Home Resources Meaning-Making in the Teaching of Tanakh Storytelling as a Pedagogy for Connection to the Jewish People
March 2026

Meaning-Making in the Teaching of Tanakh Storytelling as a Pedagogy for Connection to the Jewish People

Reuven Spolter
Educational Development Coordinator for English Speaking Countries at Herzog Global
Herzog College
DOWNLOAD RESOURCE
DOWNLOAD RESOURCE
DOWNLOAD RESEARCH PAPER
DOWNLOAD RESEARCH PAPER
To teach Tanakh through storytelling is to transmit shared memory and values, fostering a deeper connection and long-term engagement with tradition.
Reuven Spolter is the director of English-Language Programs at Herzog Global, and the founder of Kitah.org. He has taught formally and informally both in person and online for over two decades. He has taught at the Joseph Kushner Hebrew Academy in Livingston, NJ, the Hebrew High School of New England in West Hartford, CT, as well as at the Farber Hebrew Day School in Southfield, MI. He is a graduate of Yeshiva University with an MA in Secondary Jewish Education from the Azrieli Graduate School for Jewish Education and Administration and Rabbinic Ordination from RIETS, both at Yeshiva University. He has taught and lectured to groups of all ages in schools and communities around the world, and given professional development seminars to Judaic studies teachers in the United States, the UK and South Africa. He recently earned a Masters of Arts Degree in Talmud from Bar Ilan University.
Share

More PEDAGOGIES RESOURCES

A Practice of Wonder: Cultivating Jewish Belonging Through Awe and Attention

Deborah Niederman

Director of Education
Temple Shalom

To engage in a practice of wonder is to see personal experiences of awe as part of a broader Jewish narrative and a commitment to the collective.

Access Resource

Pedagogy of Hiddush

Avidan Halivni

Associate Director
Jewish Learning Collaborative

To practice Hiddush is to extract new meaning from ancient sources and mark one’s own place in the ongoing collective conversation.

Access Resource

Primary Sources as a Portal to Jewish Peoplehood

Shuvi Hoffman

Manager of Global Jewish Education
The National Library of Israel

To learn through primary sources is to enter a portal into a different context and move from a spectator to an active participant in the Jewish story.

Access Resource

The Mosaic of the Jewish People: A Pedagogy of Relational Sense-Making

Mikhael Reuven Kesher

Director, Israel Education
The Jewish Education Project

To engage in relational sense-making is to explore the patterns of overlap, difference, and tension within the complex mosaic of the Jewish people.

Access Resource

The Things We Carry: A Pedagogy of Jewish Migration and Adaptation

Dr. Analucia Lopezrevoredo

Founder and Executive Director
Jewtina y Co

To experience The Things We Carry is to engage all five senses to make the lived experiences of Jewish migration personal and embodied.

Access Resource

Drawing Out a New Torah

Jacqueline Nicholls

Freelance Artist and Educator

To draw out a new Torah is to use artistic engagement as a way of thinking that raises voices previously not included in traditional learning.

Access Resource
View All