OUR COMMUNITY

P

romise Ziegler of Royal Oak joined a 
recent webinar presented by JFamily 
and Jewish Family Service to find 
out how the community was coping with 
recent events in Israel and more about how 
to help her son, 15, if he came to her about 
the news. 
Taking part in the “Parenting and Grand-
Parenting in Times of Tragedy: Talking to 
our Children about Israel” Zoom event, 
she heard from David Kurzmann of Jewish 
Federation of Metropolitan Detroit, as well 
as mental health professionals from Jewish 
Family Service. She also took part in a 

breakout room — there were several divid-
ed by kids’ age — which gave her a better 
understanding of how to help him without 
overloading or overwhelming him, Ziegler 
says. 
“They’re encouraging parents not to 
overexpose to the news and kind of check if 
teenagers are seeing things on their phones,
” 
she says. “Because I think for a lot of teen-
agers, they’re really quite smart and they 
know about things.
” 
Ziegler says the event felt responsive, and 
that she was glad to see it acknowledge the 
struggles people are going through in trying 

to manage the day-to-day realities of both 
getting the news and trying to figure out 
how much to process. 
“They encouraged us not to oversaturate 
ourselves with that kind of news,
” she says. 
“When you read these stories or follow the 
news, it activates these kinds of feelings 
where you feel stressed and upset, and par-
ents have to determine if they need to talk 
to their kids about it.
”
Ziegler says she came away with ideas 
around helping her son filter his media 
consumption to the best of her ability and 
even how to wonder with kids about what 

JFamily and JFS provided a webinar for parents and grandparents about 
how to discuss the Israel-Hamas war with children.

Talking to Our Children 
About Israel

KAREN SCHWARTZ CONTRIBUTING WRITER

22 | OCTOBER 26 • 2023 J
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