Why I Wrote the Apology Letter

My recent piece “An Apology from Your Jewish American Parents” in the Times of Israel attracted numerous comments and much controversy. In it, I laid out what I perceive as the failure on the part of American Jewish parents, myself included, in preparing our children for a post-diaspora, pre-Moshiach world. I was motivated to write the letter to bring attention to the problem that I see here in the US with the Zionist education in our schools and within our Zionist institutions.

I know that it isn’t enough to “apologize,” and it isn’t enough to complain. I was motivated to open a conversation, one I think we must be having about what actions we must take to improve the learning environment for our current generation of American Jewish students.

What I learned over the past few years in studying Israel’s educational system from K-12 through university, and in speaking to hundreds of students and dozens of rabbis at Modern Orthodox yeshivot and seminaries in Israel over the past five years is this: America’s Jewish day school system does an absolutely inadequate job of preparing its students for anything but liberal arts colleges in America. 

The problem revealed by these experiences is that, while Jewish day schools in America have a captive audience in their student bodies for at least 13 years (if not longer from pre-school), they fail to capitalize on educational opportunities to prepare students for transitioning to a life in Israel, attending university in Israel, or really any outcome other than American liberal arts college.

I’ve come to the conclusion that even the most supposedly Zionist day schools are more pro-Zionist than Zionist. That is, they support Israel and cheer on Zionists, but the schools themselves are not actually encouraging aliyah. If they were, they’d be more deliberate about teaching what students need to be prepared for aliyah post-high school, as well as preparing them to transition into Israeli schools at earlier ages if families make aliyah while their children are still in primary or secondary school.

My conversations with gap-year students and their rabbis are even more startling for the incompatibility between what the programs accomplish for their students and what the students’ parents hope they will accomplish. In the past, gap-year programs were primarily geared toward preparing students for a Torah-observant life at a secular American university, or perhaps at Yeshiva University or Touro College. More recently, the yeshivas and seminaries are, either deliberately or simply through the sheer attractive power of Israel and Torah, leading students to be enamored with or even passionate about the idea of staying in Israel, perhaps for a second year of yeshiva/seminary, and then maybe for the army, sherut leumi (national service), an Israeli university, and aliyah.

So what can Jewish day schools be doing differently? What would an “aliyah-enabling track” look like in an American Jewish day school? There are four things I would include in an “Israel track” for day school students: better Hebrew language instruction, more compatibility between the education in American schools and their Israeli counterparts, shifting from breadth to depth in high school education, and better guidance for how to navigate the process of moving to Israel and transitioning to life in Israel.

First, Jewish day schools do an abysmal job of Hebrew language instruction. This is largely due to a lack of appropriate prioritization. Parents don’t value their children becoming fluent in Hebrew anywhere near as highly as they value every other area of secular and Torah education. If parents insisted their children graduate from Jewish day school with fluency in conversational Hebrew, I’m sure the schools could achieve it. An “Israel track” should make that outcome a goal and figure out how to achieve it.

Second, Jewish day schools should study the curricula used in Israeli dual-curriculum schools to align education at each level (primary, middle school, and high school), so that students can transition from America to Israel more seamlessly. One of the biggest impediments for families with school-aged children making aliyah is the well-founded fear that their children’s education will suffer during the transition. An “Israel track” should make efforts to minimize the difficulties of that transition.

Third, one of the biggest incompatibilities between the high school systems in America and Israel lies in the objectives of the respective programs. The goal of the American system is clear: acceptance at the top American liberal arts colleges. To achieve this, students need to start preparing their resumes in middle school, with extracurricular activities, volunteering, sports, etc. In high school, regardless of their aptitudes, they need to take as many honors and AP classes as they can to strengthen their applications for admission. They are taught to get top scores, not to learn the subject matter. They also have to learn how to game standardized tests to get scores that exceed their natural abilities.

In Israel, on the other hand, the outcome is clearer: getting into the best, or at least most appropriate, units in the Army, or being prepared for the right program for sherut leumi. This is achieved by allowing students to study the subjects they excel in during high school, which will give them the most useful skills for their national service. STEM-focused students don’t spend half of their high school education taking advanced humanities subjects. The best students can graduate from high school with 3rd- or 4th-year college-level skills in math and science because they can take advanced courses in those areas in high school rather than a broad liberal arts curriculum. This makes them much more capable in their national service, and much better prepared for university when it arrives.

Finally, a real “Israel track” would devote some time and energy to preparing students for the complexities of life in Israel, an Israeli society version of what we used to call “home-ec”. Students and their parents should be prepared for what aliyah entails, including national service, socialized medicine, the financial realities of Israel, and public transportation. Trips to Israel could be used to show “Israel track” students real life in Israel, rather than just touring historic sites and observing chagim.

I wrote the apology letter to draw attention to the failures of the Zionist American system, both the parents and Jewish day schools, to adequately prepare students for a potential life in Israel. That starts by calling attention to the fact that we, the parents, haven’t been insisting on it, asking for it, or stepping in to bring the change. 

For tuition-paying families that want this education for their students, the schools should provide it. But also, for the students who are going to be naturally inspired by the Zionist messaging in these Zionist American schools, as well as by the inspirations of their gap year programs and the beautiful allure of life in Israel during their gap years, Zionist American Jewish day schools should at least offer a track that makes a path towards life in Israel attainable for all of their students, so they can take advantage of a full life in Eretz Yisrael and any point during their education process.

We do owe this generation an apology… but it’s not too late to do something more than apologize. The schools can do better, and they will – when we, the parents, speak up and out and decide it’s a priority.