By Ayalon Eliach
At Lippman Kanfer Foundation for Living Torah, we see immense value in the ancient Jewish tradition of feedback. Without input from others, we miss critical perspectives. With those perspectives, however, we “sharpen each other” so that our ideas and work become as refined as possible (Babylonian Talmud, Ta’anit 7a).
We are proud of the reactions we received to the Jewish Futures Conference that we hosted with The Jewish Education Project in December, but we are also continually trying to improve. So we welcomed Ed Frim’s recent piece that critiqued the conference.
Analyzing different forms of Jewish volunteering, Frim wrote (the post has since been edited, including changes to the following paragraphs):
“Participants do good, important things, but the meaning of their efforts is often unclear, lumped into a vague construct of tikkun olam.
An example of this was a recent national meeting in December, the Jewish Education Project’s Jewish Futures Conference, titled For Which It Stands: How Can Jewish Civics Education Elevate American Democracy? There were a variety of speakers and workshops on engaging learners to be active participants in the democratic process. There was discussion of leadership, having a voice, and making change yet when practical efforts were discussed, they were primarily about serving those in need. The message was unclear, seemingly defining being good citizens as a form of Noblesse Oblige: the idea that people with advantages, for example those of a high social class, should help and do things for other people. While this is not a bad thing, it does not accurately describe participation in the democratic process.”
The conference’s intended focus was on improving Jewish civics education, rather than encouraging volunteer work (we invite you to watch the full conference in case you weren’t able to be there). Frim’s feedback reminds us, however, that our message can sometimes be lost; and we appreciate the opportunity to figure out ways of refining our delivery in our future work.
More importantly though, Frim’s piece highlights a fundamental question about what participation in the democratic process is all about – the exact type of question that we hoped the conference would spark. The type of participation in the democratic process that Frim lauds is “fixing the system.” The example he highlights is teens rallying for gun control with signs that read, “This is what democracy looks like!”
Such activism is indeed an essential piece of democracy. But it is only a piece. Fixing broken policies is what a healthy democracy does in response to its failures; it is an inherently reactive approach.
Another equally, if not more, important part of democracy, however, is building a society that has fewer glaring problems that need to be fixed in drastic ways. Doing that requires a lot of small, generally not celebrated, and often unseen acts that range from voting, to sitting on local school boards, to, yes, even serving those in need simply because they are our neighbors. As Yale professor Timothy Snyder has explained, even making eye contact and small talk with strangers are important for the preservation of a healthy democracy.
In the words of our tradition, this shared responsibility for our common fate is known as areivut. As the second-century Rabbi Shimon bar Yohai taught in a parable, we are all on a boat together, and we must ensure that our ship doesn’t have any leaks, regardless of whether they are under our own seat or someone else’s (Vayikra Rabbah 4:6).
This awareness of our daily, often mundane responsibilities to create a society in which we support our civic institutions and each other is one example of an understanding of democratic participation that the conference encouraged educators to pursue. While it may not be as exciting as marching in the streets, it is just as important. We hope that the conference continues to inspire conversations like these about what it means to be full participants in our democracy, and we look forward to continuing to learn from each other along the way.
Ayalon Eliach is Director of Learning and Strategic Communications, Lippman Kanfer Foundation for Living Torah.
Top
I was deeply moved by the conference and the message about the impact of education on civic engagement has strengthened my beliefs amour Jewish education. We fail our families when we teach to the test, whether it be English or bar mitzvah. Education with depth creates leaders and learners. Education for performance creates boredom and detachment.
I greatly appreciate Ayalon’s thoughtful comments.
I found the conference to be a unique and inspiring beginning to a very important conversation for our Jewish community. I did understand the pro-active approach of the gathering’s call to action, and clearly heard its message of areivut.
I do think there is a disconnect in our Jewish community between our aspirations for democracy and civic engagement and the educational and leadership development programs we now have in place across North America. I thank the Lippman Kanfer Foundation and the Jewish Education Project for so eloquently and powerfully expressing the vision at the Jewish Futures Conference. Our challenge now is to build the structures needed to teach these values.
Thank you for working to ensure that the conversation about how to mold our educational endeavors to promote the kind of civic engagement you describe continues and expands.
This is thought-provoking and empowering. In the new-ish era where hate is more public, I have turned my activism to my neighbors and to people to whom I can extend kindness. I see this as a radical political act.
As a b’nai mitzvah teacher for many years, I have found that the most important learning for my students is their self-reflection and connecting to the world; I am less concerned about their ability to decode or chant Hebrew and prayers, than I am that they are sincerely showing up and taking responsibility for their actions in the world, paying attention and taking on the notion that it is our responsibility to make the world better than we found it.
Lastly, I want to share a letter of everyday activism that I wrote last August to my son’s kindergarten teacher and the principal of the public school in our neighborhood:
Dear Principal Bagby-Ellison,
Last week across the Bay Area, many people experienced a lot of heightened emotions as a White Supremacy march was planned in San Francisco and then an “anti Marxist” gathering in Berkeley. And in both cities, dozens of positive gatherings for tolerance, diversity, human rights and peace were also coming up in groundswells.
As a parent of a kindergartener, I wonder how much to expose my child to? Do we attend the scheduled birthday parties? Go to swimming lessons? walk our dog in the woods? Or show up in areas that are potentially dangerous, chant, sing, hold signs that my kid can’t yet read?
Last week, amidst this social tension, my son began kindergarten at RHS. The big-hearted Ms Irons met my son’s class every morning with a warm smile.
As a new parent to RHS, I walked onto the yard of Redwood Heights Public Elementary School five mornings last week. I saw brown people and white people and people of mixed race . I heard people speaking German, and talked with a woman who spent her summer with family in Somaliland, Africa. A saw a mom in a Muslim hijab, a bald man, and a girl with neon pink hair. I saw smiles. I saw basketballs. I got a few hugs from my kid and from some other new parents on the playground. There are Jews, Greek Orthodox, and aethists among the student body. I realize that I do not need to go to a rally to live in the world that shares my values.
I write this as a Jewish, middle class, passing-for-white, California-born hetero-married woman. I write from a place of privilege. And for me, Redwood Heights seems to embody the best of the world that I want to live in– this is my community.
And I am so very grateful.
As the world around us rallies in anger and fear and hate, I plan to walk to elementary school and be in the world I believe in, in the reality I have chosen. I want to be a conscious part of this diverse, embracing fabric.
Your commitment to excellence and to figuring out how to serve these children and families is inspiring.
I wanted to take this time to write to you and your awesome team and thank you thank you thank you.
Max’s mom, Elizheva Hurvich
Many readers of eJP will be familiar with PANIM: The Institute for Jewish Leadership and Values which I led from 1988 to 2009. The mission of PANIM was to integrate Jewish learning, Jewish values and civic responsibility. During my tenure we touched the lives of over 20,000 young American Jews. We wrestled with precisely the tension that has been discussed in the comments to this article as well as the responses to Ed Frim’s initial post. I would recommend to eJP readers an article that I wrote called: “Tzedek and Chesed: Re-Thinking the Relationship between Advocacy and Service” (http://zeek.forward.com/articles/117170/). It deals with many of these issues based on 21 years of experience in the field. Given the current political climate there is a desperate need for Jewish educational institutions to do more work that builds bridges between the Jewish values and civic responsibility. So that educators and/or the institutions that employ them do not get scared off at the need to create suitable educational materials to do this work, I highly recommend you check out a curriculum that PANIM co-published with National Hillel called Just: Judaism. Action. Social Change. It can be found on Hillel’s website here: http://www.hillel.org/jewish/social-justice-tzedek