David Bryfman, the CEO of the Jewish Education Project posted this on the Times of Israel Blogs last Wednesday. I believe his point is very important for Jewish educators and parents. Here are the first two paragraphs. I urge you to read the entire article at https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/a-new-anne-frank-moment/.

A new Anne Frank moment

Jewish educators must teach our youth to be confident and competent in their Jewish selves and in how they relate to Israel

Behind closed doors, I used to refer to it as the “Anne Frank moment.” This is when a teacher in a public or independent school, usually in an English or Social Studies class, presents “The Diary of Anne Frank” to his or her students. Sometimes, the teacher might have given the parents and students a heads-up. Other times, students are caught off-guard for what may be their first encounter with the Holocaust.

But the “Anne Frank moment” that I mentioned was not the actual teaching of the diary in these schools. It is rather precisely at that moment when the Jewish kids in class, even the ones who have consciously not presented their Jewishness prior to this time, often have an awakening. Whether they wanted to be identified as Jewish is irrelevant; the combination of an internal spark, a presumptuous teacher question, or the sideway glance of an all-knowing classmate make that student feel like — and become known as — the “Jewish kid” in that classroom.

Continue reading at The Times of Israel

Letters from Camp: How Monday Night Limmud Changed my Jewish Outlook

I have had many reasons to be proud. Today is a new one. One of our former students came to me last winter. She was interested in a career as a Jewish educator. I told her that she must spend at least one summer as a counselor at a Jewish summer camp. While I promoted Crane Lake, Eisner and Olin Sang Ruby - all part of my past or present and development as a Jewish educator, for a variety of reasons, I ended up steering her toward Ramah Nyack. Imagine my delight when I came across the following post in eJewishPhilanthropy.com today!


Clearly there is a difference between a day school and religious school education. Time on task can change things exponentially. Nonetheless, Gabby thrived and grew and I am grateful to her and all of the teachers she had in our program. I look forward to the day I call her colleague.

Letters from Camp: 
How Monday Night Limmud Changed my Jewish Outlook

By Gabby Tropp

This summer I experienced what it feels like to walk into a Jewish community different from my own when I spent my first summer at Jewish camp. Camp Ramah in Nyack, NY, is a unique Jewish camp model. It’s a day camp for our chanichim (young campers) and a sleepaway camp for our tzevet (staff). This means that as much as we have fun with our kids while we teach and learn with them, celebrating their successes and assuaging their fears, after the camp day we have fun with each other, teaching and learning, celebrating and growing.

As a traditional egalitarian community closely linked with the Jewish Theological Seminary and the Conservative Movement, Ramah Nyack strives for, and in my opinion achieves, excellence in Jewish education for kids and staff alike. Twice a week, the members of the Ramah Nyack staff community have the opportunity to hear from and engage with some of the best and brightest thinkers in modern Judaism, among their ranks senior camp staff, counselors, JTS professors, local rabbis, and community leaders.

For me, these limmud (learning) sessions were an outlook-altering opportunity. I was an outsider to the community in some ways, coming from a Reform background and a public school. Through limmud, I was introduced to new perspectives, was challenged in my own opinions, and learned constantly. Perhaps the most eye-opening session for me came on a Monday evening near the end of our kayitz in the form of a program entitled “Standards for Jewish Education.”

For some background on me, this summer marked the first time in my life that my religious observance regularly went beyond attending Kabbalat Shabbat services. I followed the laws of kashrut (keeping kosher), attended Shacharit (morning prayers) three days a week, led my chanichim in t’filah (prayer) every morning, commemorated and fasted for Tisha B’Av, and bensched (said blessings) after meals. Or at least those are all things I was doing by the end of Kayitz 2019. During Week 1, not only were these things foreign to me, but they were rituals and traditions that proved very hard for me to learn. As the days of the summer flew by, my comfort in the Ramah religious community increased.

Then came a huge moment of self doubt during limmud. The Standards for Jewish Education, which outlined “Jewish fluency” benchmarks for day school-educated eighth graders, expected more from those 13-year-old students than I could do. I was still in the process of learning Birkat HaMazon (grace after meals) when I attended this limmud session.

After this initial gut reaction of embarrassment, I asked whether or not it was reasonable to adjust these standards in Jewish fluency taking into account my education, which had significantly less time to prepare me for Jewish adulthood. And the answer was, of course, yes. At the end of the day, my Reform Jewish education had instilled in me a sense of Jewish pride and a passion for Jewish life and learning, which, along with my Ramah experience this summer, has put me on a path to continue developing my fluency in Judaism for the rest of my life.

I may not be as Jewishly literate as the typical day school eighth grader, but it still felt good as a 20-year-old to say Sh’hecheyanu (a milestone-marking prayer) after leading Birkat HaMazon for the first time. Ramah Nyack gave me the confidence, the courage, and the environment to learn and grow. I didn’t expect one summer at camp to change the way I think about Jewish learning or belonging in Jewish spaces, yet the most important lesson I learned this summer is that, while inclusion doesn’t happen overnight, any Jewish community is accessible if you’re willing to ask questions and put effort into finding answers and understanding traditions.

Gabby Tropp is a senior at Lafayette College, studying History, Spanish, and Jewish Studies. An aspiring Jewish Educator, she tries to bring Jewish learning into daily life. She was a student, madrikhah and substitute teacher at Congregation B'nai Israel in Bridgeport, CT.

The Persistence of “Identity”

I have been struggling with writing. I read in Heschel recently "Words have become pretexts in the technique of evading the necessity of honest and genuine expression."  (The Insecurity of Freedom, p. 17.) So I have been trying to carefully consider my use of words. I will write again very soon. Until then I want to share something published by the Mandel Center at Brandeis University and picked up today by eJewishPhilanthropy. It was written by Jonathan Krasner, an outstanding teacher with whom I have been fortunate to learn on a few occasions. I think it is fabulous. Discuss it over Shabbat dinner!

The intro was written by Susanne Shavelson of the Mandel Center. The original posting is here.

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Jonathan Krasner

This guest post is by Jonathan Krasner of Hebrew Union College. He is a visiting scholar at the Mandel Center this year; next year, we will welcome him to Brandeis as the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Chair in Jewish Education Research.

In 1994 Leon Wieseltier declared in the New Republic that identity was “an idea whose time has gone.” Twenty years later the Jewish identity industry is still going strong.

I recently had occasion to reread Wieseltier’s article in preparation for a conference on “Rethinking Jewish Identity and Education” at the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Studies in Jewish Education at Brandeis University. Listening to the various panel presentations and the vigorous discussions that ensued, it was clear to me that Wieseltier underestimated the enduring power of identity as a concept, particularly within the North American Jewish community. As the opening conference statement made clear, “With the possible exception of ‘continuity,’ identity (and the attendant fears of its disappearance or weakening) has driven more philanthropic initiatives and educational policy than any other single concept.”

