Deborah Pessin Explained

Deborah Pessin (Hebrew: דבורה פסין) (1910-2001)^[1] (later known as Deborah Margolis) was an American-Jewish author known for her works for children on topics of Jewish history and Jewish folklore.^{[2] [3] [4]}

Overview

Pessin's view of Jewish history education was that it was the subject best positioned to convey to children the achievements of the Jewish people and to inculcate them with feelings of Jewish pride.^[5] According to the American Association for Jewish Education's 1959 survey of Jewish schools in the United States, Pessin's The Jewish People was among the most widely used history texts.^{[6] [7]}

Awards

In 1954, Pessin received the Jewish Book Council's Isaac Siegel Memorial Award (now the National Jewish Book Award for Children's Literature) for her work The Jewish People.^{[8] [9]}

Works

• Ahad Ha'am, Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) (1938)
• Giants on the Earth: Stories of Great Jewish Men and Women from the Time of the Discovery of America to the Present, Behrman's Jewish Book House (1940)
• The Jewish Kindergarten: A Manual for Teachers by Deborah Pessin and Temima Gezari, Union of American Hebrew Congregations (1944)
• The Aleph Bet Story Book by Deborah Pessin and illustrated by Howard Simon, Jewish Publication Society (1946)^[10]
• Michael Turns the Globe, by Deborah Pessin and illustrated by Howard Simon, Union of American Hebrew Congregations (1946)
• Theodore Herzl, by Deborah Pessin and illustrated by Laszlo Matulay, ZOA/Behrman's Jewish Book House, 1948.
• The Jewish People (Volumes 1–3), United Synagogue Commission on Jewish Education (1952-1953)
• History of the Jews in America, United Synagogue Commission on Jewish Education (1957)
• Freud and His Mother: Preoedipal Aspects of Freud's Personality by Deborah P. Margolis, Jason Aronson (1977)

See also

• Sulamith Ish-Kishor

External links

• The Aleph-Bet Story Book by Deborah Pessin (Jewish Publication Society of America, 1946) − available via Archive.org

Notes and References

1. Ingall, C. K. (2010) The Women who Reconstructed American Jewish Education, 1910-1965. University Press of New England. Page 210.
2. Baxter, E. M. (1946). Books for Religious Education. Journal of Bible and Religion, 14(4), 214-218.
3. Chipkin, I. S. (1953). Deborah Pessin, The Jewish People, Volumes I and II. Jewish Education, 24(1), 62-64.
4. "Behrman publishes biography of Herzl by Deborah Pessin". The Jewish News. Friday, January 28, 1949. Page 19. Accessed January 1, 2024.
5. Pessin, D. (1956). "The Teaching of Jewish History" in A. Eisenberg and A. Segal (eds.) Readings in the Teaching of Jewish History, New York. Pages 142-143.
6. Dushkin, A. M. & U. Z. Engelman (1959). Jewish Education in the United States, Report of the Commission for the Study of Jewish Education in the United States, vol. 1, New York. Page 192.
7. Sheramy, R. (2003). " Resistance and War": The Holocaust in American Jewish Education, 1945–1960. American Jewish History, 91(2), 287-313.
8. Web site: Past Winners of the National Jewish Book Award in the Children's Literature category. Jewish Book Council. en. 2020-01-30.
9. https://www.jta.org/archive/jewish-book-council-gives-five-awards-for-best-1953-books "Jewish Book Council Gives Five Awards for Best 1953 Books"
10. Pessin, D. (1946). The Aleph Bet Story Book, JPS. Available via Archive.org.