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The Jewish ‘Bubble’ — and Why It Still Matters for Our Future
Muhlenberg College students leaving for a Birthright Israel trip.
Photo: Facebook via Hillel: Taglit-Birthright Israel.
One of the most revealing questions you can ask a Jewish college student today is not what they think about Israel or how they view campus politics. It is whether they ever lived inside a real Jewish world before arriving at school.
Dan Senor‘s three touchstones — Jewish day school, Jewish summer camp, and a meaningful trip to Israel — turn out to be less about nostalgia than about survival. As antisemitism continues to erupt across America’s elite campuses, the students who remain confident, anchored, and unafraid are almost always those who experienced these “Jewish bubbles” long before anyone tried to tell them what being Jewish should mean.
I saw this long before I became a professor embedded in the world of higher education.
In my essay “High School Should Be Upsetting,” I wrote about attending Akiba Hebrew Academy — a pluralistic Jewish day school outside of Philadelphia — where nothing was uniform and everything required thinking. Some classmates kept kosher; others grabbed pizza and burgers freely. Some welcomed Shabbat with reverence; others barely thought about it. These were not superficial differences. They forced us into the daily work of argument, interpretation, and meaning-making. We learned that Jewish identity can withstand disagreement — that disagreement is itself a generative part of Jewish life. That formation did not insulate me from the world. It prepared me for it.
It also gave me something deeper. As I argued recently in “The Lessons We Were Taught and the Ones Being Forgotten,” Jewish classrooms once fused the study of prophets with photographs of Auschwitz, maps of Israel, and the trembling voices of survivors.
We learned early that justice without memory collapses into performance, that Jewish survival is not just historical but moral, and that being a Jew means carrying responsibility, not merely sentiment. These lessons were not designed to make us comfortable. They were designed to make us serious. That seriousness — an identity rooted in obligation rather than performance — is exactly what steadies young Jews today when campus climates turn hostile or morally confused.
Senor’s intuition about the “bubble” is more than anecdotal. It is empirically true. Jewish day school graduates consistently exhibit higher levels of Jewish literacy, deeper ritual practice, and stronger communal commitment, according to decades of Avi Chai Foundation research.
Jewish summer camps extend that formation into adolescence; the Foundation for Jewish Camp has repeatedly shown that alumni maintain Jewish friendships at dramatically higher rates and build Jewish homes of their own with greater confidence and intention. These friendships become ballast — the quiet, steadying presence of peers who share memory and meaning.
Rabbi Jonathan Sacks captured the heart of this when he wrote, “Moses and Aaron epitomize the two great roles in Jewish continuity — horim and morim — parents and teachers. A parent hands on the Jewish heritage to their children; a teacher does likewise to their disciples.” That investment — of presence, attention, and seriousness — is exactly what day schools, camps, youth groups, and Israel programs offer when they are at their best. They do not simply transmit heritage; they cultivate character. They shape conscience. They give young Jews a framework sturdy enough to meet the world without losing themselves.
Israel trips add something irreplaceable: narrative consciousness. Research on Birthright and other immersive Israel programs shows that participants return with a firmer sense of peoplehood, greater historical awareness, and a deeper understanding that being Jewish is a source of responsibility rather than defensiveness. Students who have walked the streets of Jerusalem or listened to the wind on the Golan Heights are not easily undone by slogans or distortions. They have seen complexity — and beauty — for themselves.
These experiences form a pipeline. Day schools cultivate literacy. Camps cultivate community. Israel cultivates memory. Together, they produce adults who are not bewildered by the demands of identity but strengthened by them. When students have studied texts, lived in Jewish community, and seen Jewish history with their own eyes, they carry an inner architecture that does not collapse when external pressure rises.
That was the theme running through the 2025 Tikvah Jewish Leadership Conference, where Senor spoke to a standing-room crowd. Again and again, speakers returned to the same truth: Jewish continuity will not be secured through slogans or reactive outrage. It will be secured through communities and institutions that form Jews — thickly, relationally, substantively. The future belongs to those who build Jewish life with depth, not performance.
And yet we find ourselves in a moment when the very infrastructure that sustains Jewish identity is thinning. Too many families treat day school as a luxury, camp as optional, Israel trips as politically fraught, and synagogue life as intermittent. Young Jews arrive on campus with warm feelings but thin foundations — a Judaism made of nostalgia rather than knowledge. Then the pressure comes, from peers and professors alike, and the identity that once felt easy suddenly feels fragile.
