Star Wars & Judaism Series Completed

Having announced in May that I would be doing a Star Wars & Judaism Zoom series, I am proud to share that I have now completed this series.

Taking place on Sunday evenings from late May through this past Sunday, I am thankful to the handful of folks who joined me every Sunday evening for a dozen weeks to discuss similarities and dissimilarities of scenes from Star Wars movies against Jewish texts.

Drawing upon Biblical and Rabbinic texts, I compared and contrasted scenes and dialogue from the twelve theatrically-released Star Wars films, here are all of the source sheets from this series:

1. A New Hope
2. The Empire Strikes Back
3. Return of the Jedi
4. The Phantom Menace
5. Attack of the Clones
6. Revenge of the Sith
7. Star Wars The Clone Wars
8. The Force Awakens
9. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
10. The Last Jedi
11. Solo: A Star Wars Story
12. The Rise of Skywalker

While the first session was kept to 40 minutes, as I was on a basic Zoom account, I am fortunate that a couple of people stepped-up to sponsor and subsidize me upgrading to a paid Zoom account, for which I am very appreciative.

Thank you to all of those who joined in the discussions - it was a great experience! :)

A Note on Two Different Activities for Students and Their Results: A Lesson From Michael Satlow

While ellipticalling today, I read through a piece of Michael Satlow's from the Mandel Center for Studies in Jewish Education's Initiative on Bridging Scholarship and Pedagogy in Jewish Studies and came across an interesting breakdown of his on what worked and didn't work pedagogically for him in two separate activities with his students. For me, as I have now been at my job for a little over a year and doing some teaching, this was relevant; however, with the recent day and a half-long Torah learning event I put on last week, teaching is certainly more on my mind. Anyways, here is Dr. Satlow's observation that interested me:

I laid out well-defined criteria for the summit; I told them what I wanted from them, when I wanted it, and how to do it. I gave them means, a vision of the outcome, and a deadline. The Wiki was far more open, as I was asking them to develop these things on their own. Such project indeterminacy is of course common in the real world, sometimes by design and sometimes due to poor management, and some of my students were excited by it. Most, however, found it too overwhelming. Similarly, the small group discussions always improved when I posed sharper questions. This might seem rather obvious, but it emphasizes for me the importance of the teacher’s (and manager’s) role in setting the most advantageous conditions for collaboration.

Michael L. Satlow, "Teaching Ancient Jewish History: An Experiment in Engaged Learning," The Initiative on Bridging Scholarship and Pedagogy in Jewish Studies, Working Paper No. 16 (July 2009), 14.