Dear all,
You don’t need my weekly email to remind you how awful things have been in our schools. Not only are students in colleges and universities facing anti-Jewish thuggery, but the younger kids in many high schools and elementary schools are feeling less safe because of a vacuum of responsible leadership.
Here’s the bottom line: Those in charge of our places of learning need to go back to school to better understand the A-B-C’s of being an educational leader:
A. Creating a safe environment for ALL students.
B. Encouraging students to critically think while also mentoring them to ethically act.
C. Reminding students that we live in a country that, though flawed at times, has been a cradle of good values that did not historically exist elsewhere in the world.
D. Putting a stop to hateful speech and actions. Immediately.
E. Listening to voices of concerned constituents.
F. Using your position with wisdom, not for popularity.
G. Teaching history in full context rather than a narrow vacuum.
H. Building bridges rather than barricades.
Educators, this is your moment in time to go back to the basics.
Students and parents, we need to demand this of our leaders. As our Jewish sages teach, “The true guardians of a community are the teachers” (Talmud Yerushalmi Hagigah 1:7)”
With love and Shalom,
Rabbi Zach Shapiro