The greatest threat to young Jews today is not a lack of passion. It is a lack of preparation. Jewish identity cannot be episodic. It cannot survive on aesthetic appreciation or occasional observance. It flourishes when it is lived — daily, joyfully, rigorously, and in the company of others. If we want Jewish students to stand tall under pressure, then we must give them foundations deep enough to bear the weight.
Senor’s questions are diagnostic. They reveal whether a young Jew has ever inhabited a Jewish world strong enough to carry them through a hostile one. They show whether a student possesses not just ancestry but anchoring, not just identity but backbone.
The “bubble” is not a retreat from reality. It is preparation for reality. It is where young Jews learn who they are before others attempt to define them. And at a moment when antisemitism is rising, institutions are wobbling, and confusion is spreading, we should not apologize for strengthening these bubbles. We should expand them — boldly.
If we want confident, resilient, morally serious Jewish adults, we must give them confident, resilient, morally serious Jewish childhoods. Identity does not appear out of thin air. It is formed — deliberately, lovingly, and over time.
The bubble, it turns out, is not the weakness our critics imagine.
It is the most important thing we still know how to build.
Samuel J. Abrams is a professor of politics at Sarah Lawrence College and a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
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Netanyahu Coalition Pushes Contentious Oct. 7 Attack Probe, Families Call for Justice
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu participates in the state memorial ceremony for the fallen of the Iron Swords War on Mount Herzl, Jerusalem on Oct. 16, 2025. Photo: Alex Kolomoisky/POOL/Pool via REUTERS
Israel‘s parliament gave the initial go-ahead on Wednesday for a government-empowered inquiry into the surprise October 7, 2023 attack by Hamas terrorists on southern Israel rather than the expected independent investigation demanded by families of the victims.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has resisted calls to establish a state commission to investigate Israel‘s failures in the run-up to its deadliest day and has taken no responsibility for the attack that sparked the two-year Gaza war.
His ruling coalition voted on Wednesday to advance a bill which grants parliament members the authority to pick panel members for an inquiry and gives Netanyahu’s cabinet the power to set its mandate.
Critics say the move circumvents Israel‘s 1968 Commissions of Inquiry Law, under which the president of the Supreme Court appoints an independent panel to investigate major state failures such as those which preceded the 1973 Yom Kippur war.
Survivors and relatives of those hurt in the Hamas attack have launched a campaign against the proposed probe, saying only a state commission can bring those accountable to justice.
“This is a day of disaster for us all,” said Eyal Eshel, who lost his daughter when Hamas militants overran the army base where she served. “Justice must be done and justice will be done,” he said at the Knesset, before the vote.
Surveys have shown wide public support for the establishment of a state commission into the country’s biggest security lapse in decades.
Netanyahu said on Monday that a panel appointed in line with the new bill, by elected officials from both the opposition and the coalition, would be independent and win broad public trust.
But Israel‘s opposition has already said it will not cooperate with what it describes as an attempt by Netanyahu’s coalition to cover up the truth rather than reveal it, arguing that the investigation would ultimately be controlled by Netanyahu and his coalition.
The new bill says that if the politicians fail to agree on the panel, its make-up will be decided by the head of parliament, who is allied with Netanyahu and is a member of his Likud party.
Jon Polin, whose son Hersh Goldberg-Polin was taken hostage and found slain by his captors with five other hostages in a Hamas tunnel in August 2024, said only a trusted commission could restore security and unite a nation still traumatized.
“I support a state commission, not to see anyone punished and not because it will bring back my only son, no. I support a state commission so that nothing like what happened to my son, can ever happen to your son, or your daughter, or your parents,” Polin said on Sunday at a news conference with other families.
Hersh Goldberg-Polin was among dozens of hostages taken in the 2023 attack from the site of the Nova music festival.
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Christmas Celebrations Muted at Bondi as Australians Grieve After Deadly Shooting
People attend the ‘Light Over Darkness’ vigil honoring victims and survivors of a deadly mass shooting during a Jewish Hanukkah celebration at Bondi Beach on Dec. 14, in Sydney, Australia, Dec. 21, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Hollie Adams
Christmas celebrations were muted at Sydney’s famed Bondi Beach on Thursday in the aftermath of a terror attack that killed 15 people there more than a week ago, as the community continued to grapple with the country’s deadliest mass shooting in nearly three decades.
Police patrolled across the beachfront in Bondi, a traditional Christmas destination, as hundreds of people, many wearing Santa hats, gathered on the sands.
