Articles about Judaism
For the staffroom
This article is for paying subscribers What’s the problem?
We asked people from different religions and from atheism to explain how they see the human condition. Are we flawed, fallen and in bits, or angelic, perfectible and glorious? Maybe both? On the next six pages you will...
Reviews
This article is for paying subscribers Review – Eve Harris, The Marrying of Chani Kaufman
(Sandstone 2013), 371pp, paperback, £8.99, ISBN 978-1-908737-43-4. Reading this first novel by Eve Harris took me back to the time when, as a youngish teacher, I began to be interested in the world of Hassidic Jewry and...
Events and resources
‘Do Not Photograph’: a rare insight into Jewish community life
Do Not Photograph, an amazing book of photographs, is edited from the time Joshua Haruni spent photographing from within the Hassidic dynasties and Kabbalistic courts of Jerusalem and its environs. These communities are...
Events and resources 11-14
BBC extends Bitesize RE for 11–14s
We asked Sorcha Clifford of BBC Bitesize about the project. What does the KS3 Bitesize project offer the RE student? New Bitesize Key Stage 3 content aims to give students a great overview of key facts and community...
For the staffroom
Vision: what does it mean to you?
This issue of REtoday focuses on the idea of vision, and so we asked six thinkers from different religions and worldviews to tell us something about their vision of life as it is influenced by their beliefs or faith. A...
Events and resources 14-16
This article is for paying subscribers Beliefs and the World they have Created
This book seeks to describe briefly many of the world’s major beliefs. The main ideologies and religions, interestingly covered, are Judaism, Christianity, Islam, polytheism, nationalism, Asian beliefs, communism,...
The big picture
THE BIG PICTURE Isaiah: Light of Redemption
Jewish microcalligraphy by Ellen Miller Braun Microcalligraphy, or micrography, is a Jewish form of art which developed around the ninth-century CE. The second of the Ten Commandments (do not worship idols in place of...
For the staffroom
Faith questions
Communication, understanding and expression: how do traditions go beyond words?We asked people from different faith traditions to talk about their experience of words, ideas and meaning. The pages that follow are their...
Instant RE
Showcasing RE
Here we introduce a new series of pages directed at heads, governors or senior leadership teams (SLTs). This edition has a primary focus but over time we will represent both primary and secondary phases of education....
For the classroom 5-11
‘I will my light my lamp for you’: poetry and festivals of light
For the last year, Horfield Primary has been the UK Literacy Association’s Literacy School of the year! A love of reading and writing is found throughout the school – with many fabulous teaching ideas across all...
For the classroom 5-11
The important thing is … Using Poetry to get to the heart of things in RE
Recently, I was introduced to a wonderful children’s poetry book (via the ‘if you liked this book, you might like this’ online shop approach that I fall for more often than I should!). I was initially drawn to its...
For the staffroom
Wisdom Ancient and Modern: seven different perspectives
We asked members of different religions and beliefs to answer some questions about their own sense of what is wise, whether ancient or modern. A Christian View Rev Tracy Swindells, who is also an RE teacher, begins the...
For the staffroom
This article is for paying subscribers A Jewish perspective
Debbie Young-Somers is a community educator, Reform rabbi and teacher to both student rabbis and clergy. She is active in the interfaith world and writes and broadcasts widely
For the classroom 11-16
This article is for paying subscribers Now for some original RE: Genesis refreshed
You think you know Genesis? Mary Phil Korsak’s brilliant, fresh translation of Genesis is published as At the Start: Genesis Made New (Doubleday 1993). Why do you think Genesis is atext worth reading 30 centuries on...
For the classroom 5-11
Better RE through A big event!
Before our RE week began…Last year, I was observed when teaching a lesson about Easter, where children were arguing for and against the Christian notion of Jesus as the Son of God. It went well, but made me think about...
For the classroom 5-11
This article is for paying subscribers RE at the synagogue and the mosque
Victoria McDowell explains why a small, rural primary school chose to visit a mosque and a synagogue, a journey which took over two hours To put it simply, first-hand experience is everything for our pupils. If we could...
For the staffroom
This article is for paying subscribers The beginning and the end – Five different views
We asked people from a number of different worldviews to comment on the big issues of the theme of this term’s REtoday, and some treasure emerged. Use these short articles with your 14–19s by all means, but any...
For the staffroom
‘Religion: All in the mind?’
Our theme this term is ‘Religion: All in the mind?’ We asked five members of different communities to respond to some questions about this, and their thinking follows. We used these seven questions. a. What does your...
For the classroom 7-14
This article is for paying subscribers Three stories of animals and religion – and what to do with them
Story is a key way in which religions communicate attitudes, virtues and ideas. So it is unsurprising that the great religions all tell stories with animals in them. Retell and work with these kinds of story in...
For the classroom 11-16
Thoughtful planning
Ashley Farrell is in his second year as an RE teacher at Beal High School, East London. He wanted to use ideas from inside a faith in his planning. Here’s how it worked. When planning a new scheme of work in my NQT...