Last month after returning from Israel, I wrote about the challenges teachers face in building a relationship between Americans and the State of Israel. In light of the reactions to the announcement of the plan for building 1,600 housing units in East Jerusalem--timed perfectly with Vice President Biden's diplomatic mission to Israel to restart the peace process, this task has become even more difficult. How do we teach American Jews of all ages in a way that builds commitment to a country negatively represented in many American public spheres?
Robbie Gringras, a staff member of MAKOM in Israel writes, “We need to shift from ‘hugging' to ‘wrestling.’ Just as its biblical echoes suggest, wrestling with Israel requires an effort, a fight, a struggle. But it also demands an intimacy and a commitment. The time has come for us to wrestle with Israel in the dust, in the night, and, yes, sometimes in our pain.”
Gringras describes the importance of maintaining ways to hug, meaning to build a sense of belonging through learning of the strong deep connections with Israel, at the same time that we wrestle with problems. When honestly teaching teens and adults, we build a partnership with Israel through which we can contribute to solutions to the dilemmas and ills that exist today--or to learn how to live with them.
The urgency to change classrooms, leadership forums, and tours to reflect contemporary Israel is increasing. The challenges are many. If it were simply a matter of updating text books, designing more exciting curriculum, or creating more value-based activities, it would be less daunting. Now that teachers are asked to teach that it is possible to love a country with “warts,” many feel inadequate and are reluctant to meet the issues head on. Some are Israelis who now reside in North America. Others are Americans who have never been to Israel. Many are afraid of doing more harm than good.
The consequences of not doing something, however, are also harmful. Israeli tour educator, Judith Wasserman Rosenberg, recalls the remarks of people who have traveled with her. "A school principal on her first adult trip to Israel was upset. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing. ‘My teachers lied to me,’ she said. ‘How can you tell me this is a beautiful country when citizens don’t even clean up after themselves?’ And another person who was part one of my tours could not believe the fact that people in Jerusalem had to lock their doors —that there was crime in Israel.”
Confronting domestic problems in Israel are difficult enough. Now we have to face the daunting task of addressing international issues, specifically the once thought immutable relationship between America and Israel. Ignoring this challenge increases the gap between our students and a country that must remain part of their Jewish identity. Avoiding it will call into question the credibility of Jewish education.
Monday, March 22, 2010
Thursday, February 11, 2010
ISRAEL EDUCATION IN A TIME OF CHANGE
Sholom from Jerusalam. I have had the wonderful opportunity to spend the past month researching initiatives in Israel education and interviewing educational leaders and teachers who are determining future efforts to link Israel and the Diaspora.
There are patterns emerging in notes I’ve gathered that will become part of the book I am writing as a result of the generous fellowship from the Avi Chai Foundation. One fact is certain: the relationship between Israel and Jewish communities outside of Israel is changing.
Many of my past experiences in Israel education involved the Melton Centre for Jewish Education in the Diaspora at the Hebrew University: A curriculum for Jewish schools called "Israel: A Course of Study;" a series of booklets on teaching Israel to various age groups and in a variety of settings called “Israel in Our Lives;" the curriculum, professional education, and Israel seminars of the Florence Melton Adult Mini-School. My information gathering expanded beyond the Melton Centre to the Jewish Agency and to specific programs like Makom and Masa. I learned about the accomplishments of Birthright Israel that, according to the many banners along streets of Jerusalem, has welcomed more than 220,000 young adults to Israel. The tour educators with whom I met talked about sharing the land, their knowledge and Jewish texts with travelers—both pilgrims and skeptics.
Education leaders, academics and educators have know since the late 1970’s following the Lebanese War that what had served as Israel education, the fulfillment of the Zionist dream in all its manifestations was no longer successfully engaging the younger generations. The victories of the War for Independence, the Six Day War and the Yom Kippur War, the successful integration of waves of immigrants, the creation of a prosperous democratic society in the land of the Bible, the successful blending of multiple cultural expressions of Judaism were no longer being celebrated. They had become distant history, and engagement today is rarely based on a romanticized past. More often it evolves from realistic confrontation with challenges of modern life.
For the past three decades, the facts on the ground have not matched the “facts” presented in the great majority classrooms, in leadership forums, and on tours. As a result of my discussions in Israel, however, I believe that is in the process of changing. Strong effort and funding is being applied to develop new language, new philosophy, new strategies and new relationships. Whether it is a continuation--a new dimension--of Zionism or the old Zionism dressed in new clothing or an all-new creation remains to be seen.
Over the next several weeks, I will be blogging about what I have observed and responses of Israelis to one another's efforts. At the same time, I welcome any comments—positive or negative and additional observations from your experiences and reading. Whatever Israel-Diaspora relations and the teaching of Israel are to become, it is based on collaboration, on contributions from all sides of the ocean and from all sides of the arguments surrounding these issues.
There are patterns emerging in notes I’ve gathered that will become part of the book I am writing as a result of the generous fellowship from the Avi Chai Foundation. One fact is certain: the relationship between Israel and Jewish communities outside of Israel is changing.
Many of my past experiences in Israel education involved the Melton Centre for Jewish Education in the Diaspora at the Hebrew University: A curriculum for Jewish schools called "Israel: A Course of Study;" a series of booklets on teaching Israel to various age groups and in a variety of settings called “Israel in Our Lives;" the curriculum, professional education, and Israel seminars of the Florence Melton Adult Mini-School. My information gathering expanded beyond the Melton Centre to the Jewish Agency and to specific programs like Makom and Masa. I learned about the accomplishments of Birthright Israel that, according to the many banners along streets of Jerusalem, has welcomed more than 220,000 young adults to Israel. The tour educators with whom I met talked about sharing the land, their knowledge and Jewish texts with travelers—both pilgrims and skeptics.
