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How students and teachers feel about AI in the Jewish classroom
This article was produced as part of JTA’s Teen Journalism Fellowship, a program that works with Jewish teens around the world to report on issues that affect their lives.
(JTA) — ChatGPT. Google AI. Microsoft Azure. Scribe. Dall-E2 – all different names for generative artificial intelligence software that is forcing educators to examine how technology affects students’ lives. Jewish educators and rabbis are going a step further and looking at AI through a Jewish lens and considering its effects on the overall Jewish educational experiences.
“The Torah tells us that we’re made in the image of God, so how could AI or Chat GPT and that sort of realm reflect the divine image?” said Rabbi Erin Binder, a leader of the religious school and youth leader at Rockdale Temple in Cincinnati, Ohio, told JTA. “Because there’s no sense of God or spirituality or relationship or connection in the world of AI.”
This relationship between God and Jewish education is just part of the debate over whether AI belongs in Jewish learning institutions. Educators worry that students will use AI as a shortcut to real problem-solving, or that typing a prompt into a website will undermine the traditional face-to-face learning of the Jewish study hall.
Generative artificial intelligence technology generates answers to questions by culling large sets of data, then creating a response — anything from an essay to a painting to an equation to a line of computer code — by learning from patterns and mimicking human-like responses. It’s become a resource for students who need to complete assignments — sometimes as a helpful research tool, and sometimes as a cheat. For Jewish educators who consider the student-teacher relationship as a key part of studying rabbinic literature, AI poses a disruption to Jewish culture and traditions.
While Rockdale’s Binder has used AI to create summer merchandise logo ideas to place on sunglasses for her students, she does not trust it in a learning setting — especially when it comes to students’ preparing their b’mitvah and d’var Torah speeches. “I don’t know that it has a place in a learning setting for young people,” said Binder. “Because part of what we want them to do is to think creatively and to come to these ideas on their own.”
Student-teacher Noam Lahyna works with first- to third-graders at Adeth Israel Congregation’s religious school in Cincinnati, Ohio. (Noam Lahynai)
She has not yet spoken to her students about the use of AI in the synagogue setting. She trusts her students understand that AI can assist or inspire, but would not fulfill the purpose of their task to teach about the Torah.
This is not the view all students take, however. Maya Jaffee, a teen congregant at Rockdale Temple, sees how AI could be an extension of her Judaic education. The “pursuit of knowledge is what Judaism is all about,” Jaffee, 16, said. She hasn’t used AI yet but hasn’t ruled it out. “I think it would just help me deepen my Jewish identity, deepen in a powerful way,” she said. Jaffee is thinking about using AI to help her include more prayers in her day, as there are limited resources to support her that are not based in Christianity.
When JTA asked ChatGPT to create a prayer schedule, it provided five prayers that could be used throughout the day, including the times to say each prayer and the reason each prayer is said. The AI advised the user that observant Jews may follow different customs and more accurate information would be better found from a religious authority or a local synagogue.
Other students believe that AI will have little impact specific to the Jewish community. Eden Kraus, 15, another teen congregant at Rockdale Temple, heard about AI being used in her synagogue when a teacher was absent and the substitute needed to make a last-minute lesson plan for their students. Kraus was not part of that classroom, but sees the value of AI as a tool for teachers. Otherwise, Kraus, who attends a public school, doesn’t feel any impact at her Jewish education since her religious school does not assign writing or homework.
School administrators across the United States have implemented changes in their classrooms to ensure students use AI with integrity, as well as safely. Rachel Lebwohl, technology director at The Leffell School, a Jewish day school in Hartsdale, New York, said her school created forms and policies for the 2023-24 school year, to set expectations and safety regulations for students using AI.
Students over 13 are asked to sign a Responsible Use Agreement statement that quotes a passage from the Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat 31a: “That which is hateful to you do not do to another; that is the entire Torah, and the rest is its interpretation. Go study.” The form says that academic excellence requires students to value their learning as well as their critical and creative thinking abilities. Under those terms, students will not use AI platforms for academic assignments without permission from teachers. It also states that if using AI in the classroom, students will fact-check all information they receive and understand that AIs are prone to errors and misinformation.
