the twenty-first century, there is probably no educational outcome so widely embraced and pursued across the American Jewish denominational and political spectrum as identity. In one characteristic mission statement, a school identifies itself as "a modern Orthodox Jewish day school providing excellence in Jewish education to the entire Jewish community. Our focus is on the needs of the whole child, fostering a love of learning and a strong sense of Jewish identity." A large Reform congregation presents its educational programming in similar terms. "We strive to provide a positive Jewish identity and a personal understanding of the history, mission, and social conscience of the Jewish people, while appreciating that diversity and respecting each student." The webpage of a national overnight camp system states, "Our staff encourage the growth of Jewish values in each of our campers, and our programming is carefully created to nurture a positive Jewish identity through all that we do." Israel travel programs offer a similar educational vision: "Taglit-Birthright Israel seeks to ensure the future of the Jewish people by strengthening Jewish identity, Jewish communities and connection with Israel via an educational trip to Israel for the majority of Jewish young adults from around the world." Regardless of movement affinity or educational program, identity is ubiquitous.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Counting on Whiteness: Religion, race, ethnicity, and the politics of Jewish demography

  Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion · 2022 · 13 citations

  • Sociology
  • Sociology
  • Political Science

  Abstract American Jews have long been an anomaly for scholars concerned with understanding how they fit into extant social scientific or historical categories. Sometimes they seem best described as an ethnic group, other times as a religious one. This ambiguity has also vexed Jewish communal leaders whose desire to comprehend their communities has largely been underwritten by their intention to protect it. This intersection of sociological methods and schema and Jewish communal concerns has resulted in decisive omissions regarding how best to account for the racial and ethnic diversity of American Jews. An analysis of survey instruments used in 175 American Jewish population studies and community portraits conducted since 1970 reveals a focus on questions of religious practice and an avoidance of those about race and ethnicity, resulting in a “religio‐racial formation” of American Jews as White. This approach to studying American Jewish life has marginalized or excluded non‐White Jews while ensuring ongoing Jewish communal access to Whiteness without having to claim it explicitly.

  PublisherDOI

• Introduction

  Academic Studies Press eBooks · 2022-09-27

  book-chapterOpen accessSenior author

  T his book is motivated by the deep discomfort that we, the editors, feel with the way that the phrase "Jewish identity" is often used by educators, educational policy makers, and other leaders in the Jewish community, especially (although not exclusively) in the United States. To be sure, we have learned much from colleagues who have written rigorously and insightfully about the ways that Jews understand themselves, about

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Steven M. Cohen

  23 shared

• Lawrence A. Hoffman

  10 shared

• Eve V. Clark

  9 shared

• Chaya Nove

  Center for Applied Linguistics

  9 shared

• Shawn Landres

  9 shared

• Michele Rosenthal

  University of Southern California

  9 shared

• Old Canaan

  Arizona State University

  9 shared

• Joshua Dubler

  University of Rochester

  9 shared

Labs

• Ari Y. Kelman LabPI

Education

• Ph.D., Jewish Studies

  Stanford University

  2006

• M.A., Jewish Studies

  Stanford University

  2001

• B.A., History

  University of California, Los Angeles

  1998