In sunny California, tweeting and surfing (web, not waves)...

So I am sitting in a room at the Brandeis Bardin Institute in Simi Valley California. The weather has been in the 80's for two days. I am over the jet lag. I and 13 other Jewish educators are the Jim Joseph Foundation Fellows - Leading Educators Online at our first f2f (face to face) retreat with the staff of the Lookstein Institute for Jewish Education in the Diaspora at Bar Ilan University in Ramat Gan.

The program goals are to:

• Identify, direct and empower Fellows to develop and lead online collaborative communities in their professional fields.
  
• Provide leading edge professional development to outstanding Jewish educators from formal (e.g. supplementary, congregational, and day schools) and informal Jewish education settings (e.g. camps, youth groups, community centers).
  
• Advance new ways of learning and working together to bring about qualitative changes in the way Jewish educators work with others as they learn.
  
• Guide Jewish education to the forefront of 21st century education.

What does that mean? We have had a few months of intense, threaded conversations in a Google Group about creating a Community of Practice (CoP), and spent much of the last 36 hours exploring how to become one. We have learned from one another about how we have used various Web 2.0 applications in our work as educators. And we have told stories.

This is the early stage of what promises to be an amazing journey into the Next Level. I will share as often as seems relevant. In the right hand column of this Blog I have added a section called Next Level 2.0. It is a list of Web 2.0 applications that might help all of us take Jewish Learning and our own professional growth to the next level. Most of the apps listed were suggested by the fellows, and we all thank Barry Gruber for compiling the first iteration of the list. The current version (as of this posting - it will grow) reflects that first compilation and places I have learned about this week in California.

OMG. Twitter??!!??
I tried twitter a few months ago, noodling around trying to see what it might do. Yesterday, Esther Feldman from the Lookstein Center told us all to sign up and log in. Many already had been tweeting. My previous impression (and I said as much) of Twitter was that it was a slick way of having People Magazine open all the time. I remember Kevin Spacey Tweeting on the air while he was on Letterman. Ridiculous.

Then we all began tweeting among ourselves. During presentations. It seems a bit like passing notes. Rude even. But the content of the tweets actually enhanced the conversation once we got used to it. We were tweeting our thoughts while listening. Not everyone got a chance to speek aloud, but we all had an opportunity to express ourselves to one another about what was happening. And we were creating a record of the learning at the same time. I had twitter live on the left side of my screen and Word on the right for note taking.

We went a little viral. Lisa Colton of Darim Online follows the tweets of one of the fellows. So she began to follow our conversation. (You can do that because we were attaching a hashtag that identifies the conversation thread!) She began to comment with us and share the conversation with those who follow her. At the moment that is 561 people.

Ellen Dietrick, one of the fellows, is the director of the Synagogue Early Childhood Program at Congregation Beth Israel in Charlottesville, Virginia. She is way ahead of the curve on all of this stuff. She has put a netbook in every classroom. Her teachers take some time everyday to post a very brief (4 -5 sentence) update about the happenings in their room and a photo (they digital cameras, too) to the schools Blog on Blogger.

Only those who are invited may see the blog (sorry, I do not issue the invites) to protect the privacy of the children and their families. But the parents (and grandparents who might live far away) can get a glimpse into their child's day and even ask their children better questions than "what did you learn/do in school today?" They can ask about the art project or the challah they baked! Every class posts each day. Wow.

And Twitter? Forget about it! Teachers will hand Ellen a note at random points in the day. A tweet can only be 140 characters, so it is very short. It says something specific about something wonderful that just happened. Ellen tweets it from a Twitter account that only the parents can follow (security again!). They might have their twitter feed tied to their phone or Blackberry. It might appear in a window on their iGoogle desktop or as an e-mail. The point is that they will get a nudge and a note moments after the event. I haven't spoken to any of the parents in Charlottesville, but I bet they love it! Did I mention she does school registration and sign ups for activities online using Google Docs? And that's only some of the work of one of the fellows.

So I have totally changed my mind about twitter. I don't think anyone wants to hear what I am ordering for lunch. Bit it is a pretty cool way to have a brief conversation, share a resource or create a backchannel for making meaning of something we are experiencing.

My twitter name is @IraJWise. What's yours?

The Words DON'T Know The Way -- You Have To Take Them There!

Eric Schor and Eliot Shapiro are two guys I have known since I was a boy. We all grew up at the same synagogue and camp. Today they are the principals of EMS Communications, a company that trains people to be effective speakers. The describe their mission as being "to rid the world of boring presentations, one speaker at a time." This posting is their cutting edge analysis of the presentations of the Olympic City bid teams form Chicago and Rio de Janero. I have learned a lot about my teaching from their analysis. Unfortunately, when I posted it to my Facebook page, some of my FB friends focused on the polititcs of President Obama getting involved. They miss the point of my posting it. The Next Level learning here is about how we present ourselves, and therefore the Jewish people. This is from their monthly speaker's digest which you can receive by e-mail. The original and the subscription form can be found on their web site: http://www.cooleremail.net/users/eliotshap/Oct2009_14oct2009.html

Less than two weeks ago, the attention of many Americans—and others around the world— turned to Copenhagen, Denmark, where the International Olympic Committee met to choose the host city for the 2016 Summer Olympics. We were initially surprised that Chicago’s bid ended faster than the Chicago Cubs last two playoff runs, but when we watched the presentation delivered by the Chicago team, we saw a presentation which failed to capture the excitement of our city. Read on while we share our perspective on this missed opportunity of Olympic proportions, and how Rio truly SOLD IT!