Younger students are restricted from AI entirely.
“One thing about Jewish education is that you have a beit midrash kind of concept and you have one-on-one learning. And I think that is human-to-human at its best,” said The Leffell School’s Lebwohl. Beit midrash, or study hall, emphasizes learning classic texts in pairs and group settings. “I would never want to see that become diluted because there is technology out there that looks and feels like it is equivalent,” she said.
However, education professional Samantha Vinokor-Meinrath sees the potential of AI to enhance Jewish education. As senior director of Knowledge, Ideas and Learning at the New York-based Jewish Education Project, she encourages educators to embrace AI. The connection between the two was the focus of last spring’s Jewish Futures Conference, which she runs.
Samantha Vinokor-Meinrath at the Jewish Futures Conference last spring, which focused on AI in Jewish education. (Courtesy)
“I think we’re at a really exciting moment where Jewish education is seeing all the possibilities that AI can offer,” she said. She suggests teachers explore how AIs could help teachers run their classrooms more efficiently.
Vinokor-Meinrath leans into the teaching moments AI can provide. When she asked an AI graphics generator to show her a Jewish woman, it provided her with a stereotypical image of a woman with curly brown hair and a large nose. She considers this a chance to talk about the powers of stereotypes and how current algorithms, often based on real-world biases, see Jewish women, and what could be done to change the way AI perceives and provides images about the Jewish community.
“When we think about how technology is learning the ways of the world and what it means to look Jewish and to be Jewish, what do we have to do to be able to think critically when we use it and not just take what an artificial intelligence says Jewish looks like at face value?” Vinokor-Meinrath said.
Student-teacher Noam Lahynai, 15, has not seen the effects of AI during her work with first- to third-graders at Adeth Israel Congregation’s religious school in Cincinnati, Ohio. Due to their age, they have limited access to the internet. However, Lahynai has told her students about the expectation that they not use online tools such as Google on their Hebrew assignments; this rule extends into using AIs. She sees AI as a tool to enhance current learning and understanding, but not as an exclusive tool for learning. “I think that people should think about it as a tool to help expand understanding,” she said, while remaining aware that “it might not give all the information and everything that they need.”
Lahynai’s students have not used AIs in her class, however she has seen a camp peer relying on AIs to create his b’nai mitzvah speech. Last June, while at camp, Lahynai and other campers noticed that a b’nai mitzvah speech by a fellow camper sounded impersonal. Later when the camper was questioned by peers, he confessed to using AI to create his speech. Camp administrators and staff did not give any form of repercussion to the camper.
Lahynai saw this moment as impersonal and lazy, feeling that the camper had been disrespectful for turning to AI to write his speech. “He didn’t take the time to think about the meaning behind it,” she says. “He kind of like disrespected the whole thing.”
Despite the potential for abuse, Vinokor-Meinrath remains upbeat about the effects the technology will have on the Jewish educational community. “So much of what Jewish education looks like today was designed for a previous generation that we’ve in some ways been able to adapt and update,” she said. “When we think about the Jewish future, we’re really trying to plan for tomorrow’s learners today. And I think AI is a tremendous way to think about tomorrow, today.”
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The post How students and teachers feel about AI in the Jewish classroom appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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US Paused Weapons Shipment to Israel Over Rafah Operation Concerns, Pentagon Chief Confirms
US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin testifies before a House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee hearing on US President Joe Biden’s proposed budget request for the Department of Defense on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, US, April 17, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Ken Cedeno
US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Wednesday confirmed that the Biden administration halted the delivery of high payload munitions to Israel due to concerns over a possible Israeli military offensive in the Gaza city of Rafah.
“We’ve been very clear … from the beginning that Israel shouldn’t launch a major attack in Rafah without accounting for and protecting the civilians in that battle space,” Austin testified during a hearing of the US Senate Appropriations Committee.
According to US officials, the weapons delivery in question was supposed to contain 1,800 2,000-pound bombs and 1,700 500-pound bombs. Austin said on Wednesday that the US paused “one shipment of high payload munitions” without elaborating on the size or number of munitions.
