Jewish Studies Commons^™

Lost & Found (Game Series) [Book Chapter], Owen Gottlieb

Articles

Description of game series for use in the classroom with best practices.

Collaborative Constructions: Designing High School History Curriculum With The Lost & Found Game Series, Owen Gottlieb, Shawn Clybor

Articles

This chapter addresses design research and iterative curriculum design for the Lost & Found games series. The Lost & Found card-to-mobile series is set in Fustat (Old Cairo) in the twelfth century and focuses on religious laws of the period. The first two games focus on Moses Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah, a key Jewish law code. A new expansion module which was in development at the time of the fieldwork described in this article that introduces Islamic laws of the period, and a mobile prototype of the initial strategy game has been developed with support National Endowment for the Humanities. The …

Playing At The Crossroads Of Religion And Law: Historical Milieu, Context And Curriculum Hooks In Lost & Found, Owen Gottlieb

Articles

This chapter presents the use of Lost & Found – a purpose-built tabletop to mobile game series – to teach medieval religious legal systems. The series aims to broaden the discourse around religious legal systems and to counter popular depiction of these systems which often promote prejudice and misnomers. A central element is the importance of contextualizing religion in period and locale. The Lost & Found series uses period accurate depictions of material culture to set the stage for play around relevant topics – specifically how the law promoted collaboration and sustainable governance practices in Fustat (Old Cairo) in twelfth-century …

Designing Analog Learning Games: Genre Affordances, Limitations And Multi-Game Approaches, Owen Gottlieb, Ian Schreiber

Articles

This chapter explores what the authors discovered about analog games and game design during the many iterative processes that have led to the Lost & Found series, and how they found certain constraints and affordances (that which an artifact assists, promotes or allows) provided by the boardgame genre. Some findings were counter-intuitive. What choices would allow for the modeling of complex systems, such as legal and economic systems? What choices would allow for gameplay within the time of a class-period? What mechanics could promote discussions of tradeoff decisions? If players are expending too much cognition on arithmetic strategizing, could that …

Acts Of Meaning, Resource Diagrams, And Essential Learning Behaviors: The Design Evolution Of Lost & Found, Owen Gottlieb, Ian Schreiber

Articles

Lost & Found is a tabletop-to-mobile game series designed for teaching medieval religious legal systems. The long-term goals of the project are to change the discourse around religious laws, such as foregrounding the prosocial aspects of religious law such as collaboration, cooperation, and communal sustainability. This design case focuses on the evolution of the design of the mechanics and core systems in the first two tabletop games in the series, informed by over three and a half years’ worth of design notes, playable prototypes, outside design consultations, internal design reviews, playtests, and interviews.

Prosocial Religion And Games: Lost & Found, Owen Gottlieb, Ian Schreiber

Articles

In a time when religious legal systems are discussed without an understanding of history or context, it is more important than ever to help widen the understanding and discourse about the prosocial aspects of religious legal systems throughout history. The Lost & Found (www.lostandfoundthegame.com) game series, targeted for an audience of teens through twentysomethings in formal, learning environments, is designed to teach the prosocial aspects of medieval religious systems—specifically collaboration, cooperation, and the balancing of communal and individual/family needs. Set in Fustat (Old Cairo) in the 12th century, the first two games in the series address laws in Moses Maimonides’ …

Finding Lost & Found: Designer’S Notes From The Process Of Creating A Jewish Game For Learning, Owen Gottlieb

Articles

This article provides context for and examines aspects of the design process of a game for learning. Lost & Found (2017a, 2017b) is a tabletop-to-mobile game series designed to teach medieval religious legal systems, beginning with Moses Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah (1180), a cornerstone work of Jewish legal rabbinic literature. Through design narratives, the article demonstrates the complex design decisions faced by the team as they balance the needs of player engagement with learning goals. In the process the designers confront challenges in developing winstates and in working with complex resource management. The article provides insight into the pathways the team …

The Continuing Exodus: The Synagogue And Jewish Urban Migration, Samuel D. Gruber

Religion - All Scholarship

Catalog essay in Silent Witnesses: Migration Stories Through Synagogues Transformed, Rebuilt or Abandoned (Farmington Hills, MI, 2012) that deals with Jewish settlement and migration in American cities (especially New York, Boston and Cleveland) and the religious and community buildings erected and left behind in the process.

Polish Influence On American Synagogue Architecture, Samuel D. Gruber

Religion - All Scholarship

Hundreds of thousands of Jews from Poland came to America after 1880. Many built synagogues with details recalling synagogues in their homeland. Immigrant artisans brought motifs and methods of Poland. Many of these synagogues were small, so the relationship to Polish art was on the inside in the painted and carved decoration. Established architects also had access to Polish synagogues as sources. With publication of the Jewish Encyclopedia (1901-06) images of Polish synagogues, such as the Warsaw’s Tlomackie Street Synagogue, became part of many Jewish libraries. More Polish influence came in the 1950s. Most architects were building modern synagogues, …

Medieval Synagogues In The Mediterranean Region, Samuel D. Gruber

Religion - All Scholarship

Throughout the Middle Ages, the synagogue developed as the central identifying institution and physical building for Jews, replacing the still yearned for but increasingly distant Jerusalem Temple as the focus of Jewish identity. Equally important, the synagogue became the symbol par excellance of the Jews and their community for the Christian (or Muslim) majority populations in the countries where Jews were settled. For Christians, the synagogue was a Jewish church, but much more so, it came to symbolize in opposition all that the church represented.

Though relatively little known today, medieval synagogues were not symbolic abstractions to the men and …

The Synagogues Of Piedmont, Samuel D. Gruber

Religion - All Scholarship

History and architecture of the synagogues of Piedmont, Italy.

Silenced Sacred Spaces: Selected Photographs Of Syrian Synagogues By Robert Lyons, Samuel Gruber, Samuel D. Gruber

Religion - All Scholarship

Discusses the history and architecture of the synagogues of Syria documented by photographer Robert Lyons in a survey sponsored by the Jewish Heritage Council of the World Monuments Fund.

The Future Of Jewish Monuments, Samuel Gruber, Samuel D. Gruber

Religion - All Scholarship

Exhibition essay from first exhibition focused on the documentation, protection and preservation of Jewish monuments and historic sites. The exhibition opened in conjunction with the international conference "The Future of Jewish Monuments," organized by the Jewish Heritage Council of the World Monuments Fund. The exhibition focused on the needs of historic sites in Eastern Europe, North Africa, the united States and elsewhere, and made the case for international support.