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Religious Vs. Secular — What Is the Right Way to Educate Jewish Children?
An empty classroom. Photo: Wiki Commons.
I have just returned from a very moving and memorable reunion of pupils of the Jewish Boarding school Carmel College, which my father founded in 1948. The school closed in 1997.
It was often called the Jewish Eton. Those who attended the reunion ranged from its very first year, to its last. I experienced Carmel as a rebellious pupil, and years later as its headmaster and principal. We all agreed that Carmel had a profound impact on our lives in one way or another.
The reunion included a debate in which I participated — “That Carmel College was a failed Jewish educational experiment.”
The motion was overwhelmingly defeated because nearly everyone there looked back on their Carmel experience with affection and gratitude, even if some did not at the time.
But the question was whether Carmel could be considered a model for Jewish education or whether it was just a unique child of its time.
When my father started Carmel College in 1948, it was at a time when the British Empire still existed, and Britain was a haven for refugees escaping the horrors of European Jew hatred. But even in Britain, antisemitism was manifest and this encouraged many Jews to assimilate or hide their identities.
The idea of Jewish education horrified many as an impediment to integration. Opposition to the project was fierce. My father argued that Jewish students in non-Jewish schools would always feel like outsiders. In Carmel, they would have the confidence of being insiders and better adjusted when eventually they did go out into the world.
My father persevered and Carmel grew under his charismatic leadership. Its success looked like being an example of how to educate young Jews to be confident in their identity, academically successful, and familiar with Judaism and its rituals. The beauty of its campus and its riverside location were amongst its greatest attractions.
But my father’s intentions for the school were very different to the school that emerged. Originally, he hoped there would be a balance between the Jewish and the secular. But the Jewish side was always the orphan. Jewish teachers were less academic though they compensated by offering hospitality and warmth. Most of the pupils came from homes that were not religious, and didn’t care for a Jewish education. Many parents effectively undermined the Jewish ethos.
There were a few who came from religious backgrounds who did care, and those who wanted to, could find teachers on the campus to help them thrive both religiously and in Jewish studies. But for the majority, it was difficult having to keep Shabbat and Kashrut.
My father was a tolerant, open-minded man, and he came to accept the reality, but he gloried in those few who went on to become rabbis and scholars.
Carmel was always a very expensive option. Its financial burden was all the greater because it had to fund the extra Jewish curriculum and because it offered so many scholarships and reductions. And because it was independent and was not seen as part of the community, it was always a problem to raise funds.
In the last days of his life, my father — who was a passionate, religious Zionist and convinced of Israel’s future — had already made plans for the future by establishing a Carmel school in Israel. With the help of Nachum Goldman, the head of the World Jewish Congress, he acquired land in Zichron Yaakov and produced a prospectus. Unfortunately, his premature death at the age of 48 in 1962, put paid to the scheme. Carmel carried on after his death until it closed in 1997.
But its history does raise the issue of whether it was the ideal form of Jewish education. Jewish education in the Diaspora has exploded since those days, primarily in the form of day schools from across the whole spectrum of Jewish life. Many are not that successful in producing religiously committed young men and women — and often, they can have a negative effect. Yet there are examples, mainly in the US, where excellence in both areas prove that at least it is possible to get the best of both worlds.
There is much debate as to whether Jewish schools should be spending more time teaching non-religious subjects like Jewish history, to give young men and women the tools to fight back against antisemitism and have a sense of where they come from. In Israel, of course, there are different issues. From the start of the State of Israel, religious and secular provided opposing cultures. But today, there are many more schools that try to offer both.
The Carmel example was successful in bringing young Jewish boys (and then at a later stage girls), from all different backgrounds, countries, and cultures together in one educational space, where they could also taste a Jewish life, something that most of them did not see at home.
There is no perfect solution to the challenge of Jewish education. We continue to struggle with the issues of how to pass on our Jewish identity to the next generation. But it’s becoming clearer that the pressures of society and peer groups challenge religious observance. It is the home that is the most determining factor of whether someone will live a Jewish life or not — although even then, there are no guarantees.
The only area in Jewish life where there is exponential growth is in the Charedi world, and even then, there are dropouts. There are no guarantees. And, sadly, as a reaction to Jew hatred, many are finding their way back to the Jewish world. Perhaps most importantly, there are other tools for Jewish survival that did not exist 50 years ago, from Jewish evangelicals to organized visits to Israel.
There are no golden bullets. Whatever works. So, to end with an example of Athens and Jerusalem, Shakespeare said “Good wombs have borne bad sons” (The Tempest Act 1, Scene 2). But the Mishnah says, “You do not have to finish the work, but neither can you give up” (Ethics Chapter 2.21).
The author is a writer and rabbi, currently based in New York.
