Sivan Zakai is the Sara S. Lee Associate Professor of Jewish Education at the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion. She directs the Children’s Learning About Israel Project of the Jack, Joseph, and Morton Mandel Center for Studies in Jewish Education at Brandeis University.
It is with heartbreak and concern that so many American Jewish adults are gazing towards the Middle East. But what do American Jewish children know about the current violence in Israel and Gaza? And how ought the adults who love them—parents, grandparents, and teachers—talk with them about it? As a social scientist who studies Jewish…
‘For these things I weep, my eyes flow with tears,” reads the Book of Lamentations, and my mind plays on continual loop all the tragic details we now know about the shooting at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life Synagogue, likely the deadliest attack on Jews in the history of America. Yet the lament continues with the…
It’s not about Charlottesville anymore. I wish it were that simple. But life, and parenting, rarely are. In Boston, Laguna Beach, and Knoxville, white supremacists gather on our streets. As a mother, I know that this is not the world I wanted for my children. As a professor of education who studies how children make…
Editor’s Note: With Israel and Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip engaged in their most intense battle since their devastating summer-long fighting in 2014, and Israel itself convulsed by Arab-Jewish clashes some are likening to a civil war, we are republishing this essay from a few years ago. It’s just as relevant in May 2021….
“You say you’re pro-Israel, but you’re really not.” These words may sound reminiscent of the recent Knesset hearing about J Street. But they’re from an entirely different source: a high school junior we will call “Isaac.” Long before the Knesset questioned J Street’s activities, Isaac and his 11th-grade classmates were debating what it means to…
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