The editors "have gone beyond the United States and Israel, the two major Jewish communities of today, to explore Jewish education as a global phenomenon. For readers with little familiarity with Jewish education, the chapters in this Handbook provide an introduction to the present moment in this ancient yet modern field of human activity."

Most writing about Jewish education has been preoccupied with two questions: What ought to be taught? And what is the best way to teach it? Ari Y Kelman upends these conventional approaches by asking a different question: How do people learn to engage in Jewish life? This book, by centering learning, provides an innovative way of approaching the questions that are central to Jewish education specifically and to religious education more generally.