Help my campers learn...about God (Part I)

Last week, I invited you to contribute to a conversation I was having with a group of teenagers at Eisner camp about Middot (ethical values). Some of you did, and thank you very much! You enriched the discussion with your ideas and the campers felt appreciated by you. Beginning yesterday I began learning with a new group of campers (entering 8^th and 9^th grade) with anew topic - God. Here is the description they were given:

God. Really? You are faced with tons of choices every day. Some you make automatically. Others require some serious thought. Where do you look for the values you will apply to make your decisions? Your parents? Your friends? Society all around us? Judaism? We are going to look in all of those places to wrestle with some tough issues. Then we are going to take our conversation online and go viral. We will create a blog using writing and video and send it out to the universe. Then we will see what the universe says and engage in a potentially viral conversation!

So once again, dear readers, colleagues and friends, I invite you to read both the questions I posed them and some of the answers (there are 21 of them, so it takes a long time - check back later for more responses) they wrote in their journals before beginning the conversation. Please post your answers in the comment section below or on my Facebook or via e-mail (I will transfer it back here. If for some reason you prefer to remain anonymous, the comment section here will allow it or ask me to make it so in your message to me. In advance, thank you for participating in this crowdsourcing experience!

1. Describe the God you believe in (or don't believe in):

BR: The God I don't believe in grants miracles and actually hears us when we pray.

JM: God is not real and does nto look or sound like anything. 

LDM: For me, God is an image to go to or think of when you need answers. Some people need an answer to everything, so they turn to God or a holy piece of writing. I do believe in God, because I am one of those people who needs answers.

SC: I'm not sure if I believe in God, but the God I do not believe in is the one that elts war happen, innocent people get hurt and people we love die. The God I do believe in creates miracles and wonders in the everyday world.

SPS: I don't believe that there is a man or a woman or a being that is all-knowing and all-mighty.

KK: I don't believe in a God that is all-knowing and powerful, or one that controls everything that occurs. If God was that powerful, things like the Holocaust wouldn't have happened and God would have protected the Jews.

TS: I don't believe in a God that is in everything or a God that makes things happen on their own without real people acting on it or trying.

JF: What is God to me? Many people have different perceptions of God, but I have my own. God isn;t a life-like creator, he is a listener.Everybody needs someone to look up to or someone who is always there for them. When I'm in pain and I don't want to say anything, I speak out loud when no one else is around.

BM-P:  I'm not sure exactly what I believe in. I haven't quite figured it out yet. I think there isn't NO God, but I don;t think there is an all-powerful God that decides everything.

2. One time when I had a sense that God might be near was...

BR: When I sat at the Kotel and put a message between the stones.

JM: No time at all. 

LDM: Every time I pray I think that God can hear me. I mean, I know that isn't very practical because there are billions of people praying to the same God, but I also felt as if I "sense" God. 

SC: During services at Eisner camp.

SPS: When there are weird coincidences or something that I really want to happen actually happens.

KK: I have never had a sense that God was near. I don't feel a connection to anything, even when I go to temple. I don't sense that God might be near.

TS: When something good happens I thought was not possible to happen becomes true - that is when I sense God.

BM-P: When I was with my great Grandpa after his heart attack and stroke, and I culd see him react and get better right before my eyes.

3. When other people (Jewish or not) talk about God, I think...

BR: ...that it is good that other people think God is real, or that if they don't they still consider discussing the topic.

JM: ..that I know everything about God and these people are makign things up about him.

LDM: ... that God is the same for most religions - our God, Jesus' father and Allah are all the same.

SC: ...that everyone has a slightly different view. Some people have stronger beliefs than others and some people don't believe at all.

SPS: ...I think about how everyone has very different opinions about what God is.

KK: ...about how I don't believe in God and it makes me curious what other people believe in.

TS: ...I don't react because everyone is different so they all believe something else.

BM-P: ...they could be right or they could be wrong. But I always keep an open mind, because one of their answers could become mine.

