My wonderful daughter had her Bat Mitzvah recently. She sang beautifully from the Torah, built an amazing model of her “Personal Tabernacle” inspired by the portion, and took part in a lovely service she had helped to shape.

I am overjoyed that my daughter’s experience of Judaism has been of a wise and deep tradition, fantastic stories, warm Friday nights, and inclusivity for both genders.

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

Yet although my daughter must be the most Jewishly knowledgeable of all her friends, I needed to explain every single reference to her. She had had literally no idea of how aspects of Jewish tradition can be cruel to or disdainful of women.

This is because we had never taught her about them, and she’d never come across them until this exhibition. We knew instinctively that if we had exposed her to the anti-feminist narrative of Judaism at an early age she would have emerged knowledgeable about yet emotionally distant from Judaism. We didn’t want that for our kid.

I’m left reflecting on these ideological choices when addressing the topic of our panel: “How do we talk to our children about Israel?” Because you see the thing is that my wife and I have absolutely no regrets at constructing “rose-tinted spectacles” for our child’s experience of Judaism. Our choice to induct our daughter into Judaism was not related to the moral rights or wrongs of the entirety of the tradition. We wanted for Judaism to be a part of who she is.

I believe we need to take the same choices with our young children with regards Israel. Prior to and irrespective of our attitudes to Israeli policies and politics, we need to make an ideological choice. Is Israel important to a Jew, or not?

My belief is that the only reason there are so many Jews at J-Street conference, and at work for J-Street throughout the country, is because they believe Israel is important to them as Jews.

We are all busy people, we all have limited free time on our hands, and – let’s face it – quantitatively strategically and even morally there are far more important and horrific things going on throughout the world for us to get worked up about. We get worked up about Israel because it is important to us. Just as much as we wish no wrong to be done to Palestinians, and just as much as we wish no wrong to be done to Israelis, we also wish that Israel behave justly because Israel is part of us.

But as you yourselves at J Street can attest, growing up with a deep connection to Israel does not have to lead one to love everything about Israel. The fact that my kid was not just surprised but also horrified by much of what she learned at the Jewish Feminist exhibition shows that one can be brought up to identify with a tradition, a people, a place, and still continue to develop a moral stance that might be at odds with elements of that tradition.

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

We need our children to be knowledgeable and wise enough to be able to question what they have received, and at the same time we need them connected enough to care. 

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

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

Embracing Complexity

Rather than simplifying issues for a little kid to grasp, we should encourage them to grapple with the complexities of simple situations. For example, at the age of five, issues of “Hugging and Wrestling with Israel” are tough! But questions such as “has your best friend ever done something you thought was the wrong thing to do?” fit right in to their lives. Follow up questions can go further: Did you tell your friend they had done wrong? Did you tell them in private or in public? Are you still friends despite the wrong-doing?

Rather offering a simplistic explanation of Israel’s Separation Barrier, we might ask where there are fences in our children’s lives? (House? School?) What are the advantages and disadvantages of fences? Do good fences make good neighbors or deepen divides? Who decides where to put a fence, and why? (Our “Car Pool Conversations” about Israel are freely downloadable )

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

Spiraling questions

At Makom we would suggest that the moral and political issues of Israel emerge from four key values expressed in the Hatikvah anthem: To Be A Free (Jewish) People In Our Land.

What does it mean and what does it take to survive (To Be)? What does it mean and what does it take to be free? What does it mean and what does it take to be connected to the Jewish People? And what does it mean and what does it take to be In Our Land? These four questions underlie every headline we ever read about Israel, and they are four questions that we can ask and explore at every age.

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

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

The post What I would have said at J Street appeared first on Makom Israel.

The problem with this approach lies in the assumption that students will simply get it if educators teach them the value of and the textual basis for the ties that bind the Jewish people. However, engendering an organic ‘group connection’ is not a didactic exercise but rather a highly internalized understanding built out of layered relationships and experiences.

As biblical commentator Aviva Zornberg puts it,”our sense of person is registered in wordless and diffuse ways, in body knowledge, in relationship. In other words, we develop who we are before we think about it.” So, if teaching about Jewish Peoplehood can only serve to provide a knowledge base, how can local educators enable young people to build this connection?

This article aims to highlight a program that offers a new paradigm for Jewish Peoplehood engagement locally in North America. Over the past five years I have been involved with and observed a small program grow in Toronto. The program, funded by UJA Federation of Greater Toronto and the Jewish Agency for Israel, began as a capacity building exercise to strengthen synagogues by providing them with pre-army Israeli youth to run informal Jewish and Israel programming on a shared cost basis.

The UJA MAKOM Young Emissary Program in Toronto grew from two young emissaries reaching three participating institutions, to fourteen reaching twenty-five institutions: day schools, synagogues, youth groups and summer camps, creating some of the strongest and most vibrant relationships between Federation and its agencies – and agencies with each other – that exist today.

Structurally, each pair of young emissaries that come for a year at a time works in a day school and synagogue, as informal Israel educators, with the year culminating in their taking on counsellor positions at one of several Jewish summer camps. The young emissaries are hosted by families associated with their host institutions and each live with three families throughout the year.

