Building Our Youth for the Future

Even as successive generations of youth reassure their elders, in the words of The Who's 1965 rock anthem, that “the kids are alright,” the adults remain unconvinced. Whether the young are anticipated as agents of progress or continuity, the stakes could not be higher. Hence the imperative articulated by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in a 1940 address at the University of Pennsylvania: “We cannot always build the future for our youth, but we can build our youth for the future.”

Concern about youth as the future societal pacesetters and custodians is also a common thread that runs through the three articles in this issue of the Journal of Jewish Education. Nowhere is this theme more pronounced than in Helena Miller and Alex Pomson's article, “When the Heart is Stilled: Adolescent Jewish lives Interrupted by COVID-19.” The authors present and analyze the findings of a recent study of adolescents attending Jewish secondary schools in the UK. As the title of the article suggests, the study, which was funded by the Pears Foundation and the Wohl Legacy Foundation, was designed to measure the impact of SARS-CoV-2 on the respondents’ “Jewish lives.” While the researchers came into the study interested in documenting the schools’ abilities to respond to the challenges presented by COVID-related restrictions, they soon began wondering whether the cancelation and curtailment of Jewish experiences outside of school, including bar mitzvah celebrations, heritage travel to Israel and Eastern Europe, and youth group activities, might have been even more disruptive to the teens’ solidification of their Jewish identities and sense of collective Jewish belonging. Young people, they found, “have been thrown back on the Jewish resources they found under their own roofs,” with varying outcomes. (p. 2) The study found that the pandemic more negatively impacted teens’ emotional wellbeing and academic plans than their connection to Judaism, the Jewish community, or Israel. Nevertheless, the authors express concern that missed opportunities to attend summer camp and engage in heritage tourism would adversely affect the “Jewish communal ecosystem,” since “the young people for whom these experiences serve as a runway to a life of Jewish activism might find it a lot harder to get off the ground.” (p. 17)

Curricular Intellectual Who was Ahead of His Time,” surveys the educational contribution of this former head of the Mercaz HaRav Yeshiva in Jerusalem. Prior to becoming head of this national-religious stronghold, which was founded in 1924 by Abraham Isaac Kook, the first Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi in British Mandatory Palestine, Yisraeli was a communal rabbi and judge who served on the Chief Rabbinate Council and the Supreme Religious Court. He was also a pioneer in the field of Jewish Thought (Machshevet Yisrael), and the developer of a high school curriculum and textbook, Chapters on Jewish Thought, which underwent multiple revised editions between 1952–1996. Levin traces how each edition of the book responded to contemporaneous events and currents. He also asserts that there are similarities between Yisraeli's rationale in Chapters on Jewish Thought and the educational theories of Zvi Lamm in The Whirlpool of Ideologies (2002), and between Yisraeli's approach to curriculum development and that of Ralph Tyler, in his Basic Principles of Curriculum and Instruction (1949). In particular, both Yisraeli and Tyler agreed that curricular goals must respond to the needs of the learner, as well as the dictates of society and the internal logic peculiar to the subject matter. It is in this regard that Levin discusses Yisraeli's deep concern about his students’ abilities to withstand the pull of secular, “atheistic” Israeli society. It was Yisraeli's desire to foster resilience among the youth, to provide them with moral and religious guidance, that motivated his authorship of Chapters on Jewish Thought and necessitated the ongoing process of revision.

Finally, Meredith Katz's article, “‘Can I Alter the Statement?’ – Considering Holocaust Education as a Catalyst for Civic Education in Jewish Day Schools,” studies student participants in a study unit and online simulation program designed to familiarize them with Nazi Germany's persecution of Jews and the world's response in the years leading up to the Holocaust. In particular, the simulation focused on the fateful May 1939 voyage of the M.S. St Louis and engaged participants in a discussion about an appropriate memorial for the passengers, about 30% of whom perished in the Holocaust. (Miller and Ogilvie, 2010, pp. 174–175) Using a mixed methods approach, which included surveys and participant focus groups, Katz is interested in how students conceptualized and drew lessons from their study unit and the simulation. Her larger purpose is to explore the possible connections between Holocaust education and civic education in Jewish settings. She argues that while Holocaust education in Jewish schools is sometimes designed to encourage civic goals, it more often focuses on “Jewish-centric rationales.” (p. 5) As the Holocaust recedes in Jewish memory and the Jewish community becomes increasingly diverse, Katz wonders whether teachers and curriculum writers should lean into more universalist rationales for Holocaust education. Katz's concern about relevancy dovetails with her anxieties about the health of the contemporary body politic. Hence her desire to “marshal the historic Jewish experience with discrimination, prejudice, and genocide” to encourage civic engagement and upstander behavior in the rising generation. (p. 21)

Sociologist and futurist Wendell Bell observes that humans' obligation to future generations stems in part from their responsibility as “heirs to the legacies of past generations.” He further points to the human need for self-transcendence as a condition for personal satisfaction and meaning in light of the inescapability of one's death. (Bell, 1993, pp. 29, 32) Thus, it should come as no surprise that perceived obstacles to youth flourishing, ranging from the disruptions to Jewish life wrought by COVID-19, the challenge to faith and moral development presented by a hegemonic secularism, or a breakdown in civic health and the social fabric, should provoke concern among educators and researchers alike. It is left to the reader to ponder the long-term consequences of these phenomena for Jewish life in the UK, Israel, and North America.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).