With funders and community leaders eager to shore up the Jewish identities of millennials and their younger siblings, there is plenty of money to be had and made in the Jewish identity industry. Hence my quip at the conference that “Jewish identity has basically become the crack cocaine of the Jewish educational world.” Everyone from Birthright trip venders to Jewish boutique camp directors is fishing for a piece of the action. And who can blame them? Many of these good folks are incubating innovative and potentially transformative initiatives. If wrapping themselves in the banner of Jewish identity enrichment can win them dollars in a time of otherwise dwindling resources, where is the harm in shopping their products as Jewish aphrodisiacs that will encourage endogamy and result in lots of Jewish babies?

But let’s return to Wieseltier. Before we chuckle at his obtuseness we should pause to revisit his reasoning. By 1994 it was clear to Wieseltier and others, including the late cultural theorist Stuart Hall and sociologist Herbert Gans, that longstanding assumptions about identity were outmoded, particularly in western societies. It turned out that identity was fluid rather than stable, transient rather than enduring, hybrid and overlapping rather than distinct and impermeable. Moreover, individuals inhabited multiple identities and often treated ethnic identity symbolically. Decisions about which one(s) to emphasize were provisional, situational and circumstantial in nature. Wieseltier, who was by no means sanguine about these revelations, logically reasoned that if developmental psychologist Erik Erikson was correct that “identity formation begins where the usefulness of multiple identification ends,” than identity as a concept was past its expiration date.

Erikson introduced identity in the 1950s as an antidote to anomie and alienation, the scourges of modern civilization. But if the self turns out to be protean rather than fixed, then why has identity endured? Part of the answer is supplied by Wieseltier himself: Even if identity is a fiction, it is a useful fiction. In describing the modern condition he pointed out that “we are unprecedentedly dispersed and unprecedentedly distracted.” This is even truer today than it was twenty years ago, as a result of globalization and advances in information technology. Even memory, “which confers a sense of continuity … is disappearing beneath the assault of associations. We are carrying too much. We are falling out of our hands. We need a basket. The name of the basket is identity.” Wieseltier is providing an important insight into why much of the contemporary discourse on identity has been patently ignored by Jewish educators on the front lines. Parents, educators, communal leaders and funders want to believe, and even need to believe in the basket called Jewish identity. The alternative is too messy, too overwhelming, too threatening.

As much as some of us, including myself, chafe at the persistence of identity and the simplistic way that it often conceptualized by stakeholders within the Jewish community, we ignore its continued allure at our peril. The price of abandoning identity discourse may be our irrelevance, that is, the continued chasm between the academy and the street. We can try to influence that discourse in ways that seek to educate practitioners, funders, community leaders and others.

Perhaps the message we should be driving home is that in the post-modern world, when identity can be merely symbolic and momentary, identity becomes a poor substitute for lived experience, for practice. Measuring people’s feelings might have been an important corrective for sociologists whose survey instruments measured identity purely in relation to ritual practices and friendship patterns. But people’s feelings do not get us very far. The vast majority of North American Jews have positive feelings about their Jewishness. But that does not mean that Jewishness plays an important or even meaningful role in their lives. As Wieseltier writes, “An affiliation is not an experience. It is, in fact, a surrogate for experience. Where the faith in God is wanting, there is still religious identity. Where the bed is cold and empty, there is still sexual identity. Where the words of the fathers are forgotten, there is still ethnic identity. The thinner the identity, the louder.”

Ask the right questions

"With the arrival and maturation of my generation,
the Millenials, the question “Who is a Jew?” is rather passé."

David A. M. Wilensky is a young man with whom I have strictly - so far - digital relationship. I began reading his work when he was a college student writing for Jewschool and have been and remain impressed with the depth and creativity of his ideas. He published a piece in The Jewish Standard a few weeks ago that I just saw. I think he makes some very important and interesting points.

When I was in high school (in the 1970s!), the big conversation still revolved around Jewish identity in juxtaposition with American identity. Are you and American Jew or a Jewish American? Which is the noun and which is the adjective? When I first began teaching (in the 1980s) we were still designing lessons and activities around those questions. We over-did it. To my almost 16 year-old son, those questions are meaningless.

Following the CCAR decision on patrilineal descent, in 1983 and ongoing efforts by the religious parties in Israel to amend the law of return to require conversion according to halacha (Jewish law) and officiated by approved Orthodox rabbis, the conversation became "Who is a Jew?"

Now add a variety of Jewish population studies, studies of how Jewish communities are structured and now the Pew Report, and we find our lay and professional leaders wringing their hands and panicking over the imminent death of  (choose any or all): day schools, synagogue schools, synagogues, Jewish Community Centers and/or the continued cohesive existence of the Jewish People as a distinct group in America.

Please read David's article. It splashes some cold water on those of us still fighting about things that don't really matter to the Millenials. And while I do believe we have put a bit more emphasis on Young Adults in Jewish life than is appropriate, they will soon be 40 year olds and able to learn Kabbalah and be treated like the rest of us!

It begins here, but the full article is worth reading and can be read on the Standard's web page. There are a number of comments there as well. I invite a conversation, there, here or on JEDLAB (in Facebook), in particular on the implications for us as educators. Thank you David for permission to cross-post.

Ira

David A.M. Wilensky is a program associate at Big Tent Judaism/Jewish Outreach Institute. He lives in South Orange, and he is single, straight, and utterly shameless. 

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David A. M. Wilensky
Published: 6 March 2014

So, really, why be Jewish?

With the arrival and maturation of my generation, the Millenials, the question “Who is a Jew?” is rather passé.

Forget the halachic dimensions to this endlessly debatable topic. Forget all the moralizing arguments over the issue. Forget the demographically induced paranoia, the post-Holocaust hand-wringing, the Israeli legal maneuvering (not to mention the pandering that comes with it), and the denominational infighting. And — for heaven’s sake! — forget the Pew study.

The fact is that “Who is a Jew?” is the wrong question. To maintain our relevance — to regain it, really — the question we must ask today is “Why be Jewish?”

The problem with the who-is-a-Jew question is the binary premise from which it springs: that there is an “us” and a “them.” (Worse, perhaps is the accompanying hope that we will one day delineate a set of criteria that define who is an “us” and who is a “them.”) The premise itself is as boring and potentially harmful as the question it gives rise to. It has infiltrated our national debate in a variety of guises: Who is affiliated and who is unaffiliated? Who is an insider and who is an outsider? Who is a member and who is a non-member? Who is inmarried and who is intermarried?

And, of utmost importance in the case of Millenials: Are your parents both Jewish? For 48 percent of us, the answer is no.

In each version of the question, the implication is clear: One is good and one is bad. When we make these questions central, whatever our intention in asking them, the question that many people will hear is this: Are you a good Jew or a bad Jew? And labeling people “bad” Jews probably is not the best way to draw them into deeper engagement with Jewish life.

