From Herzl to Herzliya Notes Towards Recasting Israel Education by Yonatan Ariel, Executive Director

Israel Engagement Network מקום-Ma-kom Renewing Israel in Jewish Life From Herzl to Herzliya Notes Towards Recasting Israel Education By Yonatan Ariel, Executive Director “From Herzl to Herzliya” seeks to analyze the need for a new direction in Israel Education. It suggests that there is a profound shift in the Jewish People’s circumstances brought about by some remarkable successes in the last two generations. It argues that Israel education should be built as a sub-field of Jewish education, with significant possibilities for engagement that we have yet to explore. Jewish People have amassed a large The challenge of rethinking Israel measure of power and influence, in education has been troubling addition to their long-held resilience educators for a long time, and I and agility. suspect that it troubles others too. Although some of the symptoms are The State of Israel, as a core clearly identifiable, such as the element of Jewish civilization, will decline in attachment to Israel soon be home to a majority of the amongst younger Jews, the world's Jewish population. Already it articulation of the underlying is home to thriving scientific problem and the search for a innovation and to the dazzling solution is fraught with both revival of Hebrew and Jewish difficulty and possibility. cultural life. Around the globe, Jews have created voluntary communities We, the Jewish People, are heirs to characterized by care, devotion and a tradition of intellectual vitality, steadfastness in the welcoming cultural fidelity and social activity. conditions of freedom. These are And we are poised on the threshold changed circumstances. For the first of a new era. Two generations of time in two thousand years the remarkable collective achievement world's Jews live as free people. have secured a vibrant State of They have the highest-ever levels of Israel, nurtured the shared memory Jewish and general education, an of the Shoah, and rescued Jews independent Jewish state, extensive from many parts of the world. The experience as a global people and the economic and technological wherewithal to face the future with 1 From Herzl to Herzliya / Ariel www.makomisrael.net Israel Engagement Network מקום-Ma-kom confidence. It is an exhilarating amount to a higher grade of time to be a Jew – or so we would civilization, to spread well- think. being abroad, to build new highways for the intercourse At the very moment when the of peoples, and to forge an Jewish People's sovereign stage has opening for the coming social a sturdy foundation and the era of justice." collective creativity stands poised to unfold, the pertinent data A sober assessment would compel us suggests mass disinterest. Many to conclude that in spite of the young Jews are unaware of their remarkably successful generation's potential to make a transformation in the status of the shared Jewish contribution to the Jews, the lofty sentiments of Herzl's world. Too few Jews around the third road still beckon. In world have experienced the Altneuland, his famous novel that dynamics of Israel as a cultural outlines his hopes for Israel, Herzl reservoir, rather than as a political writes: "I say to you, therefore, that battleground. Too few Israeli Jews you must hold fast to the things that have experienced voluntary Jewish have made us great: to liberality, communities overseas as creative tolerance, love of mankind. Only playing fields, rather than as dark then is Zion truly Zion." graveyards. Too many are alienated We work hard to realize Herzl's by cultural, political and dream. Many innovative and noble organizational factors and too few causes are pursued by the have the opportunity to explore authorities and the emerging third their heartfelt concerns with regard sector in Israel, often with the to Israel and Jewish life, without vigorous support of Jews the world pressure to adopt a specific over. There is concern too for position. Jews today do not sense education in all Jewish communities that the global Jewish conversation and growing attempts are made to is inviting, enthralling and develop the most significant challenging. resource - a cadre of personnel who are both inspired and inspiring. And Just over a hundred years ago, yet the evidence signals that Herzl, Theodor Herzl had a powerful and or any of the alternative, romantic vision. In the pamphlet competing, visions of Zion just do Der Judenstaat he wrote: not ring true to the present generation. There is indeed real "Under present conditions the work to be done to re-imagine Israel Jews have three roads before and Zion in Jewish life for a global, them: one is apathetic technological world. And there is submission to insult and also a need to renew our poverty; another is revolt, assumptions and conceptions as to outspoken hostility to an which content, modes and arenas unjust social system. Ours is should guide our educational the third