October 7th Reflections: Impact on Jewish Day School and Yeshiva Teachers

Credit: unsplash

It’s so difficult and painful to fathom that in several weeks, we will be commemorating the first anniversary of October 7th – the worst cold blooded  reprehensible massacre of Jews since the Holocaust.

As a result of this horrific event and its daunting impact on the lives of achienu bais yisrael world wide, we are witnessed a proliferation of  outstanding curricula and educational material produced for our students.

These materials include topics ranging from the history of the State of Israel to the wars against its enemies; from the rise and spread of antisemitism to divrei chizuk  during times of crisis and Judaic texts to discussions about  resilience, bitachon an emuha; and finally, from the centrality of eretz yisrael  to the continuous ebb and flow of achdut throughout our history.

The impressive development and dissemination of social media posts, articles, podcasts and workshops relating to these topics do not even begin to scratch the surface of high quality educational material  produced and developed for our schools  by outstanding organizations (such as PRIZMA, the Lookstein Center, the Jewish Education Project, AISH Global, the OU, ADL, to name a few).

These materials and programs all aspire to have a singular purpose – to inspire and provide our teachers and their schools and students with the best educational thinking regarding this tragic event in history and to ensure that our schools have the proper resources, information and perspectives regarding the unprecedented events of October 7th and  its profound and daunting  impact on Israel and world Jewry.

The October 7th Hamas attack on Israel, its war with Hamas and Hezbollah  on two fronts  and the volcanic explosion of world-wide antisemitism, effects all of us. And it places tremendous responsibility on our teachers, school administration and leadership  to teach and  inform our students about this tragedy – especially as we approach its one year anniversary.

But, as we continue to focus (and rightfully so)  on the teaching of our students, we may be losing sight of a school population which  is also in dire need of  our  attention –  our teachers and faculty.

Impact of  Teachers and Faculty

As we know, more often that not, many of our Jewish day schools and yeshivot  focus almost exclusively on their students at the expense of being equally concerned about the welfare and wellbeing of their teachers and faculty.

This reality is natural – especially in a consumer driven educational ecosystem where students and parents are in fact the clients or consumers and the teachers are the providers.

That being the case, what is our role as educational leaders regarding the wellbeing of our teachers and faculty as it relates to this critically important topic.

Being sensitive to the emotional, social and psychological needs and requirements of our teaching personnel, must be a top priority – especially as they are affected by the events of October 7th.

To this end, it is certain that our teachers and faculty are in dire need of support and chizuk as they also struggle with memories and impact of October 7th.

Many of the teachers in our day schools and yeshivot have lost relatives and friends in the war and feel a deep and profound pain of these loses , especially as we approach the anniversary of October 7th. In addition, many of our teachers are truly suffering with ways in which to cope with family members and friends who are also now suffering from these profoundly painful loses. This is in addition to coping with the continuous and relentless increased levels of antisemitism now sweeping our neighborhoods, communities and countries.

As a teacher recently shared with me “our schools are extremely sensitive to the emotional social and psychological needs of our students, (as they should and must be)…but, teachers and faculty also require a level of engagement in order to help alleviate the tremendous  pain and depression  resulting from the war”.

Research strongly suggests that a teacher’s wellbeing impacts their capacity and ability to effectively manage the dynamics of teaching in the classroom  and foster a positive learning environment for their students.

Several Suggested Approaches for Responding to Teacher and Faculty Needs:

There are a wide variety of very specific and focused responses to this challenge. They include but are not limited to the following:

• engaging teachers in individual and group interactive conversation regarding their feelings and encouraging them to share these feeling and emotions with colleagues;
• providing faculty with opportunities to engage in reflection and allowing them to develop their own individual safe spaces;
• offering words of chizuk by leaders of the school and by well respected and recognized Rabbinic and Jewish  spiritual leaders;
• offering ongoing professional development sessions on coping with stress, resilience and responding to crises;
• teaching teachers how to relax and instructing them through professionals,  in the various use of breathing exercises;
• offering teachers and faculty Jewish text study opportunities with specific emphasis on coping and resilience;
• sponsoring a one-day Yom Iyun (with compensation) for teachers and educational administrators on topics relating to how to teach resilience and emotional self-regulation in the face of adversity – with specific emphasis on the impact of October 7th and the rise of antisemitism; and,
• discreet referrals to mental health practitioners who are better prepared and trained to work with teachers and their families who are struggling with the post October 7th tragedy.

All of these approaches and suggestions will require resources and time availability. How we allocate sufficient time and resources  to these activities will be a challenge,  But first and foremost, we know that  they can only come to fruition if we are committed to addressing these challenges as a top priority.

Endnote

As we approach the first painful  anniversary of October 7th, our schools will be faced with a variety of challenges – including how we support our faculty while they (a we) deal with this terrible tragedy.

It will test our leadership, and resolve to ensure that our teachers and faculty have the support they so desperately require in order to be effective instructional leaders for our schools.

Let us hope and pray that  achienu bnai yisrael will never ever gain experience the unprecedented  horrors of October 7th – an event in our history which has changed our lives forever.