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UN in Geneva Opens Exhibit on How Nazis Weaponized Soccer to Spread Hatred, Persecute Jewish Athletes
The Nuremberg rally in 1929 that the Nazi Party Congress held in Nuremberg, Germany on August 1–4. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.
An exhibition that opened at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, this week spotlights how the Nazis during World War II used sports, especially soccer, to spread their hateful ideology, underscore their power, and persecute Jewish athletes.
The exhibit, titled “Sports. Crowds. Power. Football under the Nazis,” opened on Monday at the Palais des Nations. It was created by the German non-profit What Matters and the Berlin Sports Museum, which hosted the exhibit last year from May 24-Aug. 15, and presented in cooperation with the World Jewish Congress. It was created in honor of the UEFA EURO 2024 in Germany and was shown at the Olympiapark in Berlin.
“Visitors might assume that it is an exhibition about football. I would say that through the lens of football and sports, you learn a great deal about the history of National Socialism,” said Andreas Kahrs from What Matters.
The exhibit “explores the nefarious role of sports under National Socialism and delves into how the Nazis manipulated sports to consolidate power, the tragic impact of the Holocaust on European Jewish athletes and sporting clubs, and the contemporary role of sports in combating antisemitism.”
It highlights the playing of soccer in Nazi concentration camps and draws attention to Jewish athletes who faced antisemitism and persecution, including American soccer star and former Ajax player Eddie Hamel, who was murdered with his family in the Auschwitz concentration camp, and German track-and-field athlete Lilli Henoch, who was also murdered by the Nazis. The exhibit does not skip over the fact that some German soccer players were Nazis like SS member Otto “Tull” Harder, a multiple German championship team member and national team striker who was commander of a Nazi subcamp where thousands of people died.
“The exhibition tells of destroyed and disappeared football clubs across Europe and looks at the long shadow of National Socialism in both West and East Germany,” What Matters explained. “Lines of continuity are drawn into the present as it further explores discrimination and exclusion in today’s football.”
The exhibit is currently on tour, with the UN in Geneva as its first stop. It was showcased at the UN from Sept. 8-12 and was not open to the public. It will open to the general public on Sunday until the 19th at the Hôtel Ramada Encore, next door to the Geneva Football Stadium, for daily guided tours.
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Ted Cruz Says Tucker Carlson ‘Turning Into Ilhan Omar,’ Warns of ‘Rising Antisemitism on the Right’
US Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) speaking at a press conference about the United States restricting weapons for Israel, at the US Capitol, Washington, DC. Photo: Michael Brochstein/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect
US Sen. Ted Cruz (TX) raised alarm bells this week over what he described as “rising antisemitism” on the political right, warning that podcaster and former Fox News host Tucker Carlson is “turning into Ilhan Omar,” the far-left US lawmaker, by spreading anti-Israel and even antisemitic rhetoric.
Cruz made the remarks on Wednesday during an event at the Heritage Foundation, a prominent conservative think tank, where he also discussed his legislation to designate the Muslim Brotherhood and its affiliates, including Hamas, as foreign terrorist organizations.
Cruz criticized Carlson for questioning Hamas’s status as a terrorist group and for hosting guests who have minimized historical atrocities, including the Holocaust. He expressed concern that antisemitism could be emerging as a more potent political force on the right.
“I will say I am concerned about rising antisemitism on the right,” Cruz said. “In the last six months, what we’ve seen on the right has been deeply disturbing.”
The conservative lawmaker specifically pointed to Carlson, a right-wing commentator and online provocateur.
“Tucker Carlson is turning into Ilhan Omar. This is bizarre. This is ridiculous,” Cruz added.
In a June interview with Cruz, Carlson questioned the merits of the US-Israel alliance, asking why lobbyists for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) shouldn’t register as foreign agents and whether the US was receiving adequate returns on its financial support to Israel. Cruz, a staunch supporter of Israel, suggested Carlson’s questions were motivated by antisemitism, leading to a heated exchange between the two.
“You’re asking, ‘Why are the Jews controlling our foreign policy?’” Cruz stated. “If you’re not an antisemite, give me another reason why the obsession is Israel.”
Omar has established herself as harsh critic of Israel who has accused the Jewish state of committing “ethnic cleansing” in Gaza and erecting an “apartheid” government in the West Bank. The lawmaker has also publicly declared support for the boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement (BDS), an initiative which seeks to turn the Jewish state into an international pariah as a first step to its eventual destruction.
Omar further drew backlash on Thursday over her comments regarding the assassination of conservative commentator Charlie Kirk this week.
Omar strongly criticized attempts to frame Kirk purely as an advocate of civil debate, calling such portrayals “full of s**t” and a “complete rewriting of history.”