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Chi-town Lands with a Thud

Like many of our neighbors, we were blown away when we learned that Chicago was the first city to be eliminated in the quest to host the 2016 Summer Olympics. How could our fair city compare so poorly with the others that were competing for the honor?

Then, we watched the Chicago team’s presentation, in which a group of leaders of the Chicago 2016 Olympic Bid Committee paraded in front of the IOC in Copenhagen to show why Chicago should be the host city, with Michelle and Barack Obama anchoring the hour-long relay. Watch the Chicago 2016 presentation by clicking here.

We can’t explain exactly why Chicago ultimately failed in its bid to secure the nomination, but we can say that the speakers representing our team delivered a flat, stale, lifeless presentation. It was punctuated by repetitive video footage that sought to portray the human side of the city, but didn’t effectively capture Chicago’s uniqueness.

Several times during Chicago’s presentation, speakers referred to the city as a ‘fun’ place to hold the summer Olympics. But there was little evidence that anyone on the team was actually HAVING fun. They came across as intense, tight, and stiff, and not very well qualified to pull off that theme.

We were led to believe that our presenters were well rehearsed and well trained, but as a group they didn’t move, didn’t smile, and didn’t look enthusiastic:

IOC member Anita DeFrantz, batting leadoff, seemed proud, but her effort to portray Chicago as fun was less enjoyable than snow in October.

USOC president Lawrence Probst looked serious and even worried, with the same stern expression plastered on his face throughout.

Committee chair Pat Ryan, a former Fortune 500 CEO, relied on repetitive, unnatural looking gestures, appearing way too serious along the way. He almost smiled--once. He concluded his remarks by saying “Our people are warm and welcoming, and best of all, you’ll have a lot of fun.” Yet he delivered the line in a way that looked as if he had just come from a root canal.

Mayor Richard Daley, while appearing more comfortable than we usually see him, repeatedly used the phrase “your games.” (We heard it five times.) While he probably meant it to sound respectful, it came off as alienating.

By the time the Obamas came in to close the deal, there was little for them to save.

Here are some other observations:

Can you say “unnatural?” It was clear that Chicago’s presenters were coached. (Not necessarily a bad thing, but it’s one thing to BE coached, and another to LOOK coached.) They brought similar styles that emphasized short phrases, frequent pauses, practiced gestures, and volume turned on high. But because they didn’t vary that volume, and relied on those practiced gestures, they looked uncomfortable, unnatural and—unfortunately—unbelievable. It was painful to watch.

Where was Michael? Showcasing past champions, Brazil brought Pele, a worldwide soccer icon, along with other young, energetic athletes. Chicago showed the headstone at the grave of Jesse Owens, and the not-quite-household name Bob "I'd like to buy a vowel" Ctvrtlik, an IOC member who won a gold medal for Volleyball. We needed more splash.

Too much hedging. Listening to the Chicago presentation, we heard Mayor Daley use messages such as “we want to be” and “if you award us” instead of “we WILL be” and “by awarding us.” Ryan fell into the same trap when he said “Chicago would be the right partner” instead of…Anybody? Anybody? That’s right—"Chicago WILL be the right partner.”

Had we seen this presentation before learning of the decision, we wouldn’t have been very surprised about the final outcome.

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Rio Rocks It!

Compared to the Chicago 2016 team, the group of presenters from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil came out expressive and passionate, which was probably hard considering that they weren’t speaking in their native language. The high energy, facial expressions and body language of their speakers more than overcame their difficulties pronouncing English words as they showed off Brazil’s beauty, culture and plan to host the Olympic Games.

Presentations really DO make a difference. In this case, Rio delivered a better presentation across the board. Setting the stage, Carlos Nuzman, the president of Rio 2016, was charming and engaging. He opened effectively and he ended convincingly, saying “Today, Rio stands ready to serve the Olympic movement and start a new journey of celebration, discovery and transformation.” His smile and his manner showed both confidence and humility, not an easy thing to do. He really SOLD his message!

One way Rio 2016 out-presented the Chicagoans was through visual aids. One graphic in particular was tremendously effective: a world map, dotted with locations of all the previous host cities, emphasized that Europe and North America had hosted dozens of Olympic games, while South America hadn’t hosted any. It was a simple image which made a compelling point.

In addition, the video footage brought by the Rio team did a much better job of capturing the flavor of their city. They relied on great graphics to show how the Olympic venues would fit into their city. And they successfully showed off the city’s breathtaking combination of mountains and ocean.

Another thing we noticed, although it may seem small: the presenters from Rio introduced themselves to their audience, which we thought was a nice touch. It helped them establish rapport and engage their listeners.

Hosting the Olympic Games provides a big stage, and there was a lot at stake at these meetings in Copenhagen. Many Chicagoans, like us, were excited about the prospect of bringing the Games here. But while our presenters TOLD people why Chicago WOULD be a great host, Brazil’s team SHOWED people why Rio DESERVED to win the bid. They were selling it, we were telling it.

Bummer. We were looking forward to 2016.

Here are links to Rio’s presentation, broken up into five segments. Be sure to watch Part 1 and Part 5 to see a Carlos Nuzman’s memorable opening and emphatic ending.