Austin was the first senior Biden administration official to publicly outline a possible shift in US policy on arming Israel. The US is a close ally of Israel and its biggest arms supplier.
The paused delivery was the first time the US held up a weapons shipment for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war.
Hamas, the Palestinian terrorist group that rules Gaza, launched the ongoing war when it invaded southern Israel on Oct. 7, murdering 1,200 people and abducting 252 others as hostages. Israel responded with a military campaign aimed at freeing the hostages and incapacitating Hamas to the point that it can longer pose a major threat to the Israeli people from neighboring Gaza, a Palestinian enclave home to over 2 million people.
The US has been consistently supplying Israel with weapons since October. However, under heavy pressure from Democrats and progressive activists to oppose Israel’s war effort, President Joe Biden has adopted an increasingly critical posture toward the Jewish state. That transition peaked last month, when Biden threatened to pull back support for Israel due to the humanitarian situation in Gaza.
Austin argued on Wednesday that Israel didn’t need large bombs in a dense urban setting like Rafah.
A “small-diameter bomb, which is a precision weapon, it’s very useful in a dense, built-up environment … but maybe not so much a 2,000-pound bomb that could create a lot of collateral damage,” Austin said.
“We’ve not made a final determination on how to proceed with that shipment,” he added.
The US has sought to pressure Israel to forgo a significant military operation in Rafah, citing the potential for civilian casualties; Jerusalem has countered that a ground offensive is necessary to eliminate Hamas’ remaining battalions in the southern Gaza city.
Experts have told The Algemeiner that Israel must operate in Rafah, which Israeli officials have described as Hamas’ last bastion in Gaza, if the Jewish state wishes to achieve its war objective of eliminating the threat posed by the Palestinian terrorist group.
Israel this week began limited operations in Rafah, but it remains unclear when and if a full-scale military offensive will take place. Israeli forces have sent leaflets and other forms of messages to civilians in Gaza, urging them to evacuate to a humanitarian safe zone.
Austin stressed that US support for Israel is “ironclad.”
“We’re going to continue to do what’s necessary to ensure that Israel has the means to defend itself,” Austin said. “But that said, we are currently reviewing some near-term security assistance shipments in the context of unfolding events in Rafah.”
Republican lawmakers lambasted Austin and the Biden administration for the decision.
“If we stop weapons necessary to destroy the enemies of the State of Israel at a time of great peril, we will pay a price,” said US Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who argued Washington shouldn’t second-guess how Israel waged a war against Islamist terrorists committed to its destruction. “This is obscene. It is absurd. Give Israel what they need.”
Reps. Michael McCaul (R-TX) and Mike Rogers (R-AL) — the chairmen of the House Foreign Affairs and Armed Services committees, respectively — also slammed the Biden administration’s move.
“We are appalled that the administration paused crucial arms shipments to Israel. Withholding arms to Israel weakens Israel’s deterrence against Iran and its proxies like Hamas and Hezbollah,” the lawmakers said in a statement. “At a time when Israel continues to negotiate in good faith to secure the release of hostages, including American citizens, the administration’s shortsighted, strategic error calls into question its ‘unshakeable commitment’ as an ally. The administration must allow these arms shipments to move forward to uphold the United States’ commitment to Israel’s security and ensure that Israel can defend itself and defeat Hamas.”
Israeli officials have reportedly expressed “deep frustration” with the Biden administration over the weapons shipment pause. However, IDF spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said on Wednesday that the allies will resolve such issues “behind closed doors,” adding that coordination between the US and Israel has reached “a scope without precedent, I think, in history.”
The post US Paused Weapons Shipment to Israel Over Rafah Operation Concerns, Pentagon Chief Confirms first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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DC Police End ‘Dangerous Occupation’ of George Washington University by Pro-Hamas Mob
A projection is seen with a picture of US President Joe Biden along with text reading “Genocide Joe” on the wall of the George Washington University during a pro-Hamas protest on campus in Washington, DC, May 7, 2024. Photo: Probal Rashid via Reuters Connect
The Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) of Washington, DC has dispersed an unauthorized demonstration at the George Washington University (GW) in which pro-Hamas protesters commandeered a section of campus and lived there for nearly three weeks.