Help my campers learn...about Judging Others Favorably (Part III)

Here is the third and final round of responses from my campers in my Kesher class called Do the Right Thing at Eisner camp in Great Barrington, MA. (A new round begins Tuesday, and we will be exploring issues surrounding our ideas about God) The campers are entering 8th and 9th  grades this fall (they are in two groups). You can see the first round of questions in my posting last Thursday night and the second round from last night. 

Today we discussed the answers posted yesterday and ended the day by writing answers to questions built from the Middah of Machrio L'Chaf Zechut - Judging others favorably. Please take a look at the campers' responses and share your thoughts, other ideas and texts below or on Facebook!


1. Joshua ben Perahiah, said: “When you judge anyone, tip the scale in his/her favor. Judge the whole of a person favorably “. (Pirkei Avot 1:6) What does that mean and why should you do it?

SB: This means that if you're going to judge someone, judge them positively instead of negatively - go out of your way to see their good side.

PP: It means when you judging someone to see if they are right or wrong you should always "tip the scale" in their favor and say they are right. We should do it in camp because it will make resolving conflict easier. (Hashem will tip the scale in your favor when weighing out YOUR mitzvot and deciding whether you will go to Gan Eden or Gehenem).

MG: When you judge someone you should give them the benefit of the doubt. You should do it because you do not yet have their opinion/side of the story.

LL: It means that you shouldn't have such harsh prejudice toward others because they might not be as "bad" as they appear.

TN: Compliments. Not insults.

HA: Don't look at the bad things about a person but you should look at the good things about a person.

GM: If you are judging a person for the first time, you should judge them in favorable way. I think this is important to do because it is better to have friends than enemies. A person could be having a bad day and snap at you. If you decide they are therefore a bad person, you are creating animosity, when really, if you gave them another chance he/she could be a potential friend.

ER: If you judge a person without getting to fully know them then give them the benefit of the doubt say positive comments rather than negative ones.

2. Nachman of Bratzlov said: "The Talmud says that we should always judge other people favorably. We must also judge ourselves favorably." What does that mean and why should you do it?

SB: This means we must have self-confidence and see the good in ourselves.

PP: If you look at yourself too critically and think you are always wrong, you will have a very low self-esteem.

MG: It means you do not know how others see you. You only know how you see yourself.

LL: It means you must think of yourself well and you should do it because if you judge yourself harshly and think badly of yourself, others will think badly of you as well.

TN: Don't bring yourself down when you look at yourself, notice your beauty, you only have pros, no cons.

HA: Don't be so harsh on yourself either. We should do this because it will bring up confidence and self-esteem.

GM: You shouldn't hate yourself for making a mistake.

ER: Instead of talking harshly about myself and never looking at the bright side, give yourself the benefit of the doubt and give yourself some slack because if you do it your life will be better because you won't be judging yourself so harshly.

MS: Because how can you expect anyone else to love you if you can't even love yourself.

3. How do I resolve conflicts or disputes with others?

SB: Either by talking with the other person or simply by spending some time apart until we are both ready to forgive each other. Apologizing works too.

PP: I solve conflicts with others by looking at the conflict from their perspective and walking in their shoes (To Kill A Mockingbird - Atticus Finch) I see how I would feel if I were them and usually helps me to resolve my conflict.

MG: Find both sides of the story, as well as the story from the perspective of someone neutral. You should not judge until you know exactly what happened.

LL: I compromise with them or just talk it out and figure out why we are in a conflict if I don;t know already. If I know why we are in a conflict then I work something out, and it might not be a compromise specifically.

TN: Calmly, compromises, apologies, noticing what you did wrong, not telling the other person what they did wrong all the time.

HA: I apologize for what I did and be calm.

GM: I resolve conflict by COMMUNICATING.

ER: I solve them by trying to come up with a reasonable compromise for me and the others.

Help a group of campers learn!