“These people are out there talking about him just wanting to have a civil debate,” Omar said. “It’s important for us to call them out while we feel anger and sadness.”
“What I do know for sure is that, you know, Charlie was someone who once said, you know, guns save lives after a school shooting. Charlie was someone who was willing to debate and downplay the death of George Floyd in the hands of Minneapolis police,” she stated.
Omar also said that Kirk inflamed racial tensions through downplaying “slavery and what Black people have gone through in this country by saying Juneteenth should never exist.”
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Jerry Seinfeld Compares ‘Free Palestine’ Movement to KKK at Duke Event for Former Hamas Hostage
Jerry Seinfeld attends the premiere of Netflix’s “Unfrosted” at the Egyptian Theatre in Los Angeles, California, US, April 30, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/David Swanson
Jewish comedian Jerry Seinfeld said during an appearance at Duke University on Tuesday that supporters of the “Free Palestine”movement are worse than the white supremacist Ku Klux Klan group.
Seinfeld, whose youngest son attends the school in Durham, North Carolina, made the remarks while introducing Omer Shem Tov, a former Hamas hostage who was kidnapped by terrorists from the Nova music festival in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. He was freed after 505 days in captivity as part of a ceasefire agreement in February. Hundreds attended the event at Duke’s Page Auditorium to hear Shem Tov speak about experiences in a discussion on stage with the event’s moderator, North Carolina State Sen. Sophia Chitlik (D-Durham). The event was organized largely by Chabad at Duke, with sponsorship from Duke’s Provost’s Initiative on the Middle East, university centers, and Jewish student groups on campus.
During Seinfeld’s opening remarks, he said, “Free Palestine is, to me, just — you’re free to say you don’t like Jews. Just say you don’t like Jews.”
“By saying ‘Free Palestine,’ you’re not admitting what you really think,” he continued. “So, it’s actually — compared to the Ku Klux Klan, I’m actually thinking the Klan is actually a little better here because they can come right out and say, ‘We don’t like Blacks, we don’t like Jews.’ OK, that’s honest.” His comments were reported by Duke’s student newspaper, The Chronicle.
Only Duke students, staff, and faculty were permitted to attend the event. Seinfeld’s appearance was a surprise and was not publicized beforehand. A university spokesperson told The Chronicle on Tuesday night that Seinfeld had “requested his appearance not be announced beforehand, given Omer Shem Tov’s experiences were the focus of the event.”
“Duke does not preview the remarks of speakers who are invited to campus, and the invitation of speakers to campus does not imply any endorsement of their remarks,” the spokesperson added.
Mason Herman, a senior at Duke and student president of the school’s Chabad, told NBC News that Chabad and the university are not responsible for remarks made by an invited speaker. “This event was highlighting the fact that there are more than 40 hostages still in Gaza,” he said. “To one, raise awareness of that fact, and two, to share their plight while in captivity. And to share Omer’s story.”
The last time Seinfeld spoke publicly at Duke was when he delivered the school’s commencement address in May 2024. His older son graduated that year from Duke. The school’s decision to have Seinfeld deliver the commencement address was criticized by some because of his pro-Israel views and dozens of students walked out of the ceremony in protest. Seinfeld’s daughter, Sascha, who is now a reporter for Bari Weiss’ news outlet The Free Press, is also an alum of Duke.
After the deadly massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, Seinfeld posted a message on Instagram that said, “I Stand With Israel,” and shared that he lived and worked on a kibbutz in Israel when he was a teenager. In December of the same year, Seinfeld’s family traveled to Israel to meet with families of Israeli hostages and others impacted by the attack. During the trip, there was a missile attack, and the family had to seek shelter.
Seinfeld later said the experience gave him an understanding of what it means to live through and experience a war. He also told Weiss during an emotional interview that the trip was “the most powerful experience of my life.” He added that when he made “Seinfeld” in the 1990s, he thought that antisemitism was “seemingly a relic of history books.”
Seinfeld talked more about that trip to Israel during his remarks at Duke on Tuesday. He said his family visited Israel to “call attention to the plight of the hostages” and met with “several groups of hostage family members,” with whom they connected in a “heartbreaking moment.”
“So, to be here tonight and experiencing this is really incredible,” the comedian said before Shem Tov’s address on stage.
Shem Tov, who was 20 years old when he was kidnapped, told the crowd on Tuesday that he remembers being kicked, punched, and spit on as he was taken into captivity. “You cannot take your life for granted,” he told the audience, as reported by The Chronicle. “You have to understand that in a split second your life could change.”
Hamas-led terrorists murdered 1,200 people and kidnapped 251 hostages across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Hamas is still holding captive 48 people who were abducted and 20 of those hostages are believed to be alive.