This past Friday night Natan Scharansky told a few of us sitting
around the Shabbat table with him that he had found in his travels to
North American college campuses that Jewish students were uninformed
as well as scared to speak up for Israel, scared that if they were to
actively defend or speak positively about Israel it would impact
negatively on their academic career as well as their future
professional career.
This morning in a discussion I had with the head of a major Jewish
Foundation I was told that during a visit she recently had at a very
large Jewish high school, she found the students preparing for an
internal school debate on the topic, Israel: Is it an apartheid state?
In an informal discussion she had with several students at the same
school, she was told by them that they love Israelis but do not like
Israel.
This evening I read a piece in the JTA concerning the vote taking
place this week at Princeton University on whether to ask the
university's dining services to provide an alternative brand of
hummus. Why? Because the current brand being offered is Sabra, which
is half-owned by The Strauss Group, which has publicly supported the
IDF and provides care packages and sports equipment to Israeli
soldiers.
We all know of many similar examples. I am mentioning these because
they all occurred in just the past few days.
This post is not an invitation to debate political issues related to
Israel. Rather, we are very interested in learning how Jewish high
schools and junior high schools of all stripes are educating their
students regarding Israel. It seems particularly important during this
period in which there is increasing delegitimization of Israel. How
much time do schools invest in this critical issue that all of their
graduates will face on college campuses? Is it dealt with in a
serious and systematic way through formal and informal educational
programs? Where does it fit into your school program? What does your
school do? We are hoping that through the Lookjed list the Center can
raise consciousness of and attentiveness to this issue and that the
thousands of subscribers to the Lookjed list can learn about the
different efforts and programs that are being implemented in schools.
This question, of course, touches on how we prioritize what is
included in our school programs and how schools allocate and divide up
the time that is available. That itself is an important question for
reflection and deliberation by school principals and teachers. All
schools make choices regarding what is in and what is out? Where does
this issue fit in?
Stuart Zweiter
Director, the Lookstein Center