 At the very least, the Millenials I know are bored with all this who-is-a-Jew business. And at the worst, the idea that this question will be useful as we confront the challenges now before us is a complete misunderstanding of the nature of the changes we see today.

continue reading the rest of the article

 

The Pew Data And Us

Welcome back to the Next Level. I am afraid that a month of chagim and opening school make blogging in Tishrei a real challenge. This week has been dominated (outside the cocoons of my school and family) by the government shutdown and the Pew Report. I expect to have something to say about the report later this month (about the shutdown I can only hope someone we have elected will be adults and solve the impasse). This post from eJewishPhilanthropy crossed my desk and struck me as one of the best early pieces on the report. (BTW, the full 212 page report is here.)

Shall we discuss it?

Shabbat shalom,

Ira

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The Pew Data And Us
by Daniel S. Horwitz

For the early classical Reform Jews who settled in this country, the broad assimilation (71% intermarriage rate amongst non-Orthodox Jews) reflected in the recently released Pew survey data would be seen as amazing. “You mean the non-Jews are marrying us willingly, and people are referring to Judeo-Christian values? What a success! We’ve finally made it!”

The Pew data is truly fascinating. While it should come as no surprise that due to historically high rates of intermarriage there are now more individuals who identify as Jewish in some way (think about it – there are now that many more households containing a Jewish person), the more telling data makes it clear that “identity” doesn’t inherently link to practice or active involvement as part of the Jewish community (the fact that over 30% of those surveyed indicated they felt that being Jewish and believing in Jesus are not mutually exclusive in their minds is particularly indicative of this point).

The big issue in my mind is that outside of a construct of commandedness (an area where the overwhelming majority of American Jews reside), we in the liberal Jewish community have failed to meaningfully express an appropriate answer to that most fundamental of questions: “Why be Jewish?”

When we say that we want people to be Jewish, what do we really mean?

Why is it so important to us to continue existing as a nation / faith / culture?

In liberal Judaism today, one of the favorite answers is “Tikkun Olam” – “repairing the world.” But the answer can’t simply be Tikkun Olam. Many faiths hold “repairing the world” – often viewed through a social justice and charitable lens – as a value. Frankly, many Americans who do not identify with a faith group share this value and view it as a secular humanistic one.

So how do we respond to the question “Why be Jewish?”

“Because it’s tradition” as an answer will fail.

“Because of the Holocaust” as an answer will fail.

“Because we have a Jewish State” as an answer will fail.

“Because who are you to break the chain” and other guilt-ridden answers will fail.

Not only do we often struggle to find the right words to answer what theoretically should be a very simple question, but what the Pew survey (and many of the already drafted responses from interested parties) also makes clear is that ultimately, we have a complete inability in the liberal Jewish world to define what “success” looks like.

Here is where our Orthodox brethren arguably have it easier. Living within the context of commandedness implies that producing offspring who lead mitzvah-observant lives is the ultimate measure of a parent’s success in transmitting Jewish identity, literacy and practice to their children. In the liberal Jewish community, each person often measures success differently, as we (arguably, overly) value the experience of the individual, and encourage people to learn, explore, and take on practices that are meaningful to them. Thus, as a “community” (and whether or not there really exists, or can exist, a centralized, idealized, “Jewish community” is another question in and of itself), it’s near impossible to determine whether or not our collective efforts have been successful, due to a lack of definition as to what success itself looks like.

What constitutes “success”?

Let’s look at a hypothetical that helps elucidate this issue.

There is an independent Jewish prayer community that exists in Manhattan, made up largely of young Jewish adults in their 20s. Its members are both well educated and very insular. They celebrate Shabbat and holidays together, in many ways function as a chavurah, give charitably (but only to the minyan itself), and have a general disdain for the Federation system, Synagogues, Day Schools, Jewish Summer Camps and any other mainstream Jewish institution (despite often being products of some or all of these institutions themselves), due to rejecting what they perceive as “pay to pray” and “pay to play” models.

Is the prayer community itself, and the members who comprise it, a Jewish communal success? Why or why not?

What if it existed in a small mid-western town as opposed to a major city? What if its members’ average age was 65? Would such factors make a difference in determining whether or not it was deemed a “success”?

Would the “organized” Jewish community even know that they exist?

It’s time to stop worrying and start rejoicing.

Rabbi Brad Artson is quoted in the Forward (10/1/13) as saying that for the Conservative movement, while affiliation numbers may be down, his focus is on enhancing quality. His message should be universally accepted amongst liberal Jews of all (or no) denominations.

Being Jewish can add meaning to life. Being Jewish can add joy to life. Being Jewish can provide you with the chance to be part of a community of shared purpose, support, and annual rhythm. And, there are other faith (and secular) groups that can do that too. Truly. Being Jewish isn’t for everyone – even if you were born Jewish. If Judaism doesn’t add meaning to your life, and the Jewish community is one that you aren’t particularly keen on being a part of, guess what?

It’s okay.

We should strive to make the liberal Jewish community one that is full of substance, meaning, learning, warmth and above all, joy. Rather than trying to retain Jews using our strong history of tradition and (unfortunately) guilt, we should strive to live our lives as individuals and as communities in such a way that exemplifies how being Jewish is something so wonderful and joyous that if you were raised in a Jewish home that was actively part of a Jewish community, you couldn’t imagine raising your children any other way; and if you were raised in a Jewish home that was not actively part of a Jewish community, that you wish you had been, and seek to create one for your own family.

There is no universal definition of success. There is no one-size-fits-all answer to “Why be Jewish?” – the answer will be different, and intensely personal, for each individual. All we can do is live our lives authentically, with purpose and with joy, and make sure that the word is out – and that our actions reflect our deeply held value – that all are welcome to join us.

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Daniel S. Horwitz is the Rabbi and Director of Immersive Learning at Moishe House.

Tell Me about the Future of the Jews

File Under Peoplehood
This is a Jerusalem Post column and blog posting by Rabbi Daniel Gordis. He wrote it for Yom Ha'atzmaut and I nearly missed in the flurry of events and postings surrounding the week from Yom Hashoah, through Yom Hazikaron and Yom Ha'atzmaut. Rabbi Gordis spoke at the gala for the Jewish High School of Connecticut in our sanctuary a month ago. I remember thinking that I have never read anything by him or heard him speak when I haven't found myslef thinking. A lot. This is no exception. Much of my focus at work has been about Jewish peoplehood in general and connecting to Israel in particular. This fits right in. Enjoy. 


Imagine it's January 1946. Imagine, too, that you are exactly who you are now: thoughtful, educated, worldly, rational. And then, someone says to you, "Tell me about the future of the Jews." .... The Jews have a future because the Jews have a state. There are moments when a People has earned a celebration.  Yom Ha'atzmaut is, without question, one of those moments. 