road. We want to endeavors. This is an attempt to 2 From Herzl to Herzliya / Ariel www.makomisrael.net Israel Engagement Network מקום-Ma-kom sketch out some fruitful avenues for It used to be far less complicated - investigation. the task of initiating young people into a Jewish way of life was carried One of my favorite definitions of out in the home, the shul, the education comes from Richard school and the street, which all Peters, the distinguished neatly reinforced each other. Today philosopher who taught at London's how different it is – we talk of Institute of Education. He defined blended families, hybrid identities, education as "the initiation into globalization and an unparalleled worthwhile pursuits, whilst mobility. The well-documented respecting the autonomy of the decline of Jewish involvement learner". He stresses that any across a range of indicators leads to substantive education requires deep the dawning understanding that layers of cultural residue, as identification with Israel is not what expressed in insights, values, habits it was. The existential conditions and stories. But he also stresses that that drew many of us into a education must also offer its relationship with our people and our students the tools to be autonomous homeland were the precariousness and critical of what is being offered of Israel's existence, the waves of as a cultural heritage. With that in aliya, and the political fight for mind, I want to raise three main Israel's good name and for the challenges for Israel Education: freedom of Soviet Jewry. This was such an overwhelming success that INITIATE – the need to induct young the Zionist's activist sense of history people into a web of understanding looks less compelling today for that gives them anchors in Jewish young people as the causes become civilization, Jewish Peoplehood and less stark, the clarity dissipates, and the place of Israel in Jewish life. the moral qualms continue to fester. ELEVATE – the need to craft Jewish narratives that build on what has The response to this challenge is gone before, but that inevitably often "they don't understand." "They critique what is and point to some don't understand, because they wonderful challenges ahead that the don't know. If only they knew then Jewish People needs to meet in they would understand and then order to be true to its mission. they would be active." I want to suggest that this line of thought LIBERATE – the need to enable inverts the logic of the voluntary young Jews to find their own way, educational process. Do people feel to climb their own mountain, to the way they feel because they realize their potential, to be not know what they know, or do they like us. rather know what they know because they feel what they feel? What we lack in the young Jewish Initiate – The Challenge: world is not access to knowledge – Connection and Conviction even though knowledge is a cultural 3 From Herzl to Herzliya / Ariel www.makomisrael.net Israel Engagement Network מקום-Ma-kom and pedagogic imperative; what we What could be a renewed ritual that lack is the motivation to find the recaptures the imagination of a knowledge that is readily available lifelong involvement with Israel in in copious amounts in courses, every Jewish family? What might libraries and on the internet. What make the yearly cycle celebrations we lack is the initiation into a world and commemorations – Pesach, Yom of concepts that make Western, HaShoah, Yom Hazikkaron, Yom Israeli and Jewish cultures part of Ha'atzmaut and Yom Yerushalayim - the life world of the young. These become potent, robust moments of three narratives – the Western, the meaning and creativity, not for the Israeli, and the Jewish – have to few, but for the many? embrace each other, challenge each Initiatives in Israel Education will other, and jostle with each other as require us to speak in different we induct another generation into a cultural idioms, not necessarily the web of association. That web ones with which we were celebrates the word Israel in all of acculturated. These idioms will vary its suggestive and aromatic from generation X to generation Y; ambiguity – as medina, eretz, am, from one continent to another; from clal, knesset, ahavat, torat, tzur one milieu to another. The and netzach yisrael. educational challenge is to nurture young Jews' convictions to core A central part of the initiation values, ideas and symbols and to process of any culture is the events cultivate connections to their peers and ceremonies surrounding the and to the stories of those who have lifecycle. How might we infuse the gone before. lifecycle rituals of birth, bar/bat mitzvah, wedding, and death with a Elevate – The Challenge: Move new sense of Israel and Jewish from Zionist Hardware to Jewish Peoplehood? Consider by way of Software illustration of the kinds of question The big theory of Zionism was that we will have to ask and answer: designed to solve the Jewish that in the 1970s there was an problem.

Load more