I have said before that one of the principal reasons I became a Jewish educator had to do with my experiences at Olin Sang Ruby Union Institute – a Reform Jewish summer camp in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin. I was a camper, counselor, unit head and faculty member over twelve summers there. I am at Eisner Camp in Great Barrington, Massachusetts right now for my sixteenth summer as a faculty member. That means I have spent part of more than half my summers at camp.

One of the things the faculty does at Eisner is called Kesher (connection). We each create a series of small group learning experiences for the older units of camp during our time here. This week my Kesher class is called Do the Right Thing: An Eisner Joint. The overall themes were determined by surveying last summer’s campers during the winter and we (the faculty – rabbis, cantors and me) each designed our courses and created descriptions in the spring. Then they got to express their own preferences. Her is the description of my current offering:

You are faced with tons of choices every day. Some you make automatically. Others require some serious thought. Where do you look for the values you will apply to make your decisions? Your parents? Your friends? Society all around us? Judaism? We are going to look in all of those places to wrestle with some tough issues. Then we are going to take our conversation online and go viral. We will create a blog using writing and video and send it out to the universe. Then we will see what the universe says and engage in a potentially viral conversation!

Today we discussed three questions around the concept of Emet – truth. Here are the questions and some of their answers. We discussed them at length after they wrote them. Please respond here or on Facebook to the questions or to their answers. We will look at your ideas in our next session! I am using initials to protect their privacy…

1. Do you think it is ever okay to omit something when sharing something important?

Yes, not telling the whole truth to protect someone’s feelings is acceptable. When someone asks about someone else, it’s okay to highlight the good parts of their personality and stopping there. AM

Yes, to keep me from getting into copious amounts of trouble. HS

Sometimes telling the WHOLE truth can distract from what you are trying to say. TJ

Yes, when saying something would hurt someone without having any positive effect, or to keep a promise. RK

Yes, if it would endanger someone. SI

Yes, if it would help someone. For example, if they were afraid of fire but loved roller coasters, and you knew this great roller coaster had flame throwers, you might not tell them. That way they would try the roller coaster and love it. If they knew about the flame throwers they might not ride. (There was a lot of conversation about this!) MW

It might depend on the age of the person you are talking to. Some things might be too complicated or frightening for young children. HR

You might choose not to tell the whole truth in order to keep a confidence – something you promised to keep secret. GM

Yes, if the whole truth would do more harm than good. TT

Yes, if it is to protect someone’s privacy. RA

It’s okay if it doesn’t alter the entire story. JE

2. Do you think it is ever okay to sugar coat the truth?

Yes. When hate something your parent made for dinner, you might gently urge them not make it again or so often… MW

It depends on the situation and who benefits. LG

No. I is better to be honest so the person you are talking to doesn’t embarrass themselves. SI

Yes, like #1, this can spare someone’s feelings or keep a situation from going bad. JD

Ok in a teaching situation. RK

It’s OK in order to make someone feel better or more confident. My friend was nervous about coming to camp and I told her that lots of our friends were excited to see her. I exaggerated a little bit to make her feel better. AP

No, because it is only hurting yourself more and it does not do anything to help you – even though I do sugar coat it sometimes! MP

Yes, ignorance is bliss! DE

Yes. Sometimes a little sugar coating can make a hard truth easier to take. JJ

3. Do you think is ever okay to actually lie?

Yes, although it is best to avoid it if at all possible. JJ

Yes, but only if the truth is really painful and doesn’t need to be told. MP

Yes, to save a life, protect from unnecessary harm or if it is a harmless joke. NS

It is okay to lie when the answer won’t hurt anyone and it’ll make somebody feel better. To me, it’s all about making people happy and balancing that with telling the truth. RK

To shield them from harm. HS

Intentions matter. LG

Yes, if it will help people in the long run. MW

Again, please help our conversation and our learning by jumping in! More tomorrow!

