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From: segs@mhuxv.UUCP (slusky)
Newsgroups: net.religion.jewish
Subject: Re: Raising jewish children
Message-ID: <175@mhuxv.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 19-Sep-84 09:49:27 EDT
Article-I.D.: mhuxv.175
Posted: Wed Sep 19 09:49:27 1984
Date-Received: Tue, 25-Sep-84 09:05:43 EDT
References: <174@mhuxv.UUCP>
Distribution: net
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill
Lines: 69

I received the following response to my posting from Ken Wolman who presently
has read-only access to Usenet. We agreed I should post it.

					Susan Slusky
					mhuxv!segs
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Susan,

I read your posting about/from the woman with the kid singing "Jesus
Loves Me."  I'd like to say I'm furious, but I'm not: just sort of 
saddened because the problem is staring her right in the face and she
hasn't the foggiest idea of what's wrong.  The Esther Jungreis answer
to everything is "light Shabbos candles," but that's an oversimplifica-
tion of something that's not quite as easy to solve as it is to diag-
nose.

Every parent has this problem, it seems.  There is the Christmas
tree, and it's pretty, and your kid wonders why we won't bring one in
the house.  "Because were Jews."  "Oh."  Not "because we have
Chanukah"; just "because we're Jews."  My six year old is already
aware that life for him is a bit different than for his gentile
friends, but it is not yet a big deal.  Of course the question is
"how big a deal SHOULD we make it?"  A people apart, etc. etc.

What I find most depressing is that this woman can't see the obvious
solution to her problem.  "We're Jewish, so please don't sing
'Jesus Loves Me' to Rebecca."  And if the sitter won't go along,
get rid of her, get someone else who either is Jewish or isn't out
to convert us.  It's as though she is afraid to assert her Jewish-
ness even to the extent of SAYING she's a Jew!  Like it's some big
dirty secret like having herpes.

Of course the problem extends far beyond the immediate case of the
sitter.  How do you educate a Jewish child in a pluralistic society?
especially if you are not "Orthodox" but still are a committed Jew?
Orthodox communities such as Boro Park, Highland Park, Lakewood,
Fair Lawn, make the job a bit easier (but not entirely so!).  
There is Orthodoxy's commitment to education in yeshivot to mini-
mize "contamination" from the goyishe world.  But Orthodox day
schools seem to be growing away from non-Orthodox Jews; the feed-
back I'm getting from people who have kids in Hillel in Passaic
and Yavneh in Paramus is that these schools are increasingly
hostile to kids from homes where the parents are not completely ob-
servant (whatever "completely" means), and there are frictions de-
veloping among kids and groups of parents.  

There will be a Schechter school opening in Wayne next year for the
earlier grades, and hopefully it will be expanded over the next few
years.  It seems to be less doctrinaire than the yeshivot in the
area, more "realistic" in terms of what is expected of both kids
and parents; and the level of instruction may be a hell of a lot
better.  

I am not suggesting The Solution is day school for every Jewish
child.  I think, though, that some motivation has be created or
nurtured in which education--either from self or others--can 
take place so that the identity problem is taken care of.  This
lady on the net sounds as though she is not yet even at square
one.  Think of the Hagaddah and the child who cannot even ask a
question, and let's hope we don't all shrink from the enormity
of the task.

Ken Wolman
whuxe!ktw



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mhuxv!segs