This presentation will focus on how various teacher training programs in Sweden prepare future teachers for teaching about Judaism both as a world religion and as a national minority in Sweden.
Paper long abstract
Two recent studies have pointed to interesting traits in the teaching of Judaism in Swedish schools.
1. Jewish students do not recognize the Judaism they are familiar with, since the teaching tends to focus on forms of Judaism that are perceived as distant by Swedish students: ultra-orthodoxy in Israel and the Holocaust.
2. While teachers are required to also teach about Judaism in Sweden as a national minority, most teachers confess to not having the required knowledge to do this.
In this presentation I will focus on how various teacher training programs in Sweden prepare future teachers for the task of teaching about Judaism both as a world religion with a lot of variety and as a national minority.