AFTER OCT. 7, JEWISH EDUCATION MUST ‘NAVIGATE VALUES IN TENSION WITH EACH OTHER’

By Sue Fishkoff

What should Jewish and Israel education look like, particularly in a post-Oct. 7 world?

The panelists in the “What Are We Teaching Our Kids?” session at Sunday’s Z3 Conference at the Oshman Family JCC in Palo Alto agreed that much Jewish learning actually takes place out of classrooms — in family life, Jewish summer camps and other places where kids can start “to look at the world through a Jewish lens,” as one speaker put it.

“We need to develop not just curriculum, but spaces in which I am constantly able to practice what it means to be Jewish today or … a citizen of the Jewish people in 2024. And citizenship, in my mind, is not geographic,” said Shalom Orzach, senior educational consultant of The iCenter, which supports Israel education across North America.

The trauma of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas massacre in Israel and global rise in antisemitism has brought Jews who were not previously involved in Jewish life into conversation about Israel — whether they wanted that or not — said Ezra Kopelowitz, co-director of the Center for Jewish Peoplehood Education in Israel.

“All of a sudden, this place far away was inserted into our lives, both through the intensity of the events there, through the way the media was handling it, through what’s going on social networks,” he said, offering an example of a public high school student whose non-Jewish friend suddenly says: “You’re Jewish, tell me what’s going on in Israel?”

That can cause the Jewish student, who is now an unwitting spokesperson for Israel, to find out more, he said. “So in many ways, Oct. 7 is a tremendous opportunity.”

Because many young Jews now feel uncomfortable in spaces that welcomed them before Oct. 7, said Orzach, they are now “looking to come home,” clamoring for a “place at the Shabbat table, at the Hillel table, at the summer camp table.” That, too, provides an opportunity for “deep introspection,” he suggested.

Rabbi Laura Novak Winer, a program director at Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion in Los Angeles, said that since Oct. 7, Jewish students and educators alike have had to “navigate values that are in tension with each other,” notably universalist values, such as tikkun olam and welcoming the stranger, with tribal values such as the concept that all Jews are responsible for one another.

We as a people thrive on contradictions. Why have we lost that ability? —Shalom Orzach

She’s seen this struggle at Jewish summer camps this year where counselors have worn kaffiyehs or T-shirts with pro-Palestinian slogans, even as they are teaching campers about Jewish values and Israeli life.

“These tensions have been so strong. Yet when I hear people saying that they want to exorcise those young people who are struggling with their understanding of Israel and their connection of what it means to their Judaism, I say let’s not exorcise them,” she said. “Let’s welcome them in and help them engage with these Jewish values and figure out how they’re going to find their pathway through.”

If those values are in tension, Orzach said, then something’s wrong with how the Jewish world is teaching them.

“Can we not live in the eilu v’eilu?” he asked, referring to the Jewish tradition of accepting multiple viewpoints. “That path may not be easy, which is why we need to practice it all the time. And our role as educators is to enable and create that space to struggle  [between values] that may contradict one another. But hey, welcome to our world. We as a people thrive on contradictions. Why have we lost that ability?”

Israeli educators shouldn’t be sent to the diaspora to teach Jews how to be Jewish, said Orbach, who like Kopelowitz lives in Israel. That’s an outmoded model “of arrogance,” Orzach said.

“Why don’t we learn more about each other?” he asked. “We [Israelis] need to come in with much more humility.”

Perhaps, he said, the trauma that Israelis experienced on and since Oct. 7 has opened a way to greater humility, which can lead to a more equal relationship between diaspora and Israeli Jews when it comes to deciding what Israel education should be.

“I’ve always struggled with Israel’s exclusive rights to tell others their story,” Orzach said. “I want to learn from your stories in the same way that I believe you can learn from mine.”

Sue Fishkoff is the editor emerita of J.