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Description:
This book discusses the educational teachings of Rabbi Kalphon Moshe HaCohen, the senior sage of the Jewish community in Djerba in the first half of the twentieth century. During this period, the Jewish community in Djerba was the most important Torah center in Tunisia, in no small part - thanks to the educational programs that Rabbi Kalfon led there. On the one hand, he ruled out any attempt to open educational frameworks in the modern spirit that teach school studies, and on the other hand, he worked for the systematic design of a sacred studies program made up of ten distinct stages, starting from early childhood until the age of matriculation. The regulation of the curriculum was done while institutionalizing existing study methods and renewing study processes that did not exist before, all with the aim of developing intellectual creativity and academic excellence. The highest stage of the program was the development of scholars capable of ruling Halacha and leading communities in an optimal way. It can be said that Rabbi Kalfon saw his educational enterprise as a central means of preventing the influence of secularization processes on the Jewish community in Djerba.

The study seeks to examine the historical and cultural transformations from the educational angle. That is, the analysis of the events according to the changes that took place in the curricula of various Jewish communities in North Africa. The premise is that the curriculum is a significant social-cultural introduction.

Dr. Ronel Atia is vice rector and lecturer in the Department of History of the People of Israel at Orot Israel College. He has authored books and articles dealing with the history of the Jews of Djerba and Libya since the end of the nineteenth century.

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