Head of School Rabbi Mitchel Malkus will take over Jewish History Department Chair Dr. Daniel Rosenthal’s (‘00) period eight Arab-Israeli Conflict ADV class as Rosenthal is leaving after ten years of teaching. Rosenthal is taking a job at the American Jewish Council (AJC) and is leaving CESJDS at the end of the semester.
Rosenthal’s new role will be Assistant Director of Academic Affairs and was offered the job at the end of the summer. Rosenthal is starting during the second semester, as he did not want to make the administration look for replacements on short notice.
“[This new job is] a brand new challenge for me,” Rosenthal said. “It’ll be one where I can take all of my experience, and apply it to a totally new context.”
The administration chose to cover Rosenthal’s classes internally with other Jewish History teachers covering most classes, so Malkus took the uncovered Arab-Israeli Conflict period. After 12 years as Head of School, this will be Malkus’ first time teaching a class at JDS.
The class covers Israel’s history from World War II’s end to today with a variety of discussions, lectures, projects and guest speakers, intended to help students develop an understanding of the Arab-Israeli conflict and the different perspectives associated with it. The curriculum has also changed since Oct. 7 to accommodate the current war.
“The number one thing I’m excited about is just getting the chance to share with the students the materials,” Malkus said. “Beyond that just having the time to get away from the other things that I do and being in the classroom feels like it’s going to be really wonderful.”
Malkus has previously worked with “Collaborative for Applied Studies in Jewish Education” and has written articles on Israel Education for publications such as The Forward and the Israel Forever Blog. Additionally, Malkus previously taught Talmud and Jewish Philosophy at Solomon Schechter Jewish Day School of Manhattan for two years. As Head of School, Malkus has deal with Israel, as he sends out emails and helps to make sure JDS maintains Zionist values. Malkus’ role in teaching the Arab-Israeli Conflict is different as he doesn’t have to express his own views as directly.
“I’m going to be teaching from an educational perspective and introducing material, and that is different from the role that I take as Head of School,” Malkus said. “To me, it’s less of a challenge and more an exciting thing to really be able to come to material with an open mind and really present it in a dispassionate way.” Students who have taken the course previously say it helps them understand the facts and discuss the conflict.
“[The class] was very well done in the sense that we learned both sides of the perspective, and didn’t say necessarily one person was right, one person was wrong, but we learned multiple perspectives,” senior Ezra Raskin said.
Each year, Rosenthal works to build the curriculum to accommodate the evolving nature of the conflict and current events in Israel.
“Teaching has been a really rewarding experience,” Rosenthal said. “Emotionally, it’s a very hard class to teach when you care about the State of Israel. It’s emotionally taxing to deal with a lot of really big issues and questions.”