“I think it’s tragic, and I think everybody respects and is very sad for what happened, and I think people here are out on the beach, because it’s like a celebration but everybody has got it in their memories and everybody is respectful of what happened,” British tourist Mark Conroy told Reuters.
“Everyone is feeling for the family and friends who are going through the worst possible thing you could imagine.”
The gun attack on December 14 at a Jewish Hanukkah celebration has prompted calls for stricter gun laws and tougher action against antisemitism, while public gathering rules in Sydney have been tightened under new laws passed on Wednesday.
Beachgoers were seen taking photos next to a Christmas tree while some posed with lifeguards, although windy weather conditions appeared to thin crowds.
“It’s not the best conditions for Christmas Day today, it’s a bit choppy. … so not ideal, but people are still here,” Surf Life Saving Patrol Captain Thomas Hough said.
Flags flew at half mast outside the heritage-listed Bondi Pavilion building near the site of the attack, which police say was allegedly carried out by a father and son, inspired by the militant group Islamic State.
In Melbourne, a car with a “Happy Chanukah!” sign was set alight on Christmas Day in the city’s southeast, with no injuries reported, Australian media reported.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, facing mounting criticism from opponents who argue his government has not done enough to curb a rise in antisemitism, called the firebombing of the car “just beyond comprehension.”
“What sort of evil ideology and thoughts at a time like this would motivate someone?,” Albanese told reporters on Thursday.
Since the start of Israel’s war in Gaza in October 2023, there have been attacks against synagogues, Jewish buildings and cars in Australia.
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‘Poles Watching Can Be Proud’: Director Defends Holocaust Film 10-Years in the Making Sparking Backlash in Poland
Pelagia Radecka, featured in “Among Neighbors.” Photo: Courtesy of 8 Above
A documentary that addresses the historic and well-documented murder of hundreds of Holocaust survivors by local Poles in the aftermath of World War II has stirred political controversy within the Eastern European country, but its director told The Algemeiner the film mentions a lot that Poles can be proud of.
“There are stories within the film that Poles can look at and be proud of how those individuals acted during and since World War II,” said Yoav Potash, the Jewish award-winning writer, producer and director of “Among Neighbors.”
“And there are also stories that may make people feel like it’s a shame, that some Poles behaved the way they did,” he added. “And that’s an appropriate and mature response. To look at the history of your own nation and say, ‘Wow, some of us really failed in our decency and humanity.’”
Potash’s documentary “Among Neighbors” focuses on a handful of particular stories in the small town of Gniewoszów, in north-central Poland, where Jews were murdered by their Polish Catholic neighbors months after the war ended – neighbors whom they once lived peacefully with for centuries before World War II. The film uses hand-drawn animation as well as first-hand testimonies and interviews with Holocaust survivors, locals and World War II experts in Poland to tell the stories of Jews who were liberated at the end of the Holocaust only to be then murdered by local Poles when returning home.
At the heart of the film is Yaacov Goldstein, one of the last living Holocaust survivors from Gniewoszów, and Pelagia Radecka, a local Polish eyewitness who saw Jews murdered in Gniewoszów by her Polish neighbors, six months after the Nazis were defeated. Radecka has fond memories of her Jewish neighbors and at the age of 85, she remains scarred by their murders, and efforts by the murderers and politicians to silence her. She holds on to the hope that she will find the Jewish boy who is the surviving child of two of the victims murdered by local Poles. Goldstein talks in the film about his wartime experiences and the brutal conditions he was forced to endure to survive the Holocaust, which include hiding for two years in a storage compartment so small he could not straighten his legs and escaping execution by a Nazi firing squad because of “a miracle.”
Several elders from Gniewoszów were interviewed for “Among Neighbors” and all but two have since died. The film features their final testimony.
It took Potash 10 years to make “Among Neighbors,” the filmmaker from California told The Algemeiner. He said he was basically “flying under the radar” filming the project in Poland when the country passed a law in 2018 criminalizing any claims that the Polish nation or state was complicit in the Holocaust. The controversial legislation, making it illegal to accuse Poland of colluding with the Nazis, was championed by the ruling nationalist Law and Justice party. The country has a long-standing history of promoting the narrative that Poles were only victims in Nazi-occupied Poland. In November, Polish Member of Parliament Grzegorz Braun declared “Poland is for the Poles” and that Jews “have their own countries” during a speech outside the site of the former Auschwitz concentration camp.
