One purpose of Jewish education is to prepare Jewish people for the world in which they live. The events of Oct. 7 and its aftermath have shaken many of my educational foundations to the core, including the explicit need for Jewish youth to “know more stuff” about Israel. Why? Because to be a Jew in the world today requires a connection to Israel that is based on attitudes (heart) and behaviors (hands) in addition to knowledge (head).

With that in mind, I would like to share 12 fundamental texts or awarenesses that all Jewish youth living outside of Israel (and perhaps in Israel too) need to familiarize themselves with to establish their baseline foundational knowledge about Israel. Think of it as the beginning of a canon for Israel education. 

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To be clear, this is not an attempt to outline everything about Israel education — there are many additional things that we’ll want our youth to encounter and learn from in the course of building a relationship with the Jewish homeland. Instead, this is an acknowledgment that Jewish education needs to help our young people know more about Israel.

Prior to the age of bnei mitzvah

1. Genesis 12:1

Starting from the beginning is a very good place to start. The story of Avram being promised the Land of Israel is a critical foundational story for our young children to know, as this is the origin story of the Jewish people’s connection to their homeland.

2. Passover Haggadah

Our children must learn that Pesach is the festival of freedom, not just the “Festival of Spring.” The Israelite journey from slavery to freedom culminates in entering the Land of Israel. 

Along with the Four Questions and the Ten Plagues, children should explicitly learn that the Passover Seder culminates with the phrase, “Next year in Jerusalem.” Over the last few decades, there have been countless Haggadot and supplemental readings that seek to universalize this text or even this exact phrase. That is wonderful, but this content should not come at the expense of passages of a particularistic nature.

3. ‘Hatikvah’

Na’ase v’nishma. We do and then we will listen. We teach our children to sing, and then we should educate them about the words of the Israeli national anthem. It is not only an anthem but an anthem about hope, one that expresses and reinforces our 2,000-year-old collective past with our shared destiny, “to be a free people in our own land.”

4. Map of Israel

At an early age, the map of Israel is as much a symbol as it is a geography lesson. While the map itself will take on different significance as learners develop, maps provide an opportunity for even young learners to familiarize themselves with key cities, sites and various people inhabiting the land.

5. ‘Yerushalayim Shel Zahav’ (‘Jerusalem of Gold’)

The Naomi Shemer classic song is a powerful way to combine the teaching of history, tradition and culture that expresses a strong connection of the Jewish people to Jerusalem.

6. Hebrew

The earlier we instill in our youth that Hebrew is a vibrant and living language, the greater appreciation they will have for Israeli culture, the Jewish people and our rich textual tradition. My suggestion for an awareness in Hebrew is that every young Jew should learn at least 100 conversational Hebrew phrases.

In the teenage years

7. Declaration of Independence

This is a quintessential document that all Jews should be familiar with. The preamble alone provides an essential understanding of Jewish and Zionist history, while the following paragraphs (especially paragraph 13) provide a blueprint for the Jewish state we should  continually strive for.

8. Law of Return

One cannot fully understand Zionism and Jewish Peoplehood without understanding this foundational law of the Jewish state. On face value this law is important to Israel because it grants Jews, people of Jewish ancestry and their spouses the right to immigrate to Israel and become citizens. But at a deeper level, this law is the rationale for contemporary Zionism, the need for Jews to have a land of their own, a safe haven and a political state like all other national entities.

9. Zionist thinkers

Our youth should be familiar with the origins of political Zionism and Theodor Herzl’s The Jewish State. Advancing this conversation should also include an understanding of the diversity of Zionist thought and the diversity of the country’s population. The writings of Achad Ha’Am, Vladamir Jabotinsky, Rav Kook and Berl Katznelson explore the history, cultural context and various motivations of the Zionist movement, all of which are foundations for understanding Zionism today.

10. The other maps of Israel

At the very least, our youth must know about the 1947 Partition Plan and the maps of 1948 and 1967. Maps show a whole lot more than city names, borders and terrain. It is imperative that our youth understand the armistice lines, green lines and red lines of Israeli history before they go out into the world and need to utilize this information.

11. Palestinian nationalism

There is no doubt that reading documents related to Palestinian nationalism will be challenging for Jewish youth, but to forfeit any attempt to understand the other actors in the Israeli-Palestinian context would be a failure of Israel education. Suggested reading includes the Palestinian National Charter (1968), The Hamas Charter (1987), or excerpts from Edward Said’s Orientalism (1978) or Rashid Khalidi’s The Hundred Years War on Palestine. Better that our youth first encounter these perspectives in a Jewish educational setting than in an antagonistic context.

 12. Culture from contemporary Israeli Artists

As recently demonstrated by the wide usage of Eden Golan’s Eurovision song “Hurricane (October Rain)” by many in Jewish education and the arts, writing, visual art and music should be part of the knowledge base that we instill in our young people. The arts are often the great texts of our time, just expressed through different mediums, and they can provide young people with relatable windows into Israel that other vehicles cannot.

Too many Jews are ignorant about these foundational resources related to Israel. Thankfully, with the right educators, Jewish youth can learn about these things in different ways, in different educational settings and at stages of development that make sense. I invite you to debate with me and to subtract and add resources of your own to my list. 

Consider what it would look like if we raise a generation of young people to both hold opinions and have their beliefs grounded in knowledge and context. Knowledge acquisition is a cornerstone of all good education, and Jewish and Israel education should provide nothing less.

For other curated Israel education resources, register at https://educator.jewishedproject.org.

David Bryfman is the CEO of The Jewish Education Project.