Education leaders, academics and educators have know since the late 1970’s following the Lebanese War that what had served as Israel education, the fulfillment of the Zionist dream in all its manifestations was no longer successfully engaging the younger generations. The victories of the War for Independence, the Six Day War and the Yom Kippur War, the successful integration of waves of immigrants, the creation of a prosperous democratic society in the land of the Bible, the successful blending of multiple cultural expressions of Judaism were no longer being celebrated. They had become distant history, and engagement today is rarely based on a romanticized past. More often it evolves from realistic confrontation with challenges of modern life.
For the past three decades, the facts on the ground have not matched the “facts” presented in the great majority classrooms, in leadership forums, and on tours. As a result of my discussions in Israel, however, I believe that is in the process of changing. Strong effort and funding is being applied to develop new language, new philosophy, new strategies and new relationships. Whether it is a continuation--a new dimension--of Zionism or the old Zionism dressed in new clothing or an all-new creation remains to be seen.
Over the next several weeks, I will be blogging about what I have observed and responses of Israelis to one another's efforts. At the same time, I welcome any comments—positive or negative and additional observations from your experiences and reading. Whatever Israel-Diaspora relations and the teaching of Israel are to become, it is based on collaboration, on contributions from all sides of the ocean and from all sides of the arguments surrounding these issues.
Sunday, January 24, 2010
"The Tree of the Field is the Life of Man," Deuteronomy 20:19
In Ein Kerem, Jerusalem, where I am spending this month, there is a Jewish National Fund forest that contains the memorial to President John F. Kennedy. With Tu B’Shvat, the New Year of the Trees, occurring the end of this week, the form of the memorial takes on special meaning.
The monument is a structure resembling the stump of a great tree that has been chopped down. When I look at it, I recall a poem by Edwin Markham memorializing Abraham Lincoln.
And when he fell in the whirlwind, he went down
As when a lordly cedar, green with boughs
Goes down with a great shout upon the hills
And leaves a lonesome place against the sky.
The identification of an individual with a tree is not uncommon. A tree stands upright, dignified and majestic. Like an individual, it experiences birth and death, reproduces itself, needs nutrients and water. It grows continually, produces flowers and fruit, and can regenerate itself. It protects and nurtures other life, and is capable of adapting to most environments in the world.
The comparison is also part of Jewish tradition. In a world of deserts and barren expanses, trees became associated with water, with prime life forces. An often quoted passage in The Book of Psalms reads, “The righteous shall flourish like a palm tree and grow mighty like a cedar of Lebanon.”
The strength of humanity is reflected in a passage in Jeremiah.
And he shall be as a tree planted by the waters and that spreads out
its roots by the river, and shall not perceive when heat cometh; but his
leaf shall be green, and shall not be troubled in the year of drought; neither shall he cease from yielding fruit.
In Pirke Avot, Sayings of the Fathers, a person who both possesses wisdom and performs mitzvot is contrasted with a person whose wisdom is exceeded by his deeds. The latter is compared to “a tree whose branches are many but whose roots are few and the wind comes and plucks it up and overturns it.”
Another meaningful image is found in Isaiah, who wrote, “As the days of the tree shall be the days of my people.” Midrash comments that he was referring to the sycamore, a long-lived tree possessing a unique power to regenerate itself. Even after it is chopped down and covered with sand, it will begin to grow again.
The image of a tree inspired the life of the individual Jew throughout history and many times offered hope for the entire Jewish people.
Hag Sameach from Israel!!
The monument is a structure resembling the stump of a great tree that has been chopped down. When I look at it, I recall a poem by Edwin Markham memorializing Abraham Lincoln.
And when he fell in the whirlwind, he went down
As when a lordly cedar, green with boughs
Goes down with a great shout upon the hills
And leaves a lonesome place against the sky.
The identification of an individual with a tree is not uncommon. A tree stands upright, dignified and majestic. Like an individual, it experiences birth and death, reproduces itself, needs nutrients and water. It grows continually, produces flowers and fruit, and can regenerate itself. It protects and nurtures other life, and is capable of adapting to most environments in the world.
The comparison is also part of Jewish tradition. In a world of deserts and barren expanses, trees became associated with water, with prime life forces. An often quoted passage in The Book of Psalms reads, “The righteous shall flourish like a palm tree and grow mighty like a cedar of Lebanon.”
The strength of humanity is reflected in a passage in Jeremiah.
And he shall be as a tree planted by the waters and that spreads out
its roots by the river, and shall not perceive when heat cometh; but his
leaf shall be green, and shall not be troubled in the year of drought; neither shall he cease from yielding fruit.
In Pirke Avot, Sayings of the Fathers, a person who both possesses wisdom and performs mitzvot is contrasted with a person whose wisdom is exceeded by his deeds. The latter is compared to “a tree whose branches are many but whose roots are few and the wind comes and plucks it up and overturns it.”
Another meaningful image is found in Isaiah, who wrote, “As the days of the tree shall be the days of my people.” Midrash comments that he was referring to the sycamore, a long-lived tree possessing a unique power to regenerate itself. Even after it is chopped down and covered with sand, it will begin to grow again.
The image of a tree inspired the life of the individual Jew throughout history and many times offered hope for the entire Jewish people.
Hag Sameach from Israel!!
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