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The Problem with Jewish Education

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by Samuel Richardson
 
I want to bring up an issue that everyone talks about but too few are concerned with and virtually nobody is willing to actually deal with in an old way: The Jewish education of our children.
 
Since the release of the Pew Portrait of Jewish Americans in the fall of 2013 there has been much hand-wringing over the loss of Jewish bodies and souls from within American Jewry as a whole. Like a dog shaking off sprinkler water on a hot summer day, American Jews are fleeing in all directions. Some are concerned with where these droplets are going; others are concerned with the physics of how they are projected away from the dog. I am concerned with why the dog is shaking in the first place.
 
Since the 1950s the keystone of American Jewish investment in the next generation has been the western institutional model of education: The parent shall take the children to (insert your choice of Jewish educational venue) and the professional (or volunteer) educator shall instill the child with the Jewish history, religion, language and liturgy necessary to at least produce a passable bar- or bat-mitzvah and, hopefully, a Jewishly literate and responsible adult.  
 
Unfortunately, this investment has not returned the desired results. It is not without merit to conclude that a part – at least a small part – of the problem are the educators themselves. Writing in the Journal of Jewish Education in 2012, Amy Sales revealed that “Innovators in Jewish education often fail to articulate their logic model and thus do not get intended results”. In other words, if you are not able to clearly convey exactly what goals you are attempting to achieve, while in the short-run you may claim success for just about anything, in the long-run any real successes may in fact be the result of other factors.
 
Those other factors?  Parents. Don’t believe the conventional wisdom that children are influenced more by their peers than by their parents. We currently have over 50 years of data to support the idea that family-centered, parent-led activities retain a prominent place in both the memories and behaviors of adult Jews of all flavors of affiliation. Most recently, large-sample studies have demonstrated that parents and grandparents are the single greatest influence on the religious and spiritual lives of American children. With particular reference to strength of religious identity, Bengtson’s multi-generational study found that the family is the most effective factor in a child’s religious development. Finally, there is evidence to suggest that parents who take an active, intentional role in their child’s Jewish education are more likely to eventually have Jewish grandchildren than parents who “outsource” the task to professional Jewish educators.
 
Why is the dog shaking?  Perhaps it is because there are fewer and fewer parents actively involved in the Jewish education of their children. Healthy, loving parents bring focus to their children’s lives. Compared to all other institutions in a child’s life, it is the family which is most adaptive and resilient – even over time and distance. Without the solidarity, motivation and immediate application of Jewish principles and values a family provides the child will fly off of the Jewish “dog” like so much excess water.
 
My analogy is not perfect. Many Jewish parents are doing a terrific job raising their children with a strong Jewish identity. However, if on the whole we could raise the level of parental involvement in Jewish education, I believe the numbers of American Jewish youth who retain their generational seat would increase. Specific ideas on how to do that I will leave for another installment.
 

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