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Imagine it's January 1946. Imagine, too, that you are exactly who you are now: thoughtful, educated, worldly, rational. And then, someone says to you, "Tell me about the future of the Jews." So you survey the world in January 1946. It's a year after the liberation of Auschwitz, and just months since the war has ended. You cast your eyes toward Eastern Europe, which not much earlier had been the world's center of Jewish life, learning, literature and culture. Eastern European Jewry is gone. Though we commonly say that Hitler annihilated one third of the world's Jews, that number is technically correct but misses the point. The number that really matters is that after Hitler, 90 percent of Eastern Europe's Jews had been murdered.   Prior to the war, there had been some 3,200,000 Polish Jews. At the end of the war, merely 300,000 were left. By 1950, estimates are that 100,000 Jews remained in Poland. As far as Polish Jewry was concerned, Hitler had won. Hitler won in Hungary, too, and throughout Eastern Europe. The great seat of Jewish life was simply no longer. There are a few Jews left there, of course, but many of those who did survive will for a long time be living under Soviet rule, which, if you'd had a crystal ball, you'd know was going to get infinitely worse long before it got any better. A future for the Jews? It did not look pretty. You could look a bit westward. You might turn your attention to Salonika.   Some 56,000 Jews had lived there before the war; 98% of them died. Westward still, you might consider France. But the story of Vichy France would bring you no solace.   Europe, until only some 10 years earlier the center of the Jewish world, was an enormous, blood-soaked Jewish cemetery - only without markers to note the names of the millions who had been butchered. So you might turn your attention across the Atlantic Ocean, to the United States. But the American Jews you would have surveyed in 1946 were not the American Jews of today. Today, at AIPAC's annual Policy Conference, for example, thousands of American Jews (and many non- Jews, as well) ascend the steps of Capitol Hill to speak to their elected officials about Israel. They do so with a sense of absolute entitlement (in the best sense of the word), with no hesitation. But between 1938 and 1945, how many Jews ascended those steps to demand that at least one bomb be dropped on the tracks to Auschwitz, or that American shores be opened to at least some of the thousands of Jews who had literally nowhere to go? During the worst years that the Jews had known in two millennia, virtually no Jews went to Capitol Hill or the White House. There was the famous Rabbis' March of October 1943, in which some 400 mostly Orthodox rabbis went to the White House (though FDR refused to meet with them), but that was about it. In January 1946, American Jews did not interview for positions on Wall Street wearing a kippa, and did not seek jobs on Madison Avenue informing their prospective employers that they would not work on Shabbat. The self-confidence of American Jews that we now take so for granted was almost nowhere to be found back then. With European Jews going up smokestacks, American Jews mostly went about their business, fearful of rocking the boat of American hospitality. A future for the Jews? There was, of course, one other place where there was a sizable Jewish population - Palestine. But in Palestine, too, the shores were sealed. Tens of thousands of British troops were stationed in Palestine, not only to "keep the peace," but to make sure that Jews did not immigrate and change the demographic balance of the country. The story of the Exodus is famous, perhaps, precisely because it ended reasonably well. Most Jews today can name not even one of the ships that sank, carrying their homeless Jews with them. In January 1946, the British weren't budging. A future for the Jews? In January 1946, there was little cause to believe in a rich Jewish future. You might have believed that a covenant promised some Jewish future, but it would have been hard to argue it was a bright one. Now fast-forward 66 years, to 2012. Where do we find ourselves today? Jewish life in Europe, while facing renewed anti-Semitism in some places, is coming back to life. Berlin is one of the fastest growing Jewish communities in the world. There are Jewish cultural festivals in Poland (though staged largely by non-Jews, since there are few Jews left). In Budapest and Prague, Jewish museums, kosher restaurants and synagogues abound. Soviet Jews are largely out, and those who remain have synagogues, schools, camps and community centers. And across the ocean, the success and vibrancy of American Jewish life is legendary. There was no way to expect any of this in 1946, no reason to even imagine it. How did it happen? The simple but often overlooked truth is that what has made this difference for Jews world over is the State of Israel.   It was Israel's victory in 1967 that injected energy into Soviet Jewry and led them to rattle their cage, demanding their freedom.  Post-1967, the world saw the Jews as people who would shape their own destiny.  Unlike the Tibetans (or Chechnyans or Basques, to name just a few), Jews were no longer tiptoeing around the world, waiting to see what the world had in store for them. The re-creation of the Jewish state has changed not only how the world sees the Jews, but how the Jews see themselves.  The days of "We looked like grasshoppers to ourselves, and so we appeared to them" (Num. 13:33) are gone, and the reason is the State of Israel. We are a people sometimes over-inclined to indulge in hand-wringing (and at others, unwilling to do the hand-wringing we ought to). And we face our challenges. Iran is worrisome, Egyptian peace is tenuous. Hila Bezaleli's tragic death was a metaphor for the lack of accountability that plagues this country.  The behavior of Lt.-Col. Shalom Eisner, as well as the reactions to what he did, is also deeply unsettling. But let us remember this, nevertheless: it is far too easy to lose sight of what we have accomplished. Sixty-six years ago, no sane, level-headed person could have imagined that we would have what we have. A language brought back to life, and bookstores filled with hundreds of linear feet of books in a language that just a century ago almost no one spoke. More people studying Torah now than there were in Europe at its height. An economic engine that is the envy of many supposedly more established countries. A democracy fashioned by immigrants, most of whom had never lived in a functioning democracy. Cutting-edge health care. An army that keeps us so safe, we go days on end without even thinking about our enemies. That's worth remembering in the midst of the attacks on us, from the international community as well as from Jews.   There's much to repair, and too often, we fail to meet the standards we've set for ourselves. All true, and they demand our continued attention, but at the same time, we dare not lose sight of what we've built. To borrow the phrase from Virginia Slims, "we've come a long way, baby." The Jews have a future because the Jews have a state.   There are moments when a People has earned a celebration. Yom Ha'atzmaut is, without question, one of those moments.   The original Jerusalem Post column can be found here: http://www.jpost.com/Magazine/Opinion/Article.aspx?id=267572  Comments and reactions can be posted here: http://danielgordis.org/2012/04/26/tell-me-about-the-future-of-the-jews-a-jerusalem-post-column/

How Do We Talk to Our Children About Israel?

File under Peoplehood
It has been too long since I posted. And it will be a little bit longer. In the meantime, two of my favorite sources came together today as eJewish Philanthopy posted the latest from Robbie Gringras. Robbie is - as always - pushing us us to think deeply about how we teach and explore the relationship between being Jewish and the state of Israel.

Andi Arnovitz, Dress of the Unfaithful Wife (left), 2009,
Japanese rice paper, hair, dirt and film, 110x46x13, collection of the artist;
Coat of the chained woman (detail, right)

My wonderful daughter had her Bat Mitzvah recently. She sang beautifully from the Torah, built an amazing model of her “Personal Tabernacle” inspired by the portion, and took part in a lovely service she had helped to shape. I am overjoyed that my daughter’s experience of Judaism has been of a wise and deep tradition, fantastic stories, warm Friday nights, and inclusivity for both genders.