A View to the Past with an Eye to the Future: The Reform Movement Celebrates 60 Years of Camping

This was published by eJewishPhilanthropy on July 17. It was written by one of my mentors. He's the bomb. So is camp! I am headed to Eisner Camp where my sons are (one as a camper, one as a counselor) to serve as faculty. Camp is one of the main reasons I became a Jewish educator.



by Jerry Kaye

This summer marks 60 years of Reform Movement camping. This Shabbat, July 21st, we will mark this milestone at the Union for Reform Judaism’s Olin-Sang-Ruby Union Institute Camp (OSRUI) in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin. But the real celebration is focused on the influence of camp on generations of Reform Jews.

Born in 1952 on the shores of Lac La Belle in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin, the Union for Reform Judaism (URJ) camping system has grown in leaps and bounds. The URJ now operates 13 camps across North America with specialty programs focused on the environment, special needs, Israel, sports, leadership and more. Our camp and Israel programs now serve more than 10,000 campers each summer.

But these metrics aren’t what matters most for the future of the Jewish people. As the Foundation for Jewish Camp’s study CAMP WORKS: The Long-term Impact of Jewish Overnight Camp (2011) showed, “summers at Jewish camp create adults who are committed to the Jewish community and engaged in Jewish practice.” The relationships and ideas that are nourished at camp represent the real vitality and impact of the past 60 years of Reform Jewish camping.

Take OSRUI as an example. The acres have grown from a mere eight to over 200; the facilities have expanded from a few buildings to a full campus. And activity choices have expanded dramatically.
But it’s still the people who have made the difference over the years. Campers have gone on to become rabbis, Jewish educators and cantors, as well as congregational leaders, taking their rightful places in the world of Jewish leadership.

One example is Daniel Shapiro who spent years as a camper, counselor and then unit head. He is now the U.S. Ambassador to Israel. Ambassador Shapiro will tell you that the many years that he spent at OSRUI were crucial to his understanding of Jewish life and to his love of Israel.

Possibly the most famous URJ Camp alum was Debbie Friedman z”l, who started in the early 70’s as an enthusiastic young woman dedicated to changing the face of Jewish music throughout the world. She spent years as a counselor teaching our campers to “Sing Unto God.” Debbie’s commitment to OSRUI didn’t end when she moved on to sharing her music in every corner of Jewish life. She always identified OSRUI as her home as she created Hava Nashira, the songleading and music workshop that now welcomes nearly 250 camp staff, cantors and music teachers from every corner of North America. Jeff Klepper, Debbie and I mentored those new to Jewish music as well as seasoned musicians. Debbie returned to Oconomowoc whenever called to create a concert or just to teach children the splendor of liturgy.

That’s what camp is all about – it’s about creating an environment where Jewish youth can find a spiritual home. The most important place at camp is not the arts or sports centers, it is a simple log on the ground with a youngster on one end and a caring rabbi or counselor on the other end, learning together to love Judaism.

The future holds great promise for Jewish camping as we create new relationships with congregations, collegians, synagogue leaders and parents who all come together to celebrate the uniqueness of a camping movement that found its roots on the shores of Lac La Belle some 60 years ago.

Jerry Kaye is the Director of the Olin-Sang-Ruby Union Institute in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin.

Summer Camp in the Classroom?

There have been a number of articles and a bit of buzz about making religious school  more like camp. My teacher Jeffrey Kress wrote "So, You Want Your School To Be More Like Camp?" back in March. My camp counselor and colleague Roberta Louis Goodman has created "Camp NSCI" for the 3rd and 4th graders at North Shore Congregation Israel in suburban Chicago:

"Camp NSCI with its ruach (spirit) interpreting Torah through drama games and film making, and cool materials for visual arts, Hebrew chuggim (electives) that have included sports, cooking, smartboard, computers, ipads, yoga, games, singing, visual arts and more!"

And even one of my congregants, who grew up at Camp Ramah has asked for our music curriculum to become more like his camp memories (I think we are almost there, Ted!).

