In our hardwired global village, the old curse \”May you live in interesting times,\” has particular resonance. For local educators, the recent clashes between Israelis and Palestinians have made these past few weeks interesting times indeed. As events continue to unfold thousands of miles away, the conflict has been an ongoing topic in Southern California\’s Jewish day schools.
Elliot Maltz had a Bar Mitzvah two years ago, but he says his Hebrew school experience was \”really boring\” and \”discouraged me from future practice.\”
In this era of school violence and body piercing, teenagers, never the most applauded demographic segment of our society, have been getting some amazingly bad press. To hear the media tell it, adolescents who aren\’t destroying themselves or others are just too lazy and apathetic to be bothered.And if Jewish teens aren\’t filling up juvie hall, they\’re not filling up the synagogues, either. After Bar and Bat Mitzvah, we\’re led to believe, you never see them again. Why would Jewish kids hang out at shul when they can be cruising around in their parents\’ Beemers, downloading porn from the Internet, turning their brains into Swiss cheese with drugs?
Consider the lyrics of Cheryl Wheeler\’s song \”Unworthy\”:
Daniel Gordis is able to communicate parent-to-parent. He understands that today\’s moms and dads often feel unsure of their own stance toward Judaism.
Being Jewish is to be bombarded by time-by seasons, weeks, history.
Where does a parent — a Jewish mother — begin a frank consideration of her daughter\’s sexuality? As the Zen master says, you have to start from where you are, and then let it flow.
The first thing that struck me as President Clinton unveiled his $21.7 billion child-care proposal last week was that it was hardly noticed in our community at all. With the possible exception of increased child-care tax exemptions, the nation\’s first preschool package won\’t touch the Jewish community to any extent.\nLet the Christian Coalition insist that women still belong solely at home. Our own community resolved the problem early, and did it well.
Adolescence seems to have heightened Debra\’s fixation on herbiological origins. She asks probing questions about her birthparents. She wants to know whether her birth mother was Jewish, andwhether there are brothers and sisters somewhere. Such questions arepainful to the Rubins, who\’d rather not spell out all they know aboutthe sad, sordid circumstances of Debra\’s birth.
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