Rio Part 1

Rio Part 2

Rio Part 3

Rio Part 4

Rio Part 5

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Presenting as a Team: Tough to do Well

It’s so hard to present effectively as a team. How does one assign tasks to the right people, handle transitions, or build on previous performers?

With awkward moments between speakers (do we hug, shake hands, kiss or what?), the Chicago presentation demonstrated the challenge of team presentations. It’s clear that they wanted to give different officials the honor of speaking on behalf of the team, and they probably needed to make sure they didn’t leave people out.

But they brought up too many speakers—and not enough effective ones. It added to the stiffness.

That’s a frequent problem with team presentations. When you choose speakers in order to honor them, instead of choosing ones who will make your presentation stronger, then you’re diluting your message. And the logistics of the transitions require more choreography than most teams plan for.

That’s why we say: less is more.

Do you and your colleagues present to clients as a team? When it’s your time to go for the gold with a team presentation, don’t go in without a strategy. For expert coaching designed to put your speakers on top of the podium, give EMS a call!

For more insights into delivering team presentations, click here to read our June 2003 Digest, which focused exclusively on that topic.

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What Should We Be Teaching Our Children?

Shalom Berger of the Lookstein Institute asked me to respond to a posting to the LookJed list by Richard D. Solomon based on his reading of Understanding by Design from my perspective as a congregational educator. Richard and I are cross posting the discussion and I hope it will include other responses as well. If you have a comment, please make it below and I will share it with Richard.

Richard D. Solomon's original posting on LookJed:


Dear Rabbi Berger,

According to *Wiggins and McTighe (1998) in order to decide what (Judaic) knowledge should be taught in school, the following three categories or priorities of knowledge should be determined:

First priority: Knowledge that is enduring, essential information that students must know.

Second priority: Knowledge that is important, but not essential for students to know.

Third priority: Knowledge with which students should be familiar.

A graphic organizer of the three different types of knowledge appears at right (originally in Richard’s blog post richarddsolomonsblog.blogspot.com:80)

I believe that it is the responsibility of the Jewish Professional Learning Community to determine what is enduring Jewish knowledge, important Jewish knowledge, and knowledge with which an educated Jewish person should be familiar. So as we begin a new year, here are a few questions that Lookjed educators may wish to ponder.

1. What is enduring Jewish knowledge from your perspective?

2. Where specifically can a mentor or a teacher find enduring Jewish knowledge?

3. Is all Jewish knowledge enduring?

4. What is "not enduring" Jewish knowledge?


Shavuah tov,


Richard Richard D. Solomon, Ph.D.


* Wiggins, G. & McTighe, J. (1998). Understanding by Design. Alexandria, VA. Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

My response:

Richard D. Solomon asks four intriguing questions based on his reading of Understanding by Design by Wiggins and McTighe. I think he is on point in how he phrased the questions. In trying to address them, one risks falling into the trap of E.D. Hirsch, author of the “What Every … Grader Should Know” series. It is very easy to list specific content goals, lean back and congratulate oneself on a job well done. We all know (I hope) that such lists only scratch the surface of essential learning.

That caveat given, what about his questions?

Eight years ago, the Reform Movement began to publish its CHAI Curriculum. It is constructed around the organizing principles of Understanding by Design (UbD). I refer readers interested in their process to begin with Torah At The Center[1] which introduced the concept to Reform educators. Additionally there is a web page for the curriculum at http://chai.urj.org/ which has a great deal of information about the curriculum and how it adapts UbD.

1. What is enduring Jewish knowledge from your perspective?

To address Richard’s question, I look at the two central goals I have for my school (a congregation-based “complementary” school, where children attend for 1.5 – 3 hours per week, depending on their grade):

We seek to help families raise children to become functionally literate adult Jews – that is, Jews who can walk into a synagogue, camp, committee meeting, community center or communal organization or any other Jewish milieu and feel like a sabra, not an oleh. Given our time constraints, will they be able to lead traditional or conservative style davening as shlichei tzibbur? No. Will they know how to pray, what they are praying and what it means to them? Yes. And they will know what they don’t know, and how to go about learning what they don’t know if that is of interest to them.

We seek to help families raise children who have a strong sense of Jewish identity, identification with the Jewish people and Eretz Yisrael and who feel that being Jewish is central to who they are. The test is when they grow up—will raising Jewish children be a priority for them enough to say to a potential spouse: “You may be ambivalent about raising children who have a strong Jewish identity and connection to God, but I am not. If that doesn’t work for you, maybe we should see other people.”

So what is enduring Jewish knowledge from my perspective? Enduring knowledge is whatever makes me – the learner – come back for more.

For me personally, history is a huge draw. I once visited the JTS library and archives as part of a CAJE conference chavaya, and was allowed to touch some of the Geniza fragments Solomon Schechter had studied, and hold in my hands a Lucite encased letter written by Rambam’s scribe Baruch and signed by Rambam’s own hand, inviting various Jewish communities to contribute to a campaign to ransom the Jews of Jerusalem during the third crusade. I still get chills when I recall it. For me it is travelling in Eretz Yisrael with a knowledgeable moreh derekh and learning about what happened in the spot where I am standing. For me it is the experience of being a camper, counselor, unit head and faculty member at our Reform Jewish summer camps—and in this case it is not a single datum or concept, but the whole gestalt of the experience, which speaks to all of my learning modalities.