It wasn’t until we went with her to an exhibition on Jewish Feminist art at Ein Harod Museum that we came across a different aspect of Judaism. We walked around an exhibition created by furious female artists. Laws of niddah, modesty, and exclusion were beautifully screamed at, ridiculed, and mourned through video, photography, installation, sculpture and embroidery. From the wedding dress decorated with the hair shorn from the bride, to the photo of the disembodied hand holding a JNF box thrust through the curtain of the women’s section, there was some strong and strikingly painful work there. Yet although my daughter must be the most Jewishly knowledgeable of all her friends, I needed to explain every single reference to her.

She had had literally no idea of how aspects of Jewish tradition can be cruel to or disdainful of women.
This is because we had never taught her about them, and she’d never come across them until this exhibition. We knew instinctively that if we had exposed her to the anti-feminist narrative of Judaism at an early age she would have emerged knowledgeable about yet emotionally distant from Judaism. We didn’t want that for our kid.

I’m left reflecting on these ideological choices when thinking about Israel education for our kids. Because you see the thing is that my wife and I have absolutely no regrets at constructing “rose-tinted spectacles” for our child’s experience of Judaism. Our choice to induct our daughter into Judaism was not related to the moral rights or wrongs of the entirety of the tradition. We wanted for Judaism to be a part of who she is.
I believe we need to take the same choices with our young children with regards Israel. Prior to and irrespective of our attitudes to Israeli policies and politics, we need to make an ideological choice. Is Israel important to a Jew, or not?

As any thoughtful Israel-engaged Jew can attest, growing up with a deep connection to Israel does not have to lead one to love everything about Israel. The fact that my kid was not just surprised but also deeply concerned by much of what she learned at the Jewish Feminist exhibition shows that one can be brought up to identify with a tradition, a people, a place, and still continue to develop a moral stance that might be at odds with elements of that tradition.

Bringing up our children to “love Israel” should not mean we are brainwashing them or serving evil reactionary interests. Sometimes I fear that too much superficial education has given love and commitment a bad name. A knee-jerk rejection of “teaching to love Israel” is – I would suggest – mainly a response to the extent to which such a concept has been shorn of its depth. Love is crucial, but it’s not simple.

We need our children to be knowledgeable and wise enough to be able to question what they have received, and at the same time we need them connected enough to care. Their commitment will be inherited from that of their parents – hence the necessity for us as parents and future parents to make that first ideological decision that Israel is important to us and to our children.

What would an education look like that seeks to establish a commitment that is strong and passionate but not blind or paralyzed? How might we cultivate the roots of critical loyalty in our young?

We at Makom would advocate for two approaches. We would take care to give pre-teens what we might call the “philosophical training” for them to embrace complexity, “and we would give them a framework of “spiraling questions.

Embracing Complexity
Rather than simplifying issues for a little kid to grasp, we should encourage them to grapple with the complexities of simple situations. For example, at the age of five, issues of “Hugging and Wrestling with Israel” are tough! But questions such as “has your best friend ever done something you thought was the wrong thing to do?” fit right in to their lives. Follow up questions can go further: Did you tell your friend they had done wrong? Did you tell them in private or in public? Are you still friends despite the wrong-doing? Rather offering a simplistic explanation of Israel’s Separation Barrier, we might ask where there are fences in our children’s lives? (House? School?) What are the advantages and disadvantages of fences? Do good fences make good neighbors or deepen divides? Who decides where to put a fence, and (why?). Our “Car Pool Conversations” about Israel are freely downloadable here.

These are the kinds of conversations that can help our kids develop a familiarity with complex moral issues, and build a suitable vocabulary to begin to address them when they arise. In this way our children learn that complexity and “messiness” (Israeli characteristics if ever there were!) can be fascinating and not frightening.

Spiraling questions
At Makom we would suggest that the moral and political issues of Israel emerge from four key values expressed in the Hatikvah anthem: To Be A Free (Jewish) People In Our Land. What does it mean and what does it take to survive (To Be)? What does it mean and what does it take to be free? What does it mean and what does it take to be connected to the Jewish People? And what does it mean and what does it take to be In Our Land?

These four questions underlie every headline we ever read about Israel, and they are four questions that we can ask and explore at every age. As little kids our questions about being Jewish and connected to other Jews will yield different answers from those we may reach today. Likewise the expansion of our understanding of freedom – its limitations and responsibilities – will grow with the years. But the more we empower our children to engage with these four “pillars of Zionism”, the more we enable them to connect to, critique, and affirm Israel at every stage of their lives.

All the above opinions have been developed and inspired by my work with Makom, and consultations with Dr. Jen Glaser who first introduced me to the teachings of Vygotsky.

Robbie Gringras is Artist-in-Residence at Makom, a partnership of Jewish communities around the world and the Jewish Agency.

"And You Shall Teach Them Diligently To Your Children ... And To Yourselves."

This summer I met @Moosh2, an online friend. She was working at Crane Lake Camp while I was at Eisner Camp. Her name in RL is Marci Bellows the rabbi at Temple B'nai Torah in Wantagh, NY. She also writes a regular column inn the New York Jewish Week. We grew up in the same community and have a lot of friends in common, and yet we had never met!

When I saw this article, I thought it made some very important points in our ongoing discussion about what we should be doing in Jewish Education today. Let's discuss!

“When I was in junior high, and all my friends were having their Bar or Bat Mitzvahs (sic), I just enjoyed celebrating with them. It didn’t really occur to me that I wasn’t having one of my own. It wasn’t until college that I really began to regret it…” 

With these words, Jessica Yanow, my best friend since we were eight years old, began reflecting on her own Jewish upbringing and education. Growing up in Skokie, Illinois, it was impossible not to feel, at the very least, culturally Jewish. There was a bagel store in every strip mall, and a synagogue every few blocks. 

Jessica’s grandparents belonged to a Traditional synagogue, and they encouraged Jessica’s mother to enroll her in Sunday School there. Though the level of observance differed from what she was seeing at home, Jessica attended for a few years. When she was in second grade, her mother gave her a choice – she could keep attending Sunday School, or she could stop. Jessica explained, “At that age, I would guess that most children would choose not to go to any additional school. There was no discussion, as far as I can remember, with regards to later implications, like the fact that I wouldn’t have a Bat Mitzvah. So, of course, I said, ‘No, I don’t want to go to Sunday School.’” 

I cannot express how much this one story has affected my rabbinate. I often hear young parents wrestling over whether or not to “force” their children to attend religious school. Likewise, I hear students bemoan the fact that they are “stuck” going to religious school every week. And, yet, I inevitably share Jessica’s story with them all, for this reason: Now that she is an adult, she deeply regrets not attending religious school, not building her Jewish identity from a younger age, and not celebrating Bat Mitzvah at 13. 

Interestingly, and perhaps not consciously, Jessica found other ways of engaging in Judaism as a teen. Jessica was active in our local Kadima chapter in junior high, and then we were all board members of my temple’s Youth Group in high school. She took Hebrew as a foreign language at our public high school. She traveled to Israel during the summer before college, and then we both began our studies at Brandeis University (where feeling Jewish is unavoidable). 

