I can’t sleep….why, I am not really sure.. But the ridiculous truth is, the one thing running through my mind is the lack of a good Jewish Education provided for me (at no fault to my parents, they did a wonderful job raising me as a conservative Jewish in America). No, this is a commentary on the Jewish education provided to me by my synagogue in the 13 years I spent attending anywhere from 2 to 6 hours a week of Jewish study.
Granted, I gained a fantastic background on the Iewish Holidays, let me list them for you
– On Rosh Hoshanah, we eat apples and honey and welcome the New Year
– On Yom Kippur, we beat our chests, don’t eat, and ask G-d for forgiveness
– On Sukkot, we hang out in a little three sided hut meant to resemble to roaming tents our forefathers slept in during the harvest
– On Simchat Torah, we dance around holding torahs, eating Krackel candy bars, and laugh at the drunk rabbis
– On Chanukah, we get 8 Crazy Nights of presents, light 8 candles with a Shamash, and complain that we don’t have a Christmas Tree
– On Passover we eat this flat bread, because our ancestors didn’t have time to let it rise, but wait…they had time to cook chicken.
– On Purim, a pretty girl named Esther used her feminine ways to save the Jewish People and now we get to dress up and again watch the rabbis get drunk…this time so they can’t tell the difference between Haman and Mordechai
– On Tu B’Shevat, we get to go outside during Hebrew School, plant some trees, and celebrate.
– On Tisha B’av (I learned this in Israel), we fast all day, sing some special prayers with a really cool tune and then go ice skating (okay maybe that was just us.)
Basically, and I like this part..our ancestors suffered so we eat (or don’t eat and then eat a lot), to remember them.
The point of my ramblings is this…I came to college totally unprepared for proud battle us Jews must fight.
This battle has nothing to do with Jewish holidays (although we would not be able to celebrate them if we lost the fight), but it has to with our homeland…Israel
Of course, we learned about Israel in Hebrew School..C’mon there’s a holiday to celebrate its establishment, so we must learn about it. But we didn’t learn the realities of its coming of age and its current existence. And for this, I write (oh yeah, and I don’t sleep tonight).
I wish I had learned about the roots of Zionism, the stories of Herzl, Jaobtinsky, Trumeldor, and Ben Gurion. These great men, who defied conventional Jewish personality traits (as Leon Uris refers to as ghetto Jews) to create a nation of Jews, for Jews to find safety and a home. Maybe, my peers would of paid attention better to learn how exciting these men were. Maybe, they would of cared more and been part of the pro-Israel movement today. Many of them can’t even name five cities in Israel besides Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, nor know the difference between the 48, 67, and 73 wars.
But enough complaining, it gets us nowhere, instead we must think of what we can do about it..
My plan at least for now, is to start on a small scale. See I have an opportunity to teach Sunday school to high school students in my old hometown. My class, Everything Cool About Israel’s History, will attempt to engage students in active learning. I want them to be so excited to come to my class that no one shows up late.
As a recent graduate of said Sunday School (2002), I think I know what works and what doesn’t among the students attending. The classes always portrayed very stereotypical images of Jews; successful business men, pious students, famed religious leaders. This shtick gets boring after awhile and most students just don’t care. My goal is to figure out how to make those students care…how to spark their brains enough that they are begging for more. They need stories that are cool, stories that are exciting. Characters in these stories need to be heroes, but not heroes of supernatural powers, but every day human beings that rose up to defend their Judaism.
Sometimes I wonder if Jewish kids today are proud of their Judaism, or if they are just ashamed of the star they wear around their necks. The goal of my class will be to find this out, and if it is broke, due to my little part to fix it up.