I see our role as educators as helping our teachers get to know each of our students well enough to learn which understandings will be enduring for them and then designing the learning to meet them where they are. As I often imagine John Dewey[2] saying (I am a bit free with his words): we cannot bring the child kicking and screaming to the curriculum. We have to bring the curriculum to him. I do believe there are commonplaces that every Jew should learn about: Hebrew language and literature; the land, people and state of Israel; times and seasons; the Jewish life cycle; Torah and texts; history; God/theology; comparative Judaism and comparative religion; Mitzvot and Midot; Kedushah and Tefillah. The extent to which we focus on each is determined by the community and deeper focus may be indicated by learner needs and interest.

2. Where specifically can a mentor or a teacher find enduring Jewish knowledge?

Find yourself a teacher; get yourself a friend[3]. I am not sure I can improve on Pirkei Avot on this one. I have served as a mentor in the Leadership Institute for Congregational School Educators at HUC-JIR/JTS for the past five years. The mentors and the fellow have learned at the feet of some outstanding teachers focusing on leadership, pedagogy and Jewish learning. There are resources in most communities and on line. At the end of the day, I have learned much from all of them, but more I have learned from my fellow mentors as we have processed the work we do with one another and discussed our needs as professionals. And from the fellows, our students, I have learned most of all. Hmmm. Seem to be falling back to Avot yet again…speaking of enduring understandings[4]!

I think ultimately your question is not where can we find enduring Jewish knowledge, but how can we make knowledge enduring for our students. Again we have to look at context. In my school, a lengthy exploration of Kashrut does not make educational sense until students reach adolescence. When they begin experimenting with what they imagine their adult life to be, they are ripe for a conversation about eating deliberately. This is the time when many choose to be vegetarians—at least for a while—in response to their reaction to where meat comes from and their compassion for living beings.

This is an ideal time to talk about how Kashrut takes the same approach to eating deliberately and bringing the idea of God, mitzvot and holiness to the table as valid rationales for decision making. In a community where Halakhah is a core value, Kashrut makes sense much earlier, because the conversation is about how as much as about why, if not more so. Those children return to Kosher homes, while most of mine do not.

To make it enduring then, requires more strategy and forethought than just putting the “most enduring stuff” out there for them.

3. Is all Jewish knowledge enduring?

I will not belabor my previous point. I believe it can be, depending on the needs of the individual and the community. On the other hand, the teachings of the Karaites seems to have limited appeal and applicability for many today. I wish I had been taught about the halakhah of war and the idea of Just War when I was a young teen during the days of Viet Nam. I was grateful to be able to bring teachers to my school who were well versed in it during the current war in Iraq.

Back to Avot: Ben Bag Bag[5] said that everything is in it (the Torah). It is our job to make it enduring. Will I spend a lot of time on the laws of sacrifice in a post-Bayit world? No, but it is worth teaching about sacrifice from an historical perspective and to connect forms of worship from then to the present day. In another part of our community, I will see great disagreement, with colleagues who believe that it is all Torah and all valuable and central to understanding everything else. They are not wrong for their schools. I am not wrong for mine.

At the end of the day, I believe all Jewish knowledge is valuable, but given the constraints of time, interest and attention span, we need to start in places that make learners want more, and then drill down and give them as much as they can take. Not a very UbD approach, and I suspect not exactly what you are looking to hear, but there it is.

4. What is "not enduring" Jewish knowledge?

Again I turn to Pirkei Avot: Any conversation that is for the sake of heaven endures. Any that is not does not endure[6]. So long as we as educators and communal leaders strive to disagree like Hillel and Shammai, who struggled from different perspectives to help their community find the right way to confront a changing world, so should we. When find ourselves becoming like Korach and his company, trumpeting “the right way” or “THE enduring understanding” we get into trouble. And Korach ended up with much worse than a bad reputation.

I look forward to reading other responses and perspectives.

Moadim l’simcha!

Ira



[1] Torah At The Center, Special Edition, Volume 5, No. 2 • Winter 2001 • Choref 5762.
[2] My Pedagogic Creed, by John Dewey, School Journal vol. 54 (January 1897), pp. 77-80.
[3] Pirkei Avot 1:6
[4] Actually Ta’anit 7a, but referred to in Kravitz and Olitzky’s Pirke Avot: A Modern Commentary on Jewish Ethics, URJ Press, 1993, page 102.
[5] Pirkei Avot 5:22
[6] Pirkei Avot 5:17

Playing the Game By New Rules

This is the last of four articles I wrote for Eilu v'Eilu, a weekly debate published by the Union for Reform Judaism last month. It was written for a Reform audience, but you can transliterate to Conservative, Zionist, Renewal, Reconstructionist, Orthodox, or whatever works for you! You can subscribe to Eilu v'Eilu (and see the other articles on the role of the Jewish educator by me and Larry Kohn, look for volume 41) by going to http://urj.org/learning/torah/ten/eilu/.

In the May 11th issue of the New Yorker, Malcolm Gladwell discussed How David Beats Goliath. He described a basketball team of twelve-year-old girls who were not that tall, and most of whom were beginners. Yet they came within a game or two of winning the national championship for their age group. Like Lawrence of Arabia, they won by not playing the game the way others expected them to do. Just as the biblical David approached Goliath without sword, spear or armor. Lawrence’s forces, the twelve-year-olds and David approached their opponent by playing to their own strengths, what they were able to do successfully. David couldn’t win a contest of brute strength with his inferior bronze sword against the giant Goliath’s iron blade. Check out Samuel I and Gladwell’s article. They both make for great reading and learning.