“Among Neighbors” made its world premiere at the Warsaw Jewish Film Festival last year, where it won the festival’s Special Award. Poland’s national public broadcaster TVP aired the film in November and its television premiere garnered well over 100,000 viewers, according to Potash. “Among Neighbors” is still available for viewers in Poland on TVP’s streaming platform.
But on Nov. 16, six days after “Among Neighbors” aired and began streaming in Poland, senior Polish officials and right-wing media outlets condemned both the film and TVP. Agnieszka Jędrzak, undersecretary to Polish President Karol Nawrocki, called the film “anti-Polish historical manipulation” in a post on X. The National Broadcasting Council of Poland (KRRiT) has since launched an investigation into TVP, which is ongoing. So far TVP is standing by its broadcast of the film and has not removed “Among Neighbors” from its streaming platform.
Speaking to The Algemeiner, Potash insisted that “Among Neighbors” is “not an anti-Polish film.”
“I think there is plenty in the film for Poles to look at and be proud of,” he explained. “And that would include the story of the man who forged papers for Jews in Gniewoszów and saved the lives of at least nine people by giving them false papers that could make them appear to be not Jewish, so they can flee Poland and get to safety. In addition to including this story in the film, we contacted Yad Vashem and told them we had someone to add to the Righteous Among the Nations. And we made that happen. In 2018, he was inducted posthumously. We felt like this individual deserves that special honor.”
Potash added that Polish viewers can also be proud of Radecka “because she showed a lot of courage overcoming overwhelming pressure from the murderers, and later the politicians, who tried to silence her.” He criticized “extreme nationalists” in Poland who are “only concerned with the fact that this film also pokes some very large holes in a narrow and oversimplified view that some in Poland have of themselves and their national identity, especially how it relates to World War II.”
The filmmaker said he was not the least bit surprised about the political backlash that the film has received in Poland, considering the “very divided and politically charged atmosphere in Poland, especially around their World War II history.”
“There is a popular national myth in Poland that during World War II, Poles were only heroes or victims. Nothing else,” he said. “I think for many years, children and adults in Poland have largely been taught and fed this myth … Even today, roughly half the country is still clinging to a fantasy version of history that denies the extent to which Poles were complicit in either pointing out to Nazis where Jews were hiding or doing much worse, such as is revealed in my film, which is that some Poles continued to kill Jews even after the war was over, the Nazis were defeated and gone.”
“The reality is that when World War II was over, Holocaust survivors came back to their shtetls [a small Jewish town or village] seeking out others who may have survived, wondering, ‘Can we regroup here? Is it even possible to restart our lives in the towns that we loved and where we’ve lived our entire lives?’ And these murders that took place across Poland told them, ‘Absolutely not. You are not welcome. You cannot restart, you cannot continue life in the shtetl.’”
“Among Neighbors” is currently playing in select US theaters and film festivals. It won the Audience Award at the San Francisco Independent Film Festival, three awards from the Teaneck International Film Festival, and the Jewish Film Institute’s Envision Award. Still, Potash told The Algemeiner that the film has received negative reactions from some streaming platforms and major film festivals. He shared a story of a major streamer that told him the documentary was not “broad enough” for their platform.
“To be not ‘broad enough’ sounds like a nicer way of saying ‘too Jewish,’” Potash said. “I worked really hard to try to make this film as universal as possible. And I think the themes of can we confront out history honestly, even the parts that are difficult, that applies across the board to just about every country and society in the world. Unfortunately, releasing this film during this post-Oct. 7 [2023] environment that been really, really challenging. A lot of major festivals and streamers don’t want to get near content that’s seen as ‘too Jewish.’”
While TVP remains under investigation by the National Broadcasting Council of Poland for airing “Among Neighbors,” Potash encourages Poles to see the documentary for themselves and make their own judgements about the film.
“Don’t believe all the out of context ranting about the film that’s coming from political extremists and historical revisionists in Poland,” he explained. “I think it’s important for people to see this film because it gets into the real complexities of how history actually unfolded. It resists the simple narrative of: ‘We were heroes, and these were the villains, and these were the victims.’ It wasn’t always so black and white; so simple. The real stories that came out of this situation were quite complex. And those simplistic narratives don’t always fit.”
The USC Shoah Foundation — founded in 1994 by Steven Spielberg with the goal of recording, preserving, and sharing testimonies related to the Holocaust — has partnered with the JFCS Holocaust Center to create an educational curriculum so “Among Neighbors” can be used in classrooms as part of Holocaust education. A portion of revenue generated by the film benefits the JFCS Holocaust Center.
Watch the trailer for “Among Neighbors” below.