“This morning, working closely with the GW administration and police, MPD moved to disperse the demonstrators from the GW campus and surrounding streets,” the Metropolitan Police Department said in a statement following the action. “MPD will continue to be supportive of universities and other private entities who need assistance.”
Numerous social media reports indicated that officers arrived on the scene early Wednesday morning, prompting a clash between them and the protesters, many of whom chose to assault the officers or otherwise resist their efforts rather than obey orders to evacuate the area. In response, officers deployed pepper spray and arrested 33 protesters. According to Metropolitan Police, charges have been filed for both assault of an officer and unlawful entry.
MPD’s involvement in restoring order came two days after GW president Ellen Granberg issued a public plea for help in which she explained that the pro-Hamas encampment had “grown into what can only be classified as an illegal and potentially dangerous occupation” of school property. Metropolitan Police had previously denied her request for help in quelling the demonstration, a decision that was excoriated by members of the US Congress and prompted the calling of a hearing on Capitol Hill — which has since been cancelled.
“When protesters overrun barriers established to protect the community, vandalize a university statue and flag, surround and intimidate GW students with antisemitic images and hateful rhetoric, chase people out of a public yard based on their perceived beliefs, and ignore, degrade, and push GW Police officers and university maintenance staff, the protest ceases to be peaceful and productive,” Granberg said. “Finally, it is clear that this is no longer a GW student demonstration. It has been co-opted by individuals who are largely unaffiliated with out community and do not have our community’s best interest in mind.”
Granberg’s fears that outsiders had infiltrated the encampment can be confirmed by The Algemeiner, which accompanied social media influencer and Jewish rights activist Lizzy Savetsky on a walk through it last Friday. Older men — many of whom wore masks to conceal their identities — with body tattoos, as well as other older adults who appeared to be under the influence of drugs, idled inside the encampment. Students there appeared unbathed, and no sanitary facilities were immediately visible.
The group of students and non-students signaled their potentially violent intentions just hours before the police arrived on Wednesday. A crush of them marched to Granberg’s home shouting, “Granberg, we’re at your door, complicity no more.” Standing outside the property for nearly an hour, they clamored for a face-to-face meeting with Granberg, who is Jewish, and demanded that she accept their terms for ending the encampment, which included GW’s adoption of the boycott, divestment, and sanction (BDS) movement against Israel. Chants of “Guillotine, Guillotine, Guillotine,” an apparent reference to the tens of thousands of people who were beheaded during the French Revolution’s Reign of Terror, have also been widely reported.
Aside from threats to physical safety, GW students have said that the encampment severely harmed the learning environment, upending the final weeks of the academic year, a time most students spend studying for final exams and writing end-of-term papers.
“Students have been unable to study for finals, and for those who have studied thus far, some professors decided to cancel exams due to the raucous,” senior Sabrina Soffer tweeted on Wednesday, noting that “academic standards are being lowered” because calming the campus “took far too long.”
Soffer continued, “Permission to violate university policies and the law demonstrates weakness — and the impression of weakness is provocative. The lesson learned is that swift and serious action must be taken from the onset to avoid escalation.”
Pro-Hamas demonstrators have tested George Washington University’s will since Hamas’ massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, an event which set off an explosion of antisemitism around the world.
Just weeks after the tragedy, Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) projected a series of messages on the eastern perimeter of the Estelle and Melvin Gelman Library. They said: “Free Palestine from the river to the sea,” “GW the blood of Palestinians is in your hands,” “Divest from Zionist genocide now,” and “Glory to our martyrs.” The scene attracted dozens of students, Jewish and Muslim, who spectated while the GW Police Department and a campus official negotiated terms for an end to the demonstration.
Students told The Algemeiner at the scene of the incident that the act was laden with symbolism. Before her death in 2009, Estelle Gelman was a GW board of trustees member and board member of the United States Holocaust Museum and other Jewish nonprofits. Her husband, Melvin, was an endowed chair in GW’s Judaic Studies Program.
