Learning at home: More benefits than you can imagine

This interesting and unusual time in the world has brought many moments of concern for the Jewish community.

To name a few: being internationally scapegoated for causing the coronavirus; comparing just one week of quarantine to Anne Frank having to hide in an attic with eight other people for 25 months because she was Jewish, zoombombing, antisemitic comments mocking the Holocaust and Jews and threats on Tiktok (including my own); Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei calling for the destruction of Israel on Twitter and synagogues being vandalized. The list goes on and on.

These disheartening examples coupled with the horrible rise of antisemitism has troubled me, but it is eclipsed by the positivity and resiliency of the Jewish and pro-Israel community that I have witnessed during this time.

Even before the lockdown moved my college lectures and learning to online, my passion to educate and learn about Judaism and Israel had already graduated to Zoom, google hangouts, Facebook and Youtube lives, Tiktok, Twitter and many others. The remote environment we are living in now has expanded my involvement with these popular mediums.

Antisemitism is rising, but so is the resiliency of the Jewish people.

Student-run facebook groups such as Zoom University Hillel; Zoom University Chabad; Zoom University Zionists and the group my peer and I started Zoom University for Israel, have allowed me to connect to Jewish and pro-Israel students from all over the world to share, chat and exchange resources and information.

Through the many webinars on diverse topics offered on StandWithUsConnect, I am able to further my Israel education from the comfort of my own room. At Sinai Temple Religious School, where I teach, I am able to interact with students and their families in new and exciting ways. From Havdalah services to Hillel at Home events to “zoomba” to Hasbara Fellowships zooms to Challah bakes, to live Holocaust Survivor talks via zoom,  the list is endless.

The abundance of love and support I receive from the Jewish and pro-Israel community is greater than the hate I get from misguided individuals who are spreading hate.

The resiliency of the Jewish and pro-Israel community is unmatched. If you aren’t already invovled in this inspiring and thought-provoking online world, I highly recommend it.