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Charity or social ac- tion programs, often called mitzvah projects, have also been part of the traditional scene. The emphasis was on moral behavior. The development of autonomous moral reasoning received short shrift. While those methods may have worked well in the past, Friedman insists, they are no longer sufficient in contem- porary America, where Jew- ish values must compete with the larger society's generally material and secular outlook. lbday, Friedman argues, ethi- cal thinking must be looked upon as an acquired skill that is best taught as a separate element of the curriculum and in a "democratic" en- vironment fostering open dis- cussion, intellectual honesty and acceptance of divergent viewpoints. "Preaching doesn't work," Friedman says. "The develop- ment of analytic skills and moral decision-making skills requires a classroom in which students are actively involved in weighing moral dilemmas. Otherwise the knower of what's right and wrong may not become the doer of what's right." Schiff concurs. "Jerry is saying that the impact of Westernization re- quires Jewish education to go further than it has," he says. "I agree. If Jewish ethical studies may be likened to the whole of a pomegranate, then it is time to take out the seed of moral reasoning and study it separately." In Los Angeles, Sinai .Akiba Academy, a 340-stu- dent, kindergarten-through- eighth-grade day school affiliated with a Conservative synagogue, Thmple Sinai, has sought to institute the Kohlberg-Friedman approach over the past three years. Joseph Hakimi, the school's Judaic studies director, says that while he lacks statistical evidence, his sense is that his students have benefitted. They are "thinking at higher stages of moral development and doing it at an earlier age," he says. "We can see it in their behavior, in their heightened sense of community. The ap- proach is educationally sound." Stephen Bailey, who works with Friedman's Institute on Cognitive Moral Education and is a consultant to the Sinai Akiba project, adds that "one clear sign of suc- cess" has been that students who have been exposed to the new approach have been "spontaneously bringing Jewish ideas into the discus- sion of moral dilemmas. "In a Jewish day school, that's exactly what we want. It represents extracting what they've learned in Judaic studies and applying it to every day problems," says Bailey, a clinical psychologist who left Baltimore in the 1970s to direct mental health programs for Chabad in Los Angeles. Because the Kohlberg- Friedman approach is so "in- novative, teachers require a certain amount of training for it to work. Braverman, of Yeshiva of Flatbush, said teachers he has sent to Fried- man's summer programs have come back energized and anx- ious to change their normal classroom routine to accom- modate the new methodology. Despite such glowing re- views, the approach is still largely untested in Jewish educational circles. Friedman, as did Schiff, said that the severe budgetary constraints faced by most Jewish day schools makes acceptance of any new ideas difficult. Seeking a way around that, Friedman is also working to establish a "traditional" high school in Los Angeles that in- corporates the Kohlberg ap- proach while appealing to centrist Orthodox, Conser- vative and Reform Jews. The school would adhere to Halachah, but be co-ed. "High schools are very im- portant to the survival of Jewish values," Friedman says. "Elementary school is not enough because young children do not have abstract reasoning abilities. To really get them to the point of being menschlichkeit, they have to go to a Jewish high school."