Surrounded by Jews of all stripes, Jessica was now confronted by her lack of Jewish knowledge and personal connection to her heritage. For the first time, she truly regretted her decision to halt her religious education. Thus, she continued studying Hebrew, added three semesters of Yiddish, and read as many Jewish books as she could. 

Fast-forward to now, and she is living in Phoenix, married, and mother to an amazing four-year-old son (who calls me “Auntie Marci,” which makes me giggle ALL the time). She and her husband have chosen to send their son to a pre-school at a local Reform synagogue. She hopes that they will become more involved in the coming years, and perhaps she will study towards Adult Bat Mitzvah. I asked her how she feels now that she is the parent. 

She delights in spending every Friday morning at the preschool’s Tot Shabbat celebration. She loves learning more about the holidays alongside her son. She was pleasantly humbled when he came home one day, looked at the family’s dormant candlesticks, and asked, “Mommy, why don’t we light Shabbat candles on Friday nights?” 

Jessica is but one case, but she exemplifies so many adults in today’s Reform congregations. For a variety of reasons, we have men and women who feel detached, alienated, or lacking in some way. Some of these adults will never set foot in the temple except to send their kids to religious school and then leave as soon as their youngest child turns thirteen. 

However, others are longing for connection, and they wish desperately that someone would reach out to them. These folks may be intimidated by adult education offerings, fearful that their lack of learning will be a source of embarrassment. To all of these people, I say, you are welcome here! You belong here! You are a crucial part of the fabric of the Jewish community, and you needn’t be afraid! Jewish learning is possible throughout our entire lives, whether or not we started our learning when we were young. 

As adults, it is our job to model the importance of a strong Jewish education – not just by sending our children to religious school, but by finding ways to continually enhance our own understanding of Judaism. Imagine how little we would understand about the world if we had stopped our secular studies at age 13! This month, the Union for Reform Judaism is highlighting various ways of approaching Lifelong Jewish Learning, and I encourage you to look for inspiring ideas and topics on their website: http://urj.org/learning/. I’m sure that, with a bit of searching, you will find something that works for you. 

Oh, and, by the way, Jessica will not be giving her son a choice. He will go to religious school through Bar Mitzvah, at the very least. No doubt about it.

Making Meaning Together

This will be in my synagogue's August bulletin. I submit it is an important lesson and invitation for all Jewish educational institutions.

Shabbas?!?

I had the very good fortune to join a group of fifty synagogue educators in the Leadership Institute in learning with Dr. Larry Hoffman, a professor at the Hebrew Union College in New York. His lesson was a titled Limits, Truth and the Anxious Search for Meaning: The Changing Rhetoric of Leadership. He described different ways Judaism functioned through history, using the observance of Shabbat as a lens.

He described the period from biblical times through the middle ages as the age of limits. Essentially, Judaism was focused on rules. We observed Shabbat because it was required. In the book of Exodus (31:13-17) we learned that violating the Sabbath could lead to death or worse. Halakhah (Jewish law) consisted of rules that defined how we functioned as members of the Jewish community. It worked for a long time.

The age of enlightenment at the beginning of the 19^th century brought something new. The freedom to be a part of the larger, non-Jewish world around us meant that the limits were not enough. We learned about how Jews in Salonika began hanging out in coffee houses on Shabbat. And what’s worse, they were ordering and paying for the coffee! Rabbi Hoffman described this as a symptom of a larger issue – namely that the game of limits was no longer working for a lot of Jews. Many Jews stopped believing that God would punish them.

The new game used the language of truth. We were in the age of Jeffersonian democracy, of liberty, equality and fraternity and of science uncovering all of the truths of the universe. Reform Judaism arose and introduced the sermon – an opportunity for rabbis to teach truth. We became the only Jews who rose for the Shema because it was the biggest truth in the service – and became known as “the watchword of our faith. There is much more to these concepts, but the exciting part comes next.

Rabbi Hoffman says that we are living in another revolutionary time right now. The game is changing from truth to one of meaning. Science has taught us that it cannot give us all of the truths in the universe. It tells us that our merely observing the world changes it.

The game of meaning means that we are interpreters of our world. Our task is to make meaning of the world and our experiences in it. We are active partners with God in the ongoing creation. We go back to Genesis and read that God created the universe and saw that it was good. God didn’t see limits or laws. God didn’t call it truth. God called it good. Rabbi Hoffman suggests that our role is to make it good.

We need to make up our our own life and worlds. It can be an overwhelming and daunting task. But if we believe that we have the freedom to try and develop the confidence to do it, we can create a beautiful and awesome reality. We are not interested in limits. Truths, he says are  a dime a dozen – you can find all you want on Wikipedia. We need to know that life is worthwhile. That we can make things better. That is what Judaism is all about.

The job of Jewish leaders (professionals and lay people – you) is to give our people real competence is areas of Judaism to use them to build their lives. So I want to invite you to step up to this challenge. As a member of B’nai Israel, your family is a part of a vibrant community. Among us are searchers and builders, teachers and learners, connectors and sticky people, those who like to pray, hang out or world repairers. Come in and talk to us, call, text, e-mail or tweet.

Come to services. Take a class. Join a committee. Meet someone new. Get together with someone you know well. Build a sukkah. Join a car pool. Let’s make some meaning together.

Cross posted to Davar Acher

Please pass the Torah!

Are you a member of the Jewish Education Change Network? If you are not you should be. Stop. Click on Jewish Education Change Network. Join. Come right back her and finish this post! JECN is the brainchild of Jonathan Woocher and the folks at the Lippman-Kanfer Institute at JESNA. It is a Ning network that serves as a platform for Jewish educators to get together and learn from one another.


On March 2, Erica Korman started a discussion forum about Independent Jewish Sunday Schools. I commented and we have gone back and forth a few times and Sara Shapiro Plevan weighed in as well. I thought it was a valuable conversation and I am hoping you will join it http://www.jedchange.net/forum/topics/independent-jewish-sunday and/or here. 

Erica Korman is working on her Masters in Education and Jewish Studies Department at NYU:Steinhardt. Sara Shapiro-Plevan is lead consultant for Rimonim consulting.

Posted by Erica Korman on March 2, 2011 at 2:23 pm

I invite you to take a look at the Boston-area Jewish Education Program. This is an independent, 4-hour weekly program for 2nd-7th grade that is unaffiliated with any synagogue or denomination and is held (although independent of) at Brandeis University. The BJEP, and others like it, accommodate families that want a Jewish education without the attachment to a synagogue. Many of the children of such families would not receive a Jewish education at all without a program of this type.

My question is this: Is an education discrete from a synagogue a viable option? I think it is great that families that would otherwise not enroll at a supplementary educational program at a synagogue are finding a suitable alternative. However, is Jewish education without clergical (sic) attachment sufficient?