I have been thinking for a while about this and what I might have to say here. My first impulse is to agree with much of what Jeff has to say in his article in the Jewish Week. We have to ask what about camp do we want to emulate. And like him, I believe there are certainly some aspects we can draw from the camp experience. And I will blog on that later in the summer. From Eisner Camp. Where I am going on Sunday. Because camp is a huge part of why I became a Jewish educator.

But here's the thing: while there are many facets to what is the "essence" of Jewish camping, I believe it all comes down to the 24/6+Shabbat aspect. It is the total immersion of the camper in the community of camp. It is the keeping of parents and school friends at arm's length for 2 - 8 weeks that allows the camper to enter a completely different head space. There are mores at camp that have little meaning at home. Some good, some less attractive. But they are components of an immersive culture that take campers to a different world. Eisner director Louis Bordman calls it being "under the bubble." It is a magical place. And so is nearly every other Jewish camp.

But that was all my first impulse. Yesterday my Club Ed shipment arrived from Torah Aura Productions.*  Inside was a copy of Experiencing Jewish Prayer.Wow.

So I grew up at Olin Sang Ruby Union Institute in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin. Where Joel Lurie Grishaver tested what eventually became Shema is For Real and the Prayerbook Board Game.  As a camper in 1975, I remember the staff and my rabbi, Mark S. Shapiro, taking us on a journey through Jewish prayer each day during Shiur/Sicha (today we call it Limmud), culminating in the Prayerbook Board Game. It was the second iteration of the program since Joel had developed it and OSRUI had published it.

Since then, Joel has used it as a springboard for the Shema is for Real Hebrew curriculum and he has revised the original as the All New Shema is for Real. He has been doing the experiential approach to teaching prayer for longer than most people have been able to spell experiential. Each version was designed for a new generation of teacher and student. Yet each left a decidedly "classroom" feel to it.

Experiencing Jewish Prayer is something else. In some ways it is another take on Shema is for Real. Which is a very good thing. But it is so much more. As I read through it this morning, I was imagining teaching with it. I didn't feel myself in a classroom. I felt like I was under a tree or on the Quad at Eisner having a lot of fun with campers who were getting into the idea of talking about and more importantly playing with the idea of prayer.

There is a version of the classic four corners game with several questions about God. The visual representation makes it easy for a teacher who has never been to camp to visualize how to make it work in a classroom. There are texts for chevruta study. In invitation to create a human sculpture of a car wash that feels like it comes from the New Games Book - a standard in my library as a camp counselor. (You should get one!) To understand the idea of long and short brakhot, it invites students to team up, get a siddur and analyze actual brakhot to determine which is which. It is filled with stories and analogies and metaphors.

I still believe that for religious school to become like camp, we need to keep the students overnight for a few weeks and separate them from their own bedrooms and social media. But I think that the peulot (activities) in this book will give my teachers a very real opportunity to make prayer come alive in ways we had only been able to do at camp or in youth group. I am buying one copy for every teacher in the relevant grades to start off. And one grade will be using this as a text as well.

If you are not a member of Club Ed (Torah Aura's review approval service), then call them at 800 BE TORAH and order a copy for your review. You will be glad you did.

Teach children to be their own Internet filters

"For it's one, two, three strikes...never mind."

I learned may things about many things while a Jim Joseph Fellow at the Lookstein Institute for Jewish  Education in the Diaspora at Bar Ilan University. One of them is to "Listen to Dr. Eliezer Jones." He is usually funny and nearly always right. This past Sunday Orthodox Jews did what the New York Mets couldn't - they filled Citi Field. And they did it to hold a rally against the internet (the rally was advertised on the web, curiously. I dismissed the whole thing when I first heard about it as just another example of an insular part of the of the Jewish people becoming even more insular. Today, my friend Eliezer and a colleague of his from Yeshiva University made me think again. And again. They taught me something (more than one something). Let them tel it as published by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency...