AS Jewish educators, we need to work with our teachers, madrikhim, clergy, lay leaders, parents and students to break the rules in the same way. Some smart people have been writing the obituary of the synagogue school for some time. I believe that the majority of Jewish children are getting their formal Jewish education in our schools because it is a model that can and often does work well for them, not because their parents are looking for the path of least resistance. By each of or institutions (not just the school, but the entire synagogue) examining what we are able to do most successfully, we can change the game in ways that produce spectacular results, just like those young basketball players did. And we can learn from each other, from one professional to another, from synagogue to another, and so on. I can recommend Schools That Work: What We Can Learn From Good Jewish Supplementary Schools, by Jack Wertheimer.

Changing the game means figuring out what we do well. It also means adapting to a changing educational environments. Our learners are digital natives. Our success will depend in part on how we as educators become digital immigrants. And here the Israel experience is instructive. When someone makes aliya (emigrates to Israel), they go through a process of klitah – absorption. Some Olim make a thorough klitah: they work hard to learn Hebrew, with a proper Israeli accent, they try to fit in to the patterns of Israeli life and work and basically live like Sabras as much as possible. Klitah for others is not so much being absorbed and enculturated as it is transplanting the reality they came from into a new place. That easily leads to cultural conflicts: Why can’t they do things the right way over here? We need to work hard at our digital klitah in order to remain relevant to our learners. And we need to continue to understand where they are in other ways as well: emotionally, culturally, intellectually, etc.

In Pirkei Avot, Rabbi ben Bag Bag tells us to turn Torah over and over because everything is in it. He was telling us to help each new generation make meaning for themselves of Torah. And that means turning it ways that are meaningful to them. I just returned from two weeks on faculty at Camp Eisner, one of our URJ camps. I marveled each day as I watched young adults turn Torah over and over with their campers. Not just in the Limud sessions, where we focus specifically on Jewish learning, but in the bunks at night, in the pool, on the ball field and lazing in the shade on Olim hill. They keep it real and right in front of our kids. No technology. Just teens and twentySomethings being living examples of Being Torah. My wife and I send our kids to camp. We have twelve URJ camps. If you have kids, you should too.

I want to thank my colleague Larry Kohn for once again being my teacher, and Rabbi Joan Farber and the URJ Department of Lifelong Learning for creating this forum. I often tell my students that the only bad questions are the ones we don’t ask. I also want to thank all of my teachers, from my first Sunday school teacher Sharon Steinhorn (2nd grade) to those I work with today at B’nai Israel in Bridgeport Connecticut and the Leadership Institute for Congregational School Educators in New York.

Are Bayit Sheini (second Temple) Days Here Again? I Hope Not, For All Our Sakes

Rabbi Stanley M. Davids is Rabbi Emeritus, Temple Emanu-el in Atlanta, GA, and has served as president of the Association of Reform Zionists of America (ARZA-World Union). He now lives in Jerusalem. He shared this letter with Ethan Prosnit, a first year rabbinic student at HUC in Jerusalem and an alum of my synagogue and the staff of Camp Eisner. I work with his father, Jim, who is my rabbi. It is reprinted with Rabbi Davids' permission.

MICHTAV – Faith and Fury
August 15, 2009

I have no fear of crowds and I am no stranger to demonstrations. I have been involved in organizing and participating in mass protests since the mid-1960’s, and have even had the privilege of being arrested outside of the Russian consulate in New York in 1986 during a particularly contentious struggle. The causes have varied – from demanding the rights of African Americans to be able to buy houses in previously segregated neighborhoods, to demanding the right of Soviet Jews to emigrate, to demanding an end to American military involvement in Vietnam – and most recently to demanding protection for the civil and political rights of gays and lesbians here in Israel.

I picketed Soviet cultural events in the United States in the 1960’s and ‘70’s (even though I knew the Bolshoi to be irresistibly glorious), and I once found myself part of a massive anti-Vietnam protest in front of the Washington Monument. At the time, I was in my US Army uniform, since I had no civilian clothes that fit – and thus found myself being reprimanded by the two star general who commanded Fort Belvoir. A memorable occasion.

But I have been staying away from the demonstrations being conducted in Jerusalem every Shabbat afternoon for the past six weeks. Based upon the local and international news reports, I just did not want to have to confront my own deep-seated emotions; I just didn’t want to have to acknowledge that my responses to the demonstrations would be far from sanguine, far from objective.

As with any political theater, the current demonstrations have multiple layers of causation. Ostensibly, the Haredim (ultra-Orthodox Jews who, in this case, are an anti-Zionist segment of the Haredi community living in Meah Shearim) are protesting the decision of Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat to permit a private parking lot near the Jaffa Gate (leading directly into the Old City and thus to the Kotel, the Western Wall) to be open on Shabbat. The parking lot serves large numbers of tourists, Jewish and non-Jewish, Israeli and foreign, who come to the Old City on Saturday to shop and to experience sites that are sacred to Judaism, Christianity and Islam. These Haredim do not live close to the parking lot, but view the opening of the parking lot as a violation of their view as to the sacred nature of both Shabbat and Jerusalem itself.