Pros:

Because there are no synagogue dues, the cost is kept low

The teachers are all undergraduate Brandeis students, which offers an energy and vitality not usually found among the traditional Jewish supplementary school

It is a place where families who shied away from denominations and synagogue pressures can find refuge

Cons:

While they advocate learning beyond B'nei Mitzvah, they do not offer post-B'nei Mitzvah education.

Without any denomination, religious praxis may be unclear and potentially confusing. Family guidance from a Rabbi is unavailable because, well, there is no Rabbi.

Perhaps this is too liberal of an option. Is this too deviant from tradition?

Here is an article from a 2009 edition of the Jewish Advocate 

reply by Ira Wise on March 15, 2011 at 11:21 pm 

My concern is only tangentially with the lack of clergy. My bigger concern is the lack of community. While I applaud providing for those who cannot or do not wish to find a synagogue home, I fear that this serves to commoditize the Bar Mitzvah in the most cynical way clothed in the guise of serving the disaffected. 

Becoming a Bar/Bat Mitzvah should be about a young man or woman beginning to take their place in the adult community. As described, this program seems to be a way to tag the B'nei Mitzvah base without scoring the run. It is another activity ending in a trophy that is not necessarily earned, since there is no stated intention to complete the act - entering the community. This makes Jewish education an activity on par with soccer, the school play or dance class. You enroll, pay, drop your kid off the prescribed number of days per week. At the end the parents attend the recital and celebrate the accomplishment as a family. And when you age out, you move on to another endeavor. 

I don't see the advantage of accommodating the "need" to claim connection without actually being connected. The only difference between this and a "faux mitzvah" (covered a few years ago in the NY Times, there seems to be some evidence of non-Jews having a celebration that directly and deliberately mirrors the Bar Mitzvah party) is that the child is actually Jewish. I am open to alternative models. I embrace them. This is not an alternative model. It is Dollar Store imitation of Jewish practice.

  Reply by Erica Korman on March 22, 2011 at 11:37 am

Thank you for your input, Ira. I was initially disturbed by this program. I think any Jewish educational program must have strong, non-compromising boundaries forming it.

Taking a communal rite-of-passage outside of a structured community is a dangerous step. I agree it further commoditizes the Bar Mitzvah, which has long been practiced as a spectacle landmark event in many communities. On the other hand, supporters of this type of program could argue that there is a defined community. It consists of the support from those that are also involved with the school. The other students and families are the kehilla and the principal, or whomever is at the highest leadership position, is the "Rabbi," in this case the adviser and head educator. 

It would be great if someone who has experience with this type of organization could provide their input. 

Reply by Ira Wise on March 22, 2011 at 12:32 pm

My one issue with the idea that this type of school is a community is its transitory nature. It has an expiration date: the end of formal education of the youngest child in a family. 

It also lacks a parent modeling component. It has only minimal opportunities - as I see it - for parents to model the behaviors of being part of an adult Jewish community. It makes the focus of Judaism pediatrics. 

Metaphor 1: I grew up playing with my grandfather's tzitzit during services. My son grew up playing with mine. Whose will these kids play with? 

Metaphor 2: When my parents joined the temple for me to go to Sunday school, they were asked to help out with the lox box fundraiser. They sold a few, but most importantly, on the Sunday in November when they were to be delivered, my father was sitting at a long table behind a scale, weighing lox. He passed the foam plate full of fish to Howie Lipshultz who used a Ronco Seal-a-meal to encase it in airtight plastic. Howie gave it to Sandee Schor who put it in a box with bagels she had bagged, and then passed the box to my mom, who added the onion and tomatoes. 

Jump 40 years. We threw my mom a 75th birthday party last summer. Sandee, Howie's wife and a whole bunch of other people who were at that table or others like it over the years were in attendance. My parents modeled community for me and me sister. Many of their most important relationships were and are through the synagogue. No surprise I became an educator. My sister is married to a rabbi. We have very Jewish homes. 

You don't need to be a professional to raise Jewish kids. But you have to demonstrate that being Jewish is not kid stuff. It is for adults living and doing adult things in the context of participating in a Jewish community. 

One of the biggest challenges in the non-orthodox day school world is enculturating students in the life of a synagogue - essentially being part of a community that doesn;t expire on graduation day. I am part of a group that is planning on bringing together synagogue school and day school directors to try and crack this issue. 

Thanks for posting this. I am enjoying the conversation.

Reply by Sara Shapiro-Plevan on March 23

Erica, thanks for posting this. My first paid teaching job was at BJEP, too long ago to date without embarrassing myself. My concern today, as it was then, was that because of the way that the program is built, there is no web of support for families, no larger community (in whatever dimension, style, etc.) for them to "join," and therefore, no reason to continue their engagement after their child(ren) have aged out of the community. 

Sure, families who shy away from synagogue affiliation can find refuge, but they are not finding refuge *with* other families, just refuge *from* others. In this model, parents are minimally engaged, and little or nothing is offered to them or asked of them (see Ira's pediatric Judaism comments above). 

We have much evidence that this pediatric approach doesn't work, and that in fact, parents are at a unique moment in their own lives when they choose ANY Jewish education for their children. A window of opportunity opens, and programs like BJEP are not structured to take advantage of this opportunity. 

Jewish learning needs to engage the entire family in meaningful, rich experiences through which they can feel a part of something larger, be it a community or the whole of the Jewish people. Until programs like BJEP can provide that, they aren't working to their fullest capacity.

How Do We Talk About Israel in Our Schools?

I am currently in Tel Aviv at the final meeting of the Jim Joseph Foundation Fellows at the Lookstein Center for Jewish Education in the Diaspora at Bar Ilan University. Stuart Zweiter is the director of the Lookstein Center and coincidentally (to our being here) posted this observation to the Lookjed listServ (an e-mailed forum for Jewish Educators facilitated by Shalom Burger, director of the JJF Fellowship) on December 7. I think he asks some vital questions that I hope you will join me in discussing in the coming weeks. The original posting is archived here. You can reply there or here. I will copy comments here to the Lookjed list. If you would like to subscribe to Lookjed - and I recommend that you do, go to the on-line form at http://www.lookstein.org/register.htm.

This past Friday night Natan Scharansky told a few of us sitting  around the Shabbat table with him that he had found in his travels to  North American college campuses that Jewish students were uninformed  as well as scared to speak up for Israel, scared that if they were to  actively defend or speak positively about Israel it would impact  negatively on their academic career as well as their future professional career.

This morning in a discussion I had with the head of a major Jewish Foundation I was told that during a visit she recently had at a very  large Jewish high school, she found the students preparing for an  internal school debate on the topic, Israel: Is it an apartheid state? In an informal discussion she had with several students at the same  school, she was told by them that they love Israelis but do not like Israel.   

