The Failure of American Jewish Education

Just as the Israeli government (across all branches) has failed in recent times to fulfill its basic mission, unable to see and grasp the obvious, the American Jewish establishment has failed in its mission as well. We have failed to equip our youth with basic knowledge of Jewish history, to help them see the inherent and unique value of our tradition, and, just as significantly, to enable them to grasp the importance of the land of Israel as an integral, inseparable part of Judaism.

For the last few generations, American Jews have taken for granted their acceptance into mainstream American society and have become integrated into American culture, economy, academia and media. The vast majority of American Jews originated from Europe, having fled after a millennium of antisemitism, persecution and pogroms. They found America to be the welcoming “Golden Country,” or Goldene Medine as it was known in Yiddish. They and their descendants thrived in all aspects of American life. The narrative, which became part of their identity, was the narrative of the antisemitism and abuse they suffered elsewhere—with the Holocaust taking center stage as the paramount experience within it.

That story came to shape their past, present and future.

Many believed that the evidence of past atrocities—the survivors’ stories, movies and documentaries, museums and memorials—would surely protect the Jews from another catastrophe forged in hate. An annual day of remembrance was dedicated, as well as a national museum in the country’s capital, to ensure that the message was preserved and transmitted.

But by placing an emphasis on the hate directed toward Jews, focusing primarily on the Covenant of Fate, we neglected the Covenant of Destiny—a destiny tied to the land of Israel, the magnetic pole that holds the Jewish people in orbit around a broader narrative that shaped a nation, a faith, a culture and a history.

Because of this misplaced focus, our youth have often been robbed of a critical piece of their identity. We have weakened their connection to an ancient tradition that should resonate not only with them but also with the world at large. As the Covenant of Destiny has fused with the broader Judeo-Christian culture, it has remained ill-defined and stripped of its unique identity.

At the same time, Jewish education in America has largely ignored another key thread of the Jewish experience. As parents, we too often leave the task of educating our children to the educational establishment. In America, that generally means synagogues and Hebrew schools founded by Jews of European descent. In pulling from their European tradition and history, many educators have failed to see beyond their own ancestry and neglected to highlight the contributions and culture of Middle Eastern Jews for their students.

Non-European Jews make up a huge proportion of the world Jewish community. In fact, more than half of the Israeli population is indigenous to the Middle East, many tracing their ancestry in the region back to ancient times. Yet students of Middle Eastern descent who are educated in America often feel like history has skipped over them. They don’t hear of the abuse Jews faced under despotic Islamic theocratic rule. They don’t learn that Islamic law relegated Jews to dhimmi status, making Jews second-class citizens, requiring them to pay a special head tax, and forcing Jewish orphans to convert to Islam.

While they might learn about the migration and exchange of ethnic populations throughout the West after World War II, they might not know that exchange of populations also occurred in the Middle East. Almost the same number of Jews fled Arab lands for the area between the Jordan river and the Mediterranean as the number of Arabs who left Israel for the newly independent nations of Jordan, Syria, Egypt and Iraq, which banded together to try to destroy the nascent Jewish State.

Arab countries were emptied of their Jewish populations, while tiny Israel still retains a sizable Arab population.

By focusing solely on the European Jewish experience, American Jews have ignored an essential component of Jewish history, a crucial piece of context, and a key element of the story.

By focusing solely on the European Jewish experience, American Jews have ignored an essential component of Jewish history, a crucial piece of context, and a key element of the story.

We are now at a watershed moment, in Israel and throughout the global Jewish community. In many places, including the United States—which for generations Jews took for granted as a safe haven—our children feel threatened and unsafe. Many are lost and unmoored, lacking a deep connection to this strong central narrative that could provide a foundation of strength and stability from which to project a positive identity.

This crisis presents an opportunity for the North American Jewish community to rethink, reorganize and change the existing paradigm. By teaching a more inclusive curriculum—one that includes the complex history of Israel and the Jews indigenous to the Middle East—we can expand our students’ understanding of what it truly means to be Jewish and nurture a deeper bond with the Jewish homeland.

There are many ways to integrate the history of Jews who are indigenous to the Middle East into existing curricula. The art of photography is one method that can help us challenge this reality. For example, The Jewish Lens is working to create a new set of highly flexible and accessible educational materials that use photography to focus on the history of Israel and the millennia-old Jewish connection to the land. Crafted with diverse age-groups and backgrounds in mind, these materials may be used in classrooms as well as informal educational settings, including college campuses, summer camps and families. As a starting point, this approach will help young people understand that Jews around the world have long looked toward Israel and Zion with hope and steadfast resolve—and have worked hard in recent decades to build a vibrant and inclusive country. They will see Israel as an integral part of the complex tapestry of Jewish heritage.

Rather than reflexively adopting a defensive stance, we can meet this moment by opening our young people’s minds to the breadth and richness of Jewish identity and history. Let’s not miss this painful opportunity to create a better and promising future.