For those managing the demonstrations, there is another significant layer of causation: these Haredim lost out in the campaign that led to Mayor Barkat’s election. Barkat was supported by many of us who were deeply troubled by what has been called the Haredification of Jerusalem. But Barkat might not have won had not the various Haredi communities become entangled in a nasty internal power struggle. That split opened the door for Barkat —and the protesting Haredim are members of a dissident group that now needs to prove its street-creds by capturing public attention.

The third level of causation is that the current demonstrations are part of an overt and potentially explosive battle for the very soul of Jerusalem and for the soul of the State of Israel itself.

Israelis have not yet been able to successfully define for broad acceptance the full meaning of what is involved in declaring Israel to be a just, pluralistic, democratic Jewish state. There is not yet internal consensus about how Israel’s democratic structure can be fully guaranteed while its Jewish identity is granted similar protection. How will Israel’s Arab minority (Muslim and Christian) be guaranteed full and equal treatment? How will non-Orthodox Jewish communities be able to conduct life cycle ceremonies for their members free of government sanctioned coercion? How will the state guarantee the full expression of Jewish multiplicity and diversity?

In the most recent national election, Avigdor Lieberman’s party (Lieberman is now Israel’s Foreign Minister) campaigned on behalf of a loyalty oath which, if ever it would be approved by the Knesset, could severely restrict the civil rights of many non-Jewish and even some Jewish Israeli citizens. The battle being waged by our Progressive Movement and Israel Religious Action Center for the right of Reform Rabbi Miri Gold to receive the same legal status as Israel’s other district rabbis (who just happen to all be Orthodox men) is part of that same struggle for Israel’s Jewish soul. And there are many, many other examples.

But this Shabbat I was invited by several of our HUC rabbinic students to accompany them to the demonstration. At the very least, I could provide a bit of context for them – and could translate what was being screamed out. So I set my hesitancies aside.

We were across from the parking garage, facing the magnificent new Mamilla shopping mall and the Jaffa Gate. Behind us was the architecturally powerful shape of the central campus of the Hebrew Union College and the main offices of the World Union for Progressive Judaism. By 5:45 pm, milling crowds of Haredim had clustered above and behind the garage, rhythmically chanting SHABBAS, SHABBAS. The police were there in full battle gear, including some in body armor. Tourists stopped to try to understand what the tension was all about. News photographers were present in large numbers. The day was still quite warm. Signs were up everywhere inviting people to come to the International Arts and Crafts Fair that has been drawing overflowing crowds.

More voices joined in the chant. Haredim were coming slowly into the area from all directions. Horse mounted patrolmen took up their positions. And then there was a sound quite like that of a rapidly swelling river. Hundreds of Haredi men were moving down the street from Meah Shearim. The chants became shouts, and the atmosphere became super-charged with tension. The first skirmishes started as the police tried to keep the Haredim on the sidewalks and away from the garage, but the human surge could not easily be contained.

The men on horseback were singularly effective, moving directly into the crowds, slowly, steadily pushing them back. Now there were shrieks of outrage, along with SHABBAS, SHABBAS. Large numbers of non-Haredi Israelis, men and women, were watching – and then suddenly they found the demonstrators pushed into their midst. Screaming matches broke out in scattered pockets. Anger vs. anger; indignation vs. indignation; passion matched with passion.

The shouted claims were accompanied by waving hands, pointing fingers and shaking fists. The demonstrators were told that they were a shame to Israel, an embarrassment to the Jewish people, the cause of a potential civil war that would damage Israel more than its Arab enemies could do. The by-standers were told that they should know that the essence of Torah is at stake, that the demonstrators were ready to die to protect the holiness of God’s name, that this was OUR city and in this city Torah law IS the law.

The demonstrators surged against the police and the police pushed back first with restraint – but then at times with grim determination. Some demonstrators were carried kicking and screaming to vehicles that clearly were marked as belonging to the Jerusalem jail system. The crowds cheered those who were carried off as heroes of the day, as martyrs to the cause.

I moved close to where the police and the demonstrators were in direct contact with each other. I heard the words that I feared and dreaded. These demonstrators, resplendent in their garments of 17th century Poland, opposed in every way to the Zionist state, screamed NAZI, NAZI into the faces of the young Israeli policemen. Not once; not just from a few people – that disgusting and utterly inexcusable slander, that ugly blot on the memory of the 6 million, was ringing out from various pockets of demonstrators.

I stood two feet in front of an Ethiopian policeman who probably was no more than 18. I heard the fur-hatted demonstrator scream at him: You are only an Ethiopian. You are not even a Jew. You are worse than a Goy..

My mouth filled with bile. I knew that I was trembling with impotent rage. When the surge ended, I went over to the young soldier and shook his hand and thanked him for the manner in which he had handled this unspeakable assault. He smiled sadly and just said: We should just all stay healthy.

I stayed for two hours. During quiet moments I tried, but I know that I did not succeed, to help the HUC students answer the questions which were inescapable for them: What is going on here? Who are these people and what can be done to protect Israel’s future from them? Our discussions will be lengthy, and they could not be carried out on a sidewalk crowded with sweat and faith and fury this Shabbat afternoon in Jerusalem.