This evening I read a piece in the JTA concerning the vote taking  place this week at Princeton University on whether to ask the  university's dining services to provide an alternative brand of  hummus. Why? Because the current brand being offered is Sabra, which  is half-owned by The Strauss Group, which has publicly supported the  IDF and provides care packages and sports equipment to Israeli  soldiers.   

We all know of many similar examples. I am mentioning these because  they all occurred in just the past few days.   

This post is not an invitation to debate political issues related to  Israel. Rather, we are very interested in learning how Jewish high  schools and junior high schools of all stripes are educating their  students regarding Israel. It seems particularly important during this  period in which there is increasing de-legitimization of Israel. How  much time do schools invest in this critical issue that all of their  graduates will face on college campuses? Is it dealt with in a serious and systematic way through formal and informal educational  programs? Where does it fit into your school program? 

What does your  school do? We are hoping that through the Lookjed list the Center can  raise consciousness of and attentiveness to this issue and that the  thousands of subscribers to the Lookjed list can learn about the  different efforts and programs that are being implemented in schools.   

This question, of course, touches on how we prioritize what is  included in our school programs and how schools allocate and divide up  the time that is available. That itself is an important question for  reflection and deliberation by school principals and teachers. All  schools make choices regarding what is in and what is out? Where does  this issue fit in?   

Stuart Zweiter  

Director, the Lookstein Center

Put Your Own Oxygen Mask On First, And Then Help Your Children

Taking A Year Off

This past fall many Jewish educators encountered a newish phenomenon. Some families in our religious schools were “taking a year off” from Religious School and in some cases synagogue membership. If these were families whose youngest child recently became Bar or Bat Mitzvah, we might wring our hands and say “Ri-i-i-ight. Taking the year off. We’ll look for you next fall.”

But most of these families in my synagogue and in those of colleagues who have told me they have encountered the same conversations have children who are much younger. They tend to be in Gan (K) through Kitah Gimel (3rd). In fact, our enrollment from Kitah Chet (8th) through Kitah Yud Bet (12th) is at an all time high. If pushed, some parents will say it is a temporary economic decision. They indicated the economic realities of the fall of 2010 and a belief that their child’s Jewish identity will not be irreparably damaged by a break in their studies. And they absolutely did not want to discuss financial aid – either they were too uncomfortable with the topic or they didn’t feel things were that bad. They promised to come back. And in some of the conversations I am beginning to have with these hiatus families, they are telling me that they are absolutely coming back. From their mouths…

Linchpin: Are You Indispensible?

I am nearly finished with a book call Linchpin by Seth Godin.[1] I am a Godin Junkie. I first met Seth’s work in the pages of Fast Company, another of my addictions. Both are from the world of business, not Jewish education. Both have taught me so many things about how to make Jewish education happen. I cannot recommend them enough. I could write ten articles about this book, beginning with how it was marketed. I am reading it with a small moleskine notebook next to me so I can take notes. Yes, it is that engaging.

At the heart of the book is a redefining of the American Dream: “Be remarkable. Be generous. Create Art. Make Judgment Calls. Connect people and ideas. And we will have no choice but to reward you.” He challenges the reader, regardless of your field, to be an artist, which he defines as “someone who changes everything, who makes dreams come true…someone who can see the reality of today and describe a better tomorrow…a linchpin.”

A linchpin. The pshat or plain meaning is the piece of metal that slides through the axle that keeps the wheel from falling off the wagon, or through the arm and the hitch to keep the trailer attached. It is a simple device yet it keeps things together and makes their proper function possible. Godin suggests that in our work, each of us needs to be a linchpin, someone who is indispensible to their company. Not a line-worker or a rule-follower, but an artist – someone who stretches possibilities to allow growth and change. He gives great examples.

Al Tifrosh Min Hatzibur - Do Not Separate Yourself From the Community
So why am I bringing this up while talking about the interrupted life of our students? I believe we need to do a better job of making the school and the synagogue (and the Jewish educator) linchpins in the lives of our families. I think that twenty years ago, no one would have considered “taking a year off.” That generation might have considered the financial ramifications when joining a synagogue. Once in, though, I am convinced that like their predecessors, they would not consider leaving – at least not before the youngest child’s Bar/Bat Mitzvah. I think that we have witnessed evidence of a paradigm shift in the mind of some of our parents. And because the synagogue is no longer a linchpin for some, they are making choices we have not seen before.

Much has been written about what needs to happen to make the synagogue and formal Jewish education more relevant. And some of it may be right on target. But before we go exploding all of our existing institutions, I have a thought. We need to be linchpins. By “we” I mean the synagogue, the school, the clergy, the directors of education/lifelong learning/early childhood/family education/programming/fill-in-the-blank, the teachers and the lay leadership.

In 1989 United Airlines ran a television commercial showing a conference room. “A manager announces they have just lost a major long-time client, one too many. It's time for a "face-to-face" policy, in other words, not just call the customer, but also meet him. He starts handing out plane tickets to the other employees...” [2]


They had the idea exactly right. We need to focus our energy on each adult, one family at a time. It’s not an easy task, given the size of some of our congregations. It is not a one-person job. I intend to become an evangelist, recruiting those who already feel that being a part of a congregation – learning, praying and coming together for ma’asim tovim (good works) and for fun – is not something to be weighed against other household expenses and youth activities. We need to get them join us in reaching out, one family at a time, and helping those families come to the same conclusion. We have to lose the model whereby the educator focuses on the children and that leads to families becoming more connected.

Put Your Own Mask On First…
Finally, I want to share the teaching of Harlene Winnick Appelman, the director of the Covenant Foundation. Harlene was one of the first winners of the Covenant Award, and was one of the first people to take the idea of family education and develop it into something more comprehensive than a special program on a Sunday morning. Her sessions at CAJE conferences were a must-attend for those who wanted to be on the cutting edge.

She reminded us of the safety speech that flight attendants used to give before takeoff (now it is usually on a video). They would say that in case of a sudden loss of cabin pressure, oxygen masks would drop from the ceiling. After instructing us how to put it on and start the flow of oxygen, they would tell us that passengers travelling with young children should put their own mask on first and then help their children. Harlene taught us what should have been (and should still be) obvious: If you put the child’s mask on first, we might not be able to breathe well enough to take care of ourselves. And what if our children need us after getting the mask on?

We need to get the parents to put on their Jewish learning and living masks. Otherwise we will have a generation of adults with the Jewish identity and connection of at best a thirteen year old. We need to get them to understand that they need to belong to a synagogue and send their children to religious school (or day school) because that is something that is vitally important to them. And we can only do that through personal relationships. We need to be artists.

I have some ideas. More on this soon.

Cross-posted to Davar Acher


[1]Seth’s blog is at http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/ and his books can be found at http://www.sethgodin.com/sg/books.asp. I have taught about The Idea Virus and the Purple Cow, and recommend them!

[2] Thanks to http://www.airodyssey.net/tvc/tvc-united.html" for the description of the ad and the link to the Leo Burnett Ad Agency site for the clip.