Obviously, this is not the kind of event one would ever hope
to use as a recruiting tool for outreach to uncommitted Jews. But sadly, it has
been one of the most effective recruiting tools of my lifetime.
This has been aided even further by the antisemitism sparked
by Israel’s military response to that massacre. I of course would rather not
have had this event happen at all, regardless of how many otherwise unconnected
Jews it inspired to explore what it means to be Jewish. But tragedies of this
magnitude do have this kind of effect. When Jews are singled out for attack,
many Jews want to learn what it means to be a Jew.
I wish this were a more or less universal response among
uncommitted Jews. Sadly, some Jews have gone in the opposite direction
rejecting everything Jewish because of its association with the State of
Israel, which they now see as genocidal and wish to see destroyed. But I do not
believe this represents the mainstream secular Jew, who is mostly clueless
about his religion and whose curiosity about it has now been awakened. This has
apparently sparked the following developments, as described by eJewishPhilanthropy:
After Oct. 7, 2023, Jewish parents started asking different questions — not only whether their children are safe, but what does it mean to raise a Jewish child in this moment? What do I want my children to know about who they are? And what will ensure there is a next generation that not only knows it is Jewish, but wants to be?
For many families, those questions led somewhere very concrete: a Jewish school…
Oct. 7 did not only awaken alarm. It awakened a determination to hold tighter to the people, traditions and identity that suddenly felt more fragile than ever. We saw families put on Stars of David they had not worn in years and walk into synagogues they had rarely attended.
And we saw parents choose Jewish education.
This phenomenon may help reverse the trend of so many
secular Jews opting out of Judaism entirely, with intermarriage rates among
non-Orthodox Jews exceeding 70%.
I had just about given up hope that these Jews could ever be
reached and convinced to value their Jewish heritage instead of abandoning it
as though it were the plague. And with antisemitism at one of its highest
levels in decades, it is no small wonder that many secular Jews do not want to
identify as Jewish at all.
But with the increase in enrollment numbers cited in this
article, there is hope that not all is lost. Children of families that never
previously considered a Jewish education for their children are now seriously
considering it.
That is despite the cost of tuition, which in most cases is
unaffordable for parents to pay in full - and, in some cases, even in part.
So there is the conundrum: How do we educate the children of
Jewish parents who cannot afford the tuition for the education they now want
for their children?
I wish I could say that altruism would prevail over money.
If the only way a secular parent will send a child to a Jewish school is if
they do not have to pay for it, a way should be found to accommodate them.
This was, in fact, how Jewish elementary schools operated
when I attended them in the late 1950s…
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