“Above all, there’s our humanity”: Intertextual responses to reading an ancient Hebrew text by teachers with different religious identities
Submitted by:
Esty Teomim-Ben Menachem
Abstract:
Kristeva (1980) coined the term intertextualité as a comprehensive semiotic cultural phenomenon. Faced with any “text”, be it any cultural phenomenon, our experience is influenced by previous encounters with it, which have imprinted our consciousness with a related “text”. Reading creates a three-dimensional space between the addresser, the addressee and the text. The texts being encountered are associated with others known from the past, making one’s reading “intertextual”.
Intertextuality and reading teachers are in the center of this research.
The study examines the role played by intertextual connections suggested by teachers with different identities engaged in an interpretive dialogue on a 6th-century Jewish legend.
Our previous study showed that some teachers in secular schools perceived Jewish ancient text as irrelevant because of a lot of effort to understand it (such as linguistic efforts; structural efforts; lack of prior knowledge, and lack of identification with the characters) and because of a few if any effects that they could see (Teomim-Ben Menachem & Elkad-Lehman, 2022).
In this study the participants, Hebrew-as-L1 teachers in secular schools in Israel, were asked to study the text in havruta (a traditional Jewish approach to studying sacred texts, involving a dyad of students who debate the text and their meanings). The main question was: What intertextual connections do teachers with diverse Jewish religious identities raise when encountering the ancient Hebrew text in a havruta setting and do those connections make the participants feel the text is more, or less relevant?
Eleven recordings of havruta conversations were audiotaped and transcribed; and ten elicitation interviews with some of the teachers referred to the conversation.
In the analysis process, based on intertextual discourse research, we counted the connections, as well as the turns of every connection then we identified the intertextual connections related to Jewish sources or general sources. The findings suggested significant variance in the number and content of intertextual connections between the havrutot, given the teachers’ religiosity or previous experience with traditional Jewish texts. The connections suggested shaped the processing of the text, the teachers’ attitudes thereto, and their willingness to teach it. The main conclusion is that studying in multicultural havruta groups where intertextual connections emerge helps interpret the text, view it as relevant for classroom teaching, and soften opposition to it, if any.
Keywords: intertextual connections, havruta (havrutot in plural), L1 teachers, ancient Hebrew text, Jewish religiosity.
References
Kristeva, J. (1980). Desire in language: A semiotic approach to literature and art. (T. Gora, A. Jardine & L. S. Roudiez, Trans.; L. S., Roudiez, Ed.). Columbia University Press.
Teomim-Ben Menachem, E., & Elkad-Lehman, I., (2022). How relevant is it? Public Elementary School Teachers Encounter Ancient Jewish Texts. L1-Educational Studies in Language and Literature, 22, 1-22.