In April, an SJP spinoff group staged an unprecedented protest of a talk by US Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield that was held at the school’s Elliot School of International Affairs. In a pamphlet distributed to everyone who showed up to the event, the students accused Greenfield of being a “puppet,” alluding to the fact that she is a Black woman holding a distinguished presidential appointment. It also compared Greenfield to Black enslaved persons who had been assigned, against their will, to work as overseers of other enslaved persons on cotton plantations.
While the university has suspended SJP for its conduct, the group has continued to operate under new names.
GW has been one of several universities to be engulfed by a wave of anti-Israel, pro-Hamas demonstrations over the past three weeks, with students and faculty members taking over sections of campuses by setting up “Gaza Solidarity Encampments” and refusing to leave unless administrators condemn and boycott Israel. Footage of the protests has shown demonstrators chanting in support of Hamas, calling for the destruction of Israel, and even threatening to harm members of the Jewish community on campus.
“GW staff have cleared the yard,” the university said in a statement issued after the last of the encampment tents were cleared from University Yard on Wednesday. “During this time, given heightened safety concerns related to the recent illegal demonstrations as well as the ongoing exams, all activities, including activities of free expression on campus, will require reservation through the Division for Student Affairs. In addition, no sound amplification will be permitted for such events on campus.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post DC Police End ‘Dangerous Occupation’ of George Washington University by Pro-Hamas Mob first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Robert Kraft Foundation Has Message for Anti-Israel Campus Demonstrators With NBA Playoffs TV Ad: ‘Don’t Bring Hate’
Robert Kraft. Photo: New England Patriots/Wikimedia Commons
An advertisement purchased by Robert Kraft’s Foundation to Combat Antisemitism (FCAS) that aired on Tuesday night during an NBA playoff game urged students protesting the Israel-Hamas war on college and university campuses across the US to leave antisemitism out of their demonstrations.
“Scream until you’re red in the face. But don’t scream at the Jewish kid walking to class,” stated the 30-second ad that aired during the NBA game between the Boston Celtics and the Cleveland Cavaliers. “Threaten to change history, but don’t threaten your Jewish neighbor. Draw a line in the sand, but don’t draw a swastika. Because bringing more hate to anyone brings more hate to everyone.”
The ad also featured photos from various anti-Israel protests that began after the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attacks in southern Israel. Images shown in the video included burnt Israeli flags and banners held by protesters that read “Hitler should have killed the Jews” and “stuff some into the oven,” a reference to the gas chambers used at Nazi concentration camps during the Holocaust. The video ended with the message “Don’t bring hate to the protests” and displayed the blue square emoji that is the icon for the foundation’s StandUpToJewishHate campaign.
Kraft, the Jewish owner of the New England Patriots, started the Foundation to Combat Antisemitism in 2019. FCAS purchased a Super Bowl ad and an ad that aired during the Academy Awards this year to also highlight the rise in antisemitism.
Kraft was a graduate of Columbia University and a major donor to the New York school until April, when he announced that he would pull his funding over the treatment of Jewish students and faculty at the campus during pro-Hamas protests.
Kraft penned an op-ed for the New York Post in April in which he expressed profound disappointment for the situation taking place at Columbia and how Jewish students are being targeted by anti-Israel student protesters. “The Columbia I loved is no longer a place I know,” he said.
Kraft also wrote an open letter recently in which he condemned antisemitism taking place at universities and colleges across the US, and criticized faculty at those schools for not doing more to protect their Jewish student body. He also said people on campus who intimate and attack their Jewish peers need to be held accountable and “cannot be pardoned for what they have done.”
“The leadership and faculty of so many of our leading educational institutions have failed their students,” he wrote. “Shouting vile, hate filled labels at students while hiding behind masks is not free speech — it is cowardice. Instead of colleges and universities teaching the core principles of free speech and debate our country was founded on, they are emboldening hate that is tearing their campuses, and our youth apart.”
He concluded by saying: “I encourage our nation’s university leaders to act with courage and wisdom so that knowledge, not hate, is what is being produced on our nation’s campuses.” The open letter was also published as a full-page ad in several newspapers.
Watch the latest ad by the Foundation to Combat Antisemitism below.
The post Robert Kraft Foundation Has Message for Anti-Israel Campus Demonstrators With NBA Playoffs TV Ad: ‘Don’t Bring Hate’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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