Opinion

Community Views

Can We Save
The Next Generation?

Pieces Of
A Peace

RABBI WILLIAM G. GERSHON SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS

LEONARD FEIN SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS

The story is told
of a group of el-
derly, retired
men who gather
each morning in
a cafe in Tel Aviv.
They drink their
coffee and sit for
hours discussing
the world situa-
tion. Given the state of the
world, their talks usually are de-
pressing. One day, one of the
men startles the others by an-
nouncing, "You know what? I'm
an optimist." The others are
shocked, but then one of them
notices something fishy. "Wait
a minute! If you're an optimist,
why do you look so worried?" To
which the man responds, "You
think it's easy to be an opti-
mist?"
It is difficult these days to be
optimistic about the future of
the American Jewish commu-
nity. By now everyone has
heard about the CJF population
study which sadly confirms sta-
tistically what many of us have
known intuitively for years.
This generation ofJews and the
next are in trouble. There are
more Jews converting out of Ju-
daism than non-Jews convert-
ing into Judaism.
The intermarriage rate is out
of control. The study suggests
that 78 percent of my genera-
tion's children will not even call
themselves Jewish! We are los-
ing generations ofJews and we
are losing them because we are
not committed totally to the so-
lution required to turn the tide
on Jewish assimilation and in-
termarriage.
The sad reality is that we
know how to keep Jews Jewish
and we are not doing it. The
longest continuous religious tra-
dition the world has ever known
is here today because of one ma-
jor factor: its ability to transmit
the Jewish tradition to each
generation.
The buzzword of the Jewish
community is continuity.
Everyone is scrambling to re-
define Jewish life in America
around this principle. The prob-
lem is that we cannot agree on
what the "C" word really means.
To me, the solution is simple.
We are using the wrong word.
We need to be buzzing about the
"E" word: education. After all,
what is Jewish continuity if not
an infusion ofJewish education
and religious experiences that
will make an indelible imprint
on the hearts and minds of our
young people — creating loyal-
ty and commitment to Jewish
life?
Jews who live in a religious
context are far more likely to re-

Rabbi Gershon is associate rabbi

of Congregation Shaarey Zedek.

tain their Jewishness than Jews
who live only in secular society.
I never could understand
parents who fear too much Jew-
ish education or observance lest
their child become "too Jewish."
There is no such thing.
There is, however, the prob-
lem of being too secular, which
is far more likely to occur. And
if we are afraid that our children
will rebel, then at least they will
have something unique to rebel
against and, therefore, have

something to return to after re-
bellion.
No other Jewish educational
environment can provide the in-
tensity, the creativity, the con-
sistency and the quality of
Jewish education needed to cre-
ate committed Jews as can the
day school.

No other Jewish
educational
environment can
provide the
intensity, the
creativity, the
consistency and
the quality of
Jewish education
needed to create
committed Jews as
can the day school.

This is not to say that the af-
ternoon Hebrew school cannot
and does not produce commit-
ted Jews.
However, only the day school
can deliver the kind of intensive
Jewish educational content that

we need to transmit to the next
generation. The day school pro-
vides a child with a Jewish ed-
ucation that does not have to
compete with his or her secular
education. It offers Jewish ed-
ucation in an academic and re-
ligious framework which is
taken seriously by both student
and parent.
The day school is not just
some private school that hap-
pens to have a lot ofJewish kids.
It is about saving the Jewish

souls of our children. If is about
parents who are willing to mort-
gage their homes so that they
do not have to mortgage their
children's Jewish future. It is
nothing short of saving the next
generation of the Jewish people.
The Federation is working
very hard to produce more dol-
lars so that there will be more
money available to meet the
needs of our community. The
day schools are doing everything
they can to provide tuition as-
sistance while at the same time
maintaining fiscal responsibil-
ity.
What lesson would we be
teaching our children if we did
not help to provide for our pop-
ulations at risk? As partners
with the Federation, we must
do more.
It was Moses Ibn Ezra who
said, "If you don't want to bear
the light burden of education,
then you will have to bear the
heavy burden of ignorance."
The financial burden of provid-
ing Jewish education is no
longer light, but the alternative
is unthinkable.
If our children are going to re-
main Jewish, if there is going to
be a next generation ofJews to
serve the boards of federations,
to provide for Jewish causes and
to fill our synagogues, then we
must invest now in the Jewish
education of our children. ❑

