AI Technology in Jewish Day Schools and Yeshivot: Is It a Good Thing? |
On February 10, 2025, I posted a Times of Israel blog entitled “Artificial Intelligence and the Ever-Changing Day School and Yeshiva Landscape“.
The responses to that post were what I anticipated.
There were folks who felt that the post was spot-on and that it offered a variety of innovative, creative and inspiring 21st century challenges, ideas and concepts. And, there were others who criticized the importance and utility of AI technology in our Jewish day schools and were very skeptical about its value and utility. Many were even adamant against its use.
The purpose of this blog is not intended to support or defend these ideas or points of view, but rather to inspire us to think strategically about the potential use of AI technology in our Jewish day schools and Yeshivot.
First, its important to note that our Jewish day school and yeshiva communities are currently in the throws of one of the most rapidly changing and complex transformations in recent memory. In fact, these challenges are currently evolving at breathtaking speed and meteoric frequency, and they are now on a trajectory of unlimited scope, potential and magnitude.
Today’s technological advances have in fact been evolving for years and are only now being fully recognized as our schools “push the technology envelope” as never before imaginable. These evolutionary changes in our schools, are a mirror image of the challenges and realities which we are currently experiencing in our general society. But, at the end of the day, the question remains, is AI good for our day schools an yeshivot.
Impact of AI Technology
The current and potential impact of AI technology is evolving at lighting speed, especially in education.
As we know, our general educational community is rapidly integrating AI in order to transform classroom learning, save teachers hours of prep time, and engage students in text study. These include interactive text exploration, enhancing teacher efficiency and differentiation, and adaptive learning paths.
It is therefore essential that our Jewish educational community understand its impact and potential application.
This does not necessarily suggest that our schools need to utilize AI, but rather be given the opportunity to use it appropriately and responsibly, if they so chose.
I can vividly recall the controversy in our yeshiva community when Google was first introduced as a search platform. There were many heads of school and principals who felt that it would comprise student intellectual curiosity and create a society of lazy dependent students. Well, today I can’t think of one yeshiva or day........