By Eliezer Jones and David Pelcovitz · May 21, 2012

OPINION

NEW YORK (JTA) -- Tens of thousands of Jews filled Citi Field in Queens on Sunday and heard from haredi Orthodox leaders that the Internet should be avoided in the home at all costs and used sparingly at work, and then only with a filter blocking content that could be damaging spiritually.

Debate as you will what some may see as draconian edicts to protect the Jewish community from moral corruption. But at the heart of the matter is a question that should concern us all: How do we keep our children safe on the Internet?

We know that we cannot work around the Internet. Research from the Pew Foundation indicates that 54 percent of children say they go to Google first when they have a question, as opposed to only 26 percent who say they go to a parent and 3 percent to a teacher. Rather we must figure out how parents and teachers can make this important tool work safely and effectively for our kids.

The difficulty is that even the simple solutions are incredibly complicated. Powerful filters can block illicit images and material, but those filters often block out the good with the bad and limit far too much useful information. This solution has been discussed and debated on our own campus concerning Internet access in dormitories.

Some yeshivot have considered avoiding technology altogether and sticking with books and blackboards. But that would leave students without the digital competence required to succeed academically in college and beyond, not to mention that it would rob teachers of increasingly exciting and effective educational tools.

The only real answer is that as parents and teachers, we must instill in our children a strong value system based on Jewish morals and traditions that allows our children to become their own filters when exploring the Internet. That would be far more powerful than any protective software.

The onus is clearly on us because it seems that children will listen to our rules, at least when it comes to the Internet. Only three in 10 young people reported to a Kaiser Foundation survey that they are given clear rules about how much time they may spend using a computer, watching TV or playing video games. The average child with no rules spends more than three hours per day on such media. Those who are given rules spend considerably less time.

Yeshiva high school students said they would be receptive to rules. More than half of those surveyed by researcher Debbie Fox, director of the Aleinu Family Resource Center, a program of the Jewish Family Service of Los Angeles, said that they would welcome more guidance from parents regarding Internet use.

These same students, in fact, said that they would be far stricter with their own future adolescent children regarding responsible Internet use than their parents, and would monitor their children much more closely.

The dangers of the Internet are not limited to challenging content. A 2010 Kaiser Family Foundation study showed that about half of students in grades seven through 12 said they do their homework with media open that do not pertain to their task at hand. In other words, about 50 percent of middle and high school students are doing homework with divided attention. And while some kids may believe that they are being more efficient, multitasking has been proven in adults to cause higher levels of stress and lower levels of efficiency.

While some kids can multitask well, it's up to parents to actively determine if their children work more efficiently while doing so or while focusing on their work without interruption. Parents should collaborate with their children to test whether they are more efficient when not being interrupted or distracted, and then meter their background activity accordingly.

The greatest challenge of all, however, may be making sure that our kids completely separate from the Internet at times.  According to the Pew Foundation, 75 percent of American teens prefer texting to in-person contact with friends. Perhaps it's no coincidence that this generation's empathy levels among adolescents are significantly lower than those of previous generations.

It may seem that adolescents in every generation feel isolated and tuned out at some point or another. But it turns out that their computer habits may be compounding the problem. Parents need to teach children that some of their relationships must include direct face-to-face interaction without the distraction of text messages and cell phone calls.

While some of what occurred at Citi Field this past weekend might seem foreign, we must work to ensure that our students and our children can grow up as highly moral and successful Jewish digital citizens.

(Dr. Eliezer Jones is the educational technology specialist at Yeshiva University's Institute for University-School Partnership. Dr. David Pelcovitz is the Gwendolyn and Joseph Straus chair in psychology and Jewish education at YU's Azrieli Graduate School of Jewish Education and Administration. For more information about safe Internet rules and guidelines, visit www.yuschoolpartnership.org/parentguidedigitalage.)

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. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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/