As I walked home, trying to let the beauty of the city heal my wounds, I just kept telling myself over and over again: Israel desperately needs the full involvement, the full presence, the full participation, the full support of Western democratic liberal Jews so as to preserve, defend and protect the dream that is at the very heart of Israel’s existence. The Reform Movement, guided and inspired by the work of ARZA and its partners, must see the battle for Israel’s soul as a critical part of the battle for our people’s future. We need our international leaders to weigh in on this struggle even as they weigh in on matters of Israel’s security and defense needs. We need our young people to realize that their presence here could actually make the difference, could actually determine the outcome, of what is nothing less than a culture war.

How do we share that message? How do we act upon our conviction that the future of Israel deeply matters to us? How do we keep faith with our commitment to Tikkun Olam in our ancient and modern homeland? How will our own children and grandchildren judge our responses to the rising tide of faith and fury? And how do we explain all of this to our first year rabbinic and cantorial and education students as they prepare for their roles as spiritual leaders of our people?

Stan

“Guys, this is a learned Jew kind of thing to know.”

Here is a guest posting from my son Ethan. He is 16. He spent the past semester in Israel on NFTY's EIE program - learning, touring, hanging out and earning ful academic credit for high school. This was the semonette he wrote for Confirmation, which took place a week after he returned. He presents us with the real challenge of seeking the Next Level in Jewish learning. EIE was one of the best investments we have ever made!

Kibbutz Tzuba in the Judaean Hills

As a little kid at Hebrew school on Sunday mornings, learning about Israel is like learning about some magical mystical land. It seems almost unreal, and at that point, I couldn’t even imagine leaving home to go somewhere that was so immensely far away. But, having just come back from that far, far away place, I can say that some of the things that I thought as a second grader in Mrs. Silkoff’s class couldn’t be truer.

I remember being awed by the things that I would hear about Israel when I was a little kid, and having been seeing those things for the past four months and six days, I know now that there was no exaggeration. It seemed to me that everything I saw in Jerusalem or Tel-Aviv or Haifa or Tsfat or anywhere else that we went was more incredible and more amazing than the thing I saw before it. But, there was more to this trip than mere sightseeing.

This past semester, kind of like Confirmation, has been a sort of rite of passage for me. In Israel I learned more about myself, my people, and my homeland than I have in my entire life. And, as confirmation marks the continuation of my Jewish learning as I continue to grow, EIE also demonstrated for me the importance of Jewish education past the whole bar-mitzvah extravaganza.

My Jewish history teacher in Israel, Shira, after giving us a piece of information would all the time say, “Guys, this is a learned Jew kind of thing to know.” And, while some of those “learned Jew” pieces of information I already knew from Hebrew school, or bible stories from my dad, others of those “learned Jew” things were new, slightly more complicated.

Confirmation is also a kind of measure of growth in the sense that we are choosing to commit to Judaism as people who are old enough to make an informed decision. Likewise, some of the things that I learned in Israel, such as politics, or certain intricacies of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, or even environmental issues, I was only able to fully understand because I was old enough to.

This semester, I learned that Israel isn’t always pretty. I worked for a day at an underfunded, underdeveloped preschool in Jerusalem. I rafted with my friends through what little is left of the Jordan River, and I even visited an army outpost on the Lebanese border where I had to stay behind ten-foot-thick concrete walls. But, for everything that I saw that was sad or unpleasant, I saw a million things that were spectacular, unbelievable, and beautiful beyond belief.

I walked above the Bahai Gardens in Haifa, and I shopped at a shook that went on forever just next to Shenkin Street in Tel-Aviv. I got to walk through the old city, and stand at the Kotel, and every morning, when I would look out my window on Kibbutz Tzuba, I would see the most unbelievable view of the kibbutz’s vineyards flowing down a slope until they became the sprawling Judean Hills.

So, that Israel that I imagined from inside room 7 just upstairs really does exist to some extent. Israel is as magical, mystical, and every bit as heart-wrenchingly beautiful as I always though it would be. But, because of this semester abroad being such a time of growth and learning, I also realized that it is a complicated, modern, and difficult place as well.

And to me, Confirmation is the point in time at which I can say with authority, “Ok, I know about the history of our people, I know about the issues that we and our homeland face, and I know about the importance of Judaism in my life. Now what? I’m ready to keep going from here, so what can you teach me next?”

Living is learning: Israel Lessons at the Y

Dr. Lisa Grant Associate Professor of Jewish Education on the New York campus of the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, and a member of my congregation, B’nai Israel in Bridgeport, CT is my guest blogger this week. This was originally posted on Tze L’umad, a blog for the continuing education for the alumni of HUC-JIR. The editor of that blog wrote: “Her reflections remind us that it is not just curriculum and content that shape education; experience is a critical element in our learning, solidifying and challenging the knowledge we acquire in more formal settings.”

Currently, I’m in Israel as part of the faculty for the culminating seminar of this year’s cohort of Mandel Fellows, a group of seven HUC rabbinic-education students from New York and Los Angeles. Since I’m here for almost all of June, I decided to join the pool at the YMCA for the month. Navigating these waters has been a lesson in cultural literacy.

First there are the hours. I swim first thing in the morning. On Monday and Shabbat (or more accurately in the Y world, Saturday) there is mixed swimming. On Tuesday through Friday, men and women alternate between the early shift (5:45-6:25 am) and late (6:25-7:05). I discovered this after arriving at 6:00 am on a Tuesday to find the door into the pool from the women’s locker room locked up tight.

