In 2023, I had the opportunity to learn from the Israel educator and researcher, Sivan Zakai. She spoke about the glue and scissors effect Israel has had on the American Jewish community: “In Diaspora Jewish life and Jewish education, Israel has functioned both like glue and like scissors, simultaneously uniting and dividing.” (S. Zakai, live lecture, June 26, 2023) In her estimation this has been true for every era since the rise of modern Zionism except for one: the decade following the 1967 war. Rather, in this period, “a new purpose for Israel education began to emerge: promoting American Jewish love of Israel.” (Zakai, 2014) It just so happens that I was born during this golden era of American Jewish love of Israel and that has, no doubt, greatly influenced my relationship to Israel.
Nevertheless, throughout my life I have had to come to terms with an Israel that is not always lovely. Plus, in recent years, the scissors effect Israel has had on the American Jewish community has been overwhelming at times. My work in the George Washington University’s Master’s in Israel Education has given me time, space, and countless invaluable resources for processing how to be in a conversation about Israel that honors the “heart-eyed” idealism of my youth and takes seriously the messiness of the modern State of Israel. As an Israel educator, this is my goal for my learners, as well: to offer them time, space, and guidance so that they might be able to reconcile an ideal Israel with the realities of Israel. To do this, Israel education must lay a groundwork for relationship with Israel as a global community and as a modern state. It must replace simplistic narratives with nuance, fostering a resilient connection to an imperfect, authentic Jewish nation.
Israel is not an easy topic for most people today. Even those of us who maintain a deep-seeded love for Zionism and the Jewish state are tempted to throw up our hands when we hear of this action or that action that the Israeli government has taken (or not taken). One side cries foul at the Judiciary Review the other side cries foul at forcing yeshiva students to serve in the army. Even amongst the most dedicated Jews, everyone has something for which they can rail against Israel! Perhaps, however, we can find common ground in a shared understanding in the absolute right of the Jewish people to self-governance and self-determination and, therefore, in Israel’s right to exist. Personally, I have been working hard on moving away from defensive advocacy and towards an acceptance of multiple narratives. I have offered my learners the language of “yes, and” in the hopes that they will consider other points of views and, just as important, that they will take their own view seriously. My goal is that they will be able to disagree with others without having to tear themselves or each other down. This has always been a hallmark of Reform movement philosophy - stemming from one of our core values: choice through knowledge. Ultimately, we need to craft our own path through the Jewish landscape, including how each one of us relates to Israel; the more knowledge I can give my learners, however, the more equipped they will be to make choices about this relationship and the easier it will be for them to navigate difficult conversations down the road.
Over the course of the last two years, there have been more than a few articles that have had a profound impact on how I imagine educating my students about Israel. For example, Matt Evans, in his article, “Information dissemination in new media: YouTube and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict” - about the differences between pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian YouTube videos - has changed how I look at social media and how I encourage my students to consider what they find in their feeds. (Evans, 2016) We now take time to analyze the empirical means a video uses versus the visceral themes it employs in order to assess how data driven it is or how much it is relying on an emotional response. Alon Confino, in his article, “The Warm Sand of the Coast of Tantura: History and Memory in Israel after 1948,” guides us through two competing narratives through a series of aerial maps. (Confino, 2015) This ability to dissect two competing narratives and through such a rarely used visual medium has allowed me to reconsider how we talk about historical narratives and has prompted me to utilize maps in different and novel ways. Early in the program, however, I read a handful of articles around what is often termed experiential education [please refer to my Position Paper: Jewish Education Beyond the Formal for my thoughts about this term and its limitations] that may have had the keenest impact on my work in Israel education. Articles on how a wine tasting class creates a moment of performance which is consequential to the realization of knowledge (King et al., 2012) and on the power of raw-aesthetic experience in making education more sticky (Doddington, 2014) and on how tourism can create intimate attachments that forever change the participants relationship to Judaism and Israel (Kelner, 2010) all drilled into me the importance of immersive and sensorial educative experiences. These articles helped me imagine how I might actualize John Dewey’s theory that education be approached as a “continuing reconstruction of experience.” (Dewey, 1897)
I would be remiss to not mention two books that have shaped my approach on Israel education, as well: Side by side: Parallel histories of Israel-Palestine (Adwan et al., 2012) and Arabs and Israelis: Conflict and peacemaking in the Middle East (Said Aly et al., 2022). Both have become invaluable resources in my goal to present a more complex narrative around Israel and the conflicts she is embroiled in. I greatly appreciate how both books take great care to be respectful to multiple perspectives - validating each without tearing down the other. I have used both books as references when creating my curricula and, at times, directly with my students.
So far, while studying in this program, I have had the opportunity to develop four curricula:
An Israeli Geography based unit for 4th graders
A unit on Zionism & Aliyah for 6th graders
A social studies based unit for 8th graders
A class on viewing Israel through social media for high schoolers
I will continue to develop curricula that allow me and my students to explore the Israel that we love along with the messiness that is a natural part of a real imperfect nation with real imperfect people.
There was a time when I was unable to talk about Israel with anyone who might challenge the “heart-eyed” ideal Israel I had crafted in my mind. I am so thankful for the George Washington University’s Master’s in Israel Education program for guiding me through to a place where, not only am I open to the conversations, I now welcome each conversation as an opportunity to add complexities and nuances to my narrative around Israel; the more complexities and nuances I add to my narrative around Israel, the more multidimensional it becomes; the more multidimensional it is, the more secure I feel in my relationship to Israel; the more secure I feel in my relationship to Israel, the less threatened I am by competing narratives and welcome hearing them! It has become a perpetual cycle of positivity through conflict rather than despite conflict.
I am truly excited to continue to apply my new outlook on Israel education and the narratives that surround it in my work at Am Shalom and throughout my professional life.
Adwan, S., Bar-On, D., & Naveh, E. (Eds.). (2012). Side by side: Parallel histories of Israel-Palestine. The New Press.
Confino, A. (2015). The Warm Sand of the Coast of Tantura: History and Memory in Israel after 1948. History & Memory 27(1), 43-82.
Dewey, J (1897), "My Pedagogic Creed
Doddington, C. (2014). “Education in the Open: The Somaesthetic Value of Being Outside.” Other Education: The Journal of Educational Alternatives
Evans, M. (2016). Information dissemination in new media: YouTube and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Media, War & Conflict. 9. 10.1177
Kelner, S. (2010). “Consuming Place.” Tours that bind: Diaspora, Pilgrimage, and Israeli Birthright Tourism
King, T.J. Donaldson, J.A. Harry, E. (2012), “Tasting Wine: A Learning Experience,” Journal of Experiential Education
Said Aly, A. M., Feldman, S., & Shikaki, K. (2022). Arabs and Israelis: Conflict and peacemaking in the Middle East (2nd ed.). Bloomsbury Academic.
Zakai, S. (2014). “My Heart Is in the East and I Am in the West”: Enduring Questions of Israel Education in North America. Journal of Jewish Education, 80(3), 287–318.
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