Imagine an im-
mense jigsaw
puzzle, large
enough to contain
all the pieces that
made an agree-
ment between Is-
rael and the
Palestinians pos-
sible. (I don't re-
ally mean all the pieces, else we'd
have to go back to Herzl or even
to Abraham. So let's arbitrarily
specify as our time frame just the
last 15 years.)
The historians who come
years from now to explain what
it was that led to the Israel-PLO
agreement on Gaza and Jericho
will, as historians do, seek to pre-
sent an orderly array of causes
leading to an inevitable result.
Inevitable? Yes, because that
which happened is, if adequate-
ly explained, retrospectively in-
evitable. If what happened —
that which you seek to explain
— had been other than it was,
then your depiction of causes
would likewise require change.
The one correct and complete
analysis points to but one con-
clusion.
Let's begin: Plainly, as all the
analysts have already said, the
collapse of the Soviet Union and
the end of the Cold War mat-
tered, as did the Gulf War.
(Here we see the first hint of
the historians' problem: A tru-
ly full accounting would have to
explain why Saddam Hussein
launched his war, why the PLO
chose to support him, why each
of the U.S. senators who backed
the war did so. Were we to fol-
low the trail back and wide
enough, we'd end up with an ex-
planation of everything — in-
cluding, ultimately, the beating
of the butterfly's wings. Even our
most powerful computers can-
not handle that much data, so
let's accept that even our richest
explanation is incomplete.)
The rise of Islamic funda-
mentalism belongs in our puz-
zle, as does the change of
government in Israel. So, too, go-
ing back a bit, do Anwar Sadat
coming to Jerusalem and Jim-
my Carter and the others as-
sembled at Camp David.
But all those are the easy
ones, large and obvious. What of
the bits and pieces that belong?
What of a Norwegian professor
who happened to talk with a
member of the Knesset who was
soon to become Israel's deputy
foreign minister, and a professor
at the University of Haifa who
gave the Norwegian some time?
(See how complicated it can
be, and how chancy? Suppose

Leonard Fein is a Boston-based

commentator on Jewish
issues.

the Haifa professor — his name
is Yair Hirschfeld — had been
on sabbatical? Suppose that the
Knesset member — Yossi Beilin
— had sent the Norwegian pro-
fessor — Terje Rod Larsen — to
see someone else, someone with
less imagination?)
And, moving somewhat far-
ther afield, what of Israel's vic-
tory in the $10 billion loan
guarantee debate, which may
have persuaded the PLO lead-
ership that there was simply no
way that the United States could
be weaned away from Israel?
What, therefore, of Tom Dine
and the others who helped fash-
ion that victory? (And, therefore,
what if Tom Dine's unfortunate
remarks regarding Orthodox
Jews had been published a cou-
ple of years before they were —
as well they might have been,
the interview in which he offered
those remarks having taken
place four years before the book

With the pule as
complete as we can
make it, all its
pieces in place,
now ask which
piece(s) you can
safely remove
without disturbing
the outcome.

in which they were included was
published?
But if Mr. Dine had been
forced to resign earlier, would
not others have picked up the
slack? Was any one person key
to the $10 billion victory? Prob-
ably not — but possibly yes.
What of the hard-liners here
in America — say, for example,
bad cops Abe Rosenthal and Bill
Safire of the New York Times —
who came to remind the PLO
people that they'd not win over
public opinion here, notwith-
standing some people's readiness
to rationalize terrorism?
And what of the peaceniks, of
Shalom Achshav in Israel and
Americans for Peace Now here?
Were they the good cops, the
ones who taught the PLO that
there was an option other than
total victory and total defeat —
and who taught the State De-
partment that American Jews
were not quite so monolithical-
ly hard-line as they sometimes
seemed, that there was, there-
fore, some running room for cre-
ative policy?

PEACE page 8