In good Christian fashion in this Jewish state, the Y is closed on Sunday.
Then, there are the people. By far the friendliest face is that of the Arab man who sits at the desk. Then there’s a cast of regulars who come at these early hours, older women who are rather fixed in their ways. My first day in the pool, I was stared at but no one said a word. If there was a pattern to how these women swim, it was beyond me to figure out. It seemed where ever I swam I was in someone’s way. I basically wove my way through the lanes, trying to avoid the onslaught. This went on for a couple of days. Then I decided to hug the wall and take up as little space as possible. That worked for about 6 laps and then a woman arrived who immediately told me to move.

“I swim back stroke so I need this space,” she said.

“But I’m swimming here now,” I said.

“You are in my space,” she replied emphatically.

So I acquiesced and moved over. Not only did this woman take my lane, but her stroke was so wide that she spilled over into my lane as well, resulting in inevitable bumps and brushes as we swam past each other. After a few laps, she stopped me and started yelling in Hebrew.

“Don’t you see I’m swimming here! She said.

“But I am staying in my own lane. You come over into my space!” I replied.

“You keep hitting me. You must stop. This is unacceptable,” she said.

“But, you are hitting me as well,” I said.

“Just stop it!” she yelled.

“I’m trying, you try too” was my retort. And then I swam off.

The next day, I was waiting with three or four other women for the women-only time to begin.

“Are you from the hotel?” one asked.

“No, I’m here for a seminar.”

“Are you from the hotel?” another asked.

“No, I bought a membership for the month,” I replied.

“Are you at the hotel?” the first woman asked again.

“No.” I said, and thankfully the lifeguard unlocked the door and we could go to the pool.

On the morning of my seventh visit, the women greeted me more warmly. One said good morning; two made eye contact.

Two others whispered, “I thought she was from the hotel.”

My adversary wasn’t at the pool that morning. I swam against the wall, uninterrupted. It was a much better workout, no weaving among the lanes, no glares, no strife. Serene, contemplative, and ordinary.

My experiences in the pool could be seen as a parable about the Israeli street - the erratic traffic behavior, the vacillation between rudeness and kindness in interactions with strangers, and in a much more significant way, the self-righteous and intractable claims on space and territory that different peoples make on this land.

I could leave it at that. Indeed, it’s that Israel that we often encounter in the news and as tourists through our brief encounters with Israeli society. Far from serene, or ordinary, and far more heated and contentious than contemplative.

We have been privileged to delve deeply into a much more hopeful and inspiring side of Israel during this seminar. Throughout the year, this group of HUC Mandel Fellows has been studying issues of leadership, vision, and community building. For our Israel seminar, we added a fourth dimension, the question of Jewish peoplehood. We have been exploring various conceptions of peoplehood through text study and encounters with scholars and through a variety of site visits at innovative organizations that are working to address different tensions and imbalances in Israeli society.

We visited Bet Yisrael, an urban kibbutz, a group of young adults living together and volunteering in a low-income neighborhood in Gilo, a neighborhood in the southernmost part of Jerusalem. The primary “industry” of the kibbutz is a mechina, a gap year pre-army study program for high school graduates. This mechina includes both secular and religious Israelis, and also a few Americans who’ve come to study Jewish texts and volunteer for the year before college.

In Yerucham, a development town in the Negev, we visited Atid Bamidbar, a Beit Midrash that focuses on bringing together the residents of this isolated area through a variety of programs that attempt to bridge the social gaps between secular and religious, and Ashkenazim and Sephardim through study and song.

Debbie Golan, Director of Atid Bamidbar, and some of our HUC Mandel Fellows, and some of the students in one of the sessions we observed (learning and singing mizrachi piyuttim)!

In Tel Aviv, right across the street from the central bus station, we visited Binah, a secular Yeshiva, another study program for young adults either before or after the army. The goals of this institution are to link social action with Jewish study, exposing young Israelis who lack any substantive Jewish learning to the riches of the Jewish bookshelf. Along with study, they work in this difficult, run-down neighborhood that is home to poor Israelis, foreign workers and hundreds (if not thousands) of refugees from Sudan and Eritrea.

These institutions are examples of the many third sector (non-governmental) initiatives to bridge the divides in Israeli society - between rich and poor, religious and secular, Ashkenazi and Sephardi, Arab and Jew. While each are situated in different contexts and have different missions, what they share in common is an active commitment to social change linked with Jewish learning.

In our seminar we’ve have many conversations about what makes us a Jewish people, what binds us, what divides us? We have struggled with definitions and with questions of obligation and commitment to the mixed multitude that makes up the Jewish people and that is so evident in Israeli society.

While ideas are still in formation, we have come to a strong consensus around at least one big idea. Jewish learning is something that all Jews share. Jewish study provides opportunities for rich encounters with our sources, with Jewish tradition and with others who may not share much else other than a willingness to engage with the text and those others sitting around the table. Through Jewish learning we have the opportunity to understand ourselves and others better, to join in a share enterprise and perhaps to discover or forge shared commitments.

Swimming in the sea of Torah together may start out like my swimming at YMCA pool, but once we really make eye contact and listen to our study partner, we break through those barriers of suspicion and tension, and find a way to calmer waters that can nourish us all.