This program, seemingly a simple Federation-JAFI shaliach endeavour, offers a model for a new kind of Jewish Peoplehood education.

Two anecdotes by way of illustration: Carol is a high profile genetic researcher in a downtown Toronto hospital. She has been a strong supporter of Federation and particularly the program. When I asked her to tell me a powerful story about its impact she was caught off guard having never reflected formally on the question. Later she remarked to me casually, “Before I knew the young emissaries I had never shared my religion with people at work. Only after experiencing the constant Jewish pride of these remarkable young Israelis did I begin to tell my colleagues at work I was Jewish.”

Joanne has long been a supporter of Israel but offered to host a young emissary primarily because of her love of hosting (the year before she had housed a Korean overseas student). Her husband, Mike, has been less engaged with Israel and generally inactive in the community. While hosting a Young Emissary, Operation Cast Lead happens and Joanne and Mike discover together, up close and personal in their own home, that this is no regular hosting experience as their houseguest’s older brother is called up for reserve duty. It is out of the interconnectedness with Israel and its collective destiny, forged through an ongoing relationship with a young Israeli, that Joanne and her husband are moved to action: to visit Israel and join Gadna for a short period, volunteering in the IDF.

Upon reflection she remarked, “I had to do it, I couldn’t sit by; Dan’s family is our family; we could not stand by and let them do it alone.”

An average young emissary engages with over 250 students around Israel and Jewish identity matters on a weekly basis. This involvement includes creative programming which is integrated into the teacher’s lesson plans, recess activities, student council projects and class or school ceremonies and celebrations. Beyond these organized encounters, each young emissary touches informally another 200 young people weekly.

One Young Emissary remarked to me recently that on the day Gilad Schalit was released he was unable to walk down the school corridor, as he was veritably bombarded with students who wanted to share their joy, ask their questions and touch the real Israel in their lives.

From Fantasy to Reality In Essays in Love, Alain De Botton observes that moving from the fantasy of a relationship to its reality

is comparable to composing a symphony in one’s head and then hearing it played in a concert hall by a full orchestra. Though we are impressed to find so many of our impressions confirmed in performance we cannot help but notice details that are not quite as we intended them to be. Is one of the violinists not a little off key? Is the flute not a little late coming in? … As the fantasy is played out, the angelic beings who floated through consciousness reveal themselves as material beings, laden with their own mental and physical history.

On many levels the young emissaries help young people transform their fantasy relationships with Israel to real ones. This cross-cultural encounter is layered and complex. Young Emissaries are in some ways similar to young Jewish Canadians, but they are also profoundly different.

For the child in a host family, this is evident when she discovers that her host sister turns the tap off during the time she brushes her teeth – thereby sharing through behaviour how much water means in a little Middle Eastern country called Israel.

For the teens this difference is driven home by the compelling discovery that Hebrew lives beyond the Jewish text but also in Hebrew slang or good Israeli music, or more painfully, that graduation from high school in Toronto is contrasted in Israel with mandatory conscription to the IDF.

Young adults outside of Israel today are growing up aware of and increasingly uncomfortable about Israel’s complexity. One of the reasons for this is because, as students, they were rarely exposed to the real Israel, in all its vivid multi-dimensionality. When the live orchestra ends up not sounding like the one you dreamed of or were taught to imagine for so long, disappointment and frustration are inevitable.

Young emissaries, who embody Israel in their DNA, allow that complexity to be honest but at the same time, positive and compelling; they are true human resources.  

This encounter, as with any genuine inter-personal meeting, is two sided. Two anecdotes for illustration: Danielle, a Young Emissary, never had a bat mitzvah. As a secular Israeli, growing up in the centre of Israel, organized religion never really bore that much meaning for her. One evening, she heard a sheepish knock on her bedroom door. Her host sister popped her head into her room and asked, “it is my bat-mitzvah in two months, you’re my sister, will you read part of the parsha?”

Danielle learnt her section religiously on her i-pod nightly and, engaged through the process, discovered the will to, not only partake in her sister’s celebration, but have her own bat mitzvah as well.

Yuval recently completed his army service, and as with many Israeli soldiers, the release itself was anti-climactic. He shared that, on the day when he walked out of his base to hitch a ride home, which took a while, he felt uniquely alone. He thought to himself, in Israel I am just a regular soldier who has completed the army, but I know that there is a whole community outside of Israel for whom I was on the front line – for whom I am Israel – and who are proud of who I am.

There is an unexpected reciprocity that develops out of this program. Young Emissaries come to give but end up receiving a whole lot too and, as a result, so does the State of Israel. By the summer of 2012 there will be 44 Toronto-based young emissary alumni in Israel with new and unique understandings about the Jewish People, about Judaism and about human potential markedly different from their Israeli peers.

CEO and President of UJA Federation, Ted Sokolsky has observed this dual impact, noting that Federation is on the cutting edge of participating in the evolution of a new kind of Israeli; one who has had a powerful self-realizing experience outside of Israel, recognizes the Jewish potential of communities there and is committed to the Jewish People in the future, having internalized the notion of peoplehood through experience.

