12 | AUGUST 26 • 2021 

essay
Israel Education, Not Advocacy, 
Belongs in the Classroom
I

’ve dealt with all kinds of 
conflicts as an Israel educa-
tor the past 25 years, from 
the mad parent who storms in 
and says, “Why do you have 
that map on 
your wall and 
not this map?” to 
the parents who 
get into fights 
in the carpool 
line because they 
don’t agree about 
something tak-
ing place or what somebody 
posted on Instagram.
Israel education could face 
even more pitfalls and political 
pressure this fall after May’s 
conflict in Gaza and a new 
survey of American Jewish 
voters that found 22% of all 
respondents believe that Israel 
is committing genocide against 
the Palestinians and that 20% 
of respondents under age 40 
don’t believe that Israel has a 
right to exist. 
It’s challenging to make the 
classroom a safe environment 
for such conversations if the 
home and community are 
not. That’s why it’s important 
to take the stance we have 
adopted at the Center for Israel 
Education: Educators should 
not use their podiums to 
spread their political views or 
launch polemics.
Our job is not to tell stu-
dents what to think, but rather 
to train them how to think, an 
effort best accomplished by 
incorporating as many prima-
ry sources and as many differ-
ent voices as possible.
Taking that apolitical stance, 

checking your biases at the 
classroom threshold, is an 
empowering approach to the 
education of Israel for teachers 
and students. Educators can 
explain to parents that their job 
is to enable students to think 
critically for themselves, to 
assess sources, to understand 
the differences between history 
and narrative and between 
competing narratives, and to 
appreciate the ideals of a Jewish 
state and its realities, which are 
messy, complex and imperfect.
Israel educators should 
establish a tone of respectful 
discourse incorporating lis-
tening and critical thinking 
at the beginning of the school 
year. It’s OK to disagree with 
somebody else’s opinions and 
ideas, as long as the discussion 
is based on the sources.
That’s how we teach every 
other subject. A literature stu-
dent, for example, who wants 
to assert that Nietzsche or 
Sartre was a nihilist has to pro-
vide evidence from texts, not 
just cite a parent, a teacher or a 
social media influencer.
Educators also must help 
students understand the 
vagaries of vocabulary: What 
words are laden and to whom? 
“Occupation” means different 
things to different people, and 
there are reasons some peo-
ple talk of Judea and Samaria 
while others speak of the West 
Bank.
Understanding vocabulary is 
a skill that needs to be taught, 
as are map reading and literary 
analysis. When we teach stu-
dents these skill sets, we enable 

them to reach and defend con-
clusions based on documents 
they’ve examined themselves.
That educational approach is 
far different from the advocacy 
model: “If you hear X, you 
should say Y.” My two kids, 
who are now in college, would 
have rebelled if I had told 
them that. They would have 
done the opposite just because 
they were teens.
We can’t engage, empower 
and prepare students for those 
tricky conversations by teach-
ing them automatic answers 
or avoiding the complexities 
altogether. That path leads to 
students concluding that their 
teachers lied to them and to 
believing the worst accusations 
against Israel.
Instead, we educators must 
tackle those difficult topics by 
modeling respectful, informed 
conversations regardless of 
personal opinions about, say, 
whether Israel used dispropor-
tionate force in Gaza in May. 
We must provide historical 
context and complexity to 
equip our students with resil-
ience and help them become 
critical consumers of informa-

tion so that the slogans they 
encounter on campus and 
social media don’t resonate.
This endeavor can’t be limit-
ed to one Judaic studies class-
room; it has to be embedded 
into the daily consciousness 
and experiences of everyone in 
the school. It requires support 
from non-Jewish educators 
and those teaching science 
and math, literature and social 
studies. It involves school 
administrators, board mem-
bers, rabbis and parents engag-
ing in those same respectful, 
informed conversations and 
accepting that the best practice 
in Israel education is to treat it 
as education.
That’s how we avoid the 
pitfalls and politicization of 
teaching about Israel and pro-
duce thoughtful Jewish adults 
who can engage with difficult 
questions rather than drown in 
competing narratives. 

Tal Grinfas-David is the vice presi-

dent of outreach and pre-collegiate 

school management initiatives for the 

nonprofit, nonpartisan Center for Israel 

Education in Atlanta and is a former 

Jewish day school principal.

Dr. Tal 
Grinfas-David

PURELY COMMENTARY

CIE/ISMI Teen Israel 
Leadership Institute 
Sept. 19 and 26, 2021

Teens in grades 10-12 are invited to apply for this 
enriching virtual opportunity where CIE staff impart 
leadership ideas for sharing an understanding of Israel 
with their peers in their communities. Participants will 
gain tools for shrewdly interpreting contemporary 
events and framing them in context. Apply at 
israeled.org.