A formalized track for these returning emissaries to leverage this experience for the good of Israeli society has yet to be created but we may not be far off: recognition of the potential is already a big step. Indeed if, as Rabbi Nachman of Breslav wrote, the whole world is a very narrow bridge, then we should find the most profound ways to traverse it together.

Sarah Mali is the Director of Israel Engagement at the UJA Federation of Greater Toronto.

The post Jewish Peoplehood and Human Beings appeared first on Makom Israel.

Yonatan Ariel, Executive Director of Makom, spoke engagingly and entertainingly at the General Assembly of 2011. On this panel, Yonatan plays out what Israel education must become. (Starts at 11:16)

The panel, entitled “Israel: A New Narrative”, was chaired and introduced by John Ruskay, Executive Vice-President and CEO, UJA-Federation of New York, and Yonatan Ariel shared the panel with Yehuda Kurtzer, President of the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America (7:52), and with Elizabeth Wolfe, Chair of UJA Federation of Greater Toronto. 

Yonatan Ariel focuses on the Hatikvah Vision: To Be A Free People In Our Land, Yehuda Kurtzer explores the latest work of the Hartman Institute in Israel engagement, and Elizabeth Wolfe speaks of the experiences of Toronto in working with us (26:00).

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The underlying assumption of the videos is that Israeli Jews who live outside of Israel will not have sufficient commitment, motivation or competence to pass on Jewish/Zionist cultural norms to the next generation. Is Israel the only place where Israeli Jews can be active and involved in generating Jewish culture? I hope not.

It is indeed sad to see Israeli Jews who choose not to engage in Jewish and Zionist culture while living in America. There are robust and vibrant opportunities to participate in Jewish life in the United States, but, unlike in Israel, it requires a willful decision.

Israeli education and culture should, if it is true to its own vision, strengthen that will even for those who live, for whatever reason, in the Diaspora.

Israelis should be enticed to come home because they can live a fuller Jewish/Zionist life in Israel, not out of fear that they will assimilate. Fear tactics are a desperate move that reveal a profound absence of a compelling vision for what constitutes a meaningful Jewish national life in our homeland.

Rabbi Daniel L. Lehmann, Hebrew College President

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As the executive producer of the your event you will need to form a team of people you trust to handle various aspects of the engagement. While many people (including yourself) may not be a professional full time producer/booking agent/promoters – it should not be too difficult to divide the time and work needed to complete the tasks ahead of you. In some cases you or your team will need to wear more than one hat in the production.

Executive Producer

Your title for all purposes – responsible for acquiring the talent, signing contracts, bringing on partners, venders, and additional team members. It sounds more complicated than it actually is. Bottom line – you are in control, however it also means everyone looks to you for answers especially when things don’t go as expected!

Technical Producer/Stage Manager

This person will typically be someone that has at least something of a small background in the technical aspects of a live concert – in many instances it will be the venue representative where you will hold the event. In others it will be the sound man you will hire to work the sound mixing board for the band. This person should understand the technical needs of a live concert performance, eg. how to set up a stage lights, where the amplifies go, how much a drum kit costs, and most importantly how to read a technical rider.

PR/Marketing

You cannot produce an event with out the right PR/Marketing team member on board. This person will be responsible for creating the brand and impressions with in your community in order to reach a critical threshold of interest in the act and event you are producing. Typically, a PR person will develop and then implement a strategic marketing plan to generate “noise” so that everybody knows your event is happening, but more importantly, this marketing campaign should compel them to buy their tickets to your event early and not just one ticket… but a couple more for their friends!

Logistics/Accounting

This person is the practical team member that will be able to organize excel sheets/budgets and figure out times, costs, distances, and all of your production variables. From transporting the band’s gear, to arranging the accommodations for the artists, and paying the venue and venders for their service. A good logistics person means the difference between being totally stressed out on the day of the show or being able to sit back and enjoy a good amount of the performance yourself, because you took care of everything in advance.

Sponsorship/Business Relations

Lets face it – having a good sponsorship person on board will help you develop the relationships you need to minimize your costs and risk. Getting key businesses and patrons to support your event will make it easier in so many ways. We will discuss how to tie in cross promoting brands where you are not just asking for support from sponsors, but rather giving them value by cross promoting their brands with your event. The more sponsorship you have, the bigger and better your event will be.

Education coordinator

The moment you are choosing to bring in an Israeli act, you have both a financial and communal interest in promoting the event with the educational establishment. This person will make sure that all the Jewish schools know about the show, will run programming around the band’s music in local clubs, and will even help with fund-raising from the more educationally minded.

The post Creating a team appeared first on Makom Israel.

Another issue is that of Israelite identity.  The Book of Judges seems to depict a land inhabited by a number of disparate and sometimes even warring tribes, each absorbed in its own local conflicts with neighboring non-Israelite tribes; only in the face of a powerful common enemy does any kind of political union form – and only temporarily.  Different theories have been proposed regarding the formation of the Israelite nation during this period; how might these affect our understanding of Jewish identity past and present?