Chatting with colleagues the other day, the topic of extra-curricular activities came up. One colleague recounted many drives to rural Quebec where his son plays competitive water polo. Another mentioned early-morning trips to the hockey rink.
They turned to me, “And your kids?”
Thinking through my three-times-a-week commuting schedule to Hebrew school and many weekends busy with synagogue activities, I retorted: “My kids? They are competitive Jews.”
At least that’s how I feel these days.
With less time for spontaneous exercise than we had in my day (I recall hours of carefree cycling as an eight-year-old), coupled with fewer families opting for both Jewish day school and synagogue Judaism, we need a new paradigm.
One paradigm I know won’t work is the endless preaching I hear about soccer being the enemy of Jewish continuity. Somehow, the poor sport of soccer has become the vessel for carrying the frustrations of contemporary leaders surrounding the lack of Jewish engagement in their communities. These leaders might be gently chiding parents for choosing “soccer over shul,” but I hear them hissing “Soccer! Soccer! Soccer!” in a Victorian-era-laced religious rant.
This year, my seven-year-old daughter attends her supplementary Hebrew school three days per week for a total of six classroom hours. Compared to the nine weekly hours of Judaic studies taught at the Ottawa Jewish Community School at the elementary level, I consider my daughter’s two-thirds content at one-sixth the price – with the benefit of public school French immersion, neighbourhood friends and the gift of being part of a multicultural school experience – to be a bargain.
But I am also committed to taking my kids to shul one or two Shabbat mornings per month, which means that weekend mornings are out for scheduled activities. So, for now, say goodbye to skiing (where you need a weekend block that would cut into either shul or Hebrew school).
But this year, I also want my daughter to learn piano and tennis, and she wants to add musical theatre, dance and hockey (finishing on Friday afternoon just in time for her to be home for Shabbat dinner). Add two parents with full-time jobs, one who has trouble saying no to committee work and who spends months learning High Holiday davening and Torah chanting at her shul, and the other who has 94 Shakespeare speeches to learn for his part in a community theatre production of King Lear, and you have one busy family. And just wait for her younger brother’s activities to join the roster.
It’s no wonder more than two-thirds of Jewish children in Ottawa aren’t receiving any form of Jewish day or supplementary school education.
There’s got to be a better way.
One American Jewish educator has proposed what she calls “badges.” Rabbi Joy Levitt, executive director of the Manhattan JCC, writes, “We are faced with an unacceptable gap between the Jewish lives we want for ourselves and for our families, and the Jewish lives we actually experience.” (“The New Hebrew School,” The Jewish Week, January 11, 2011)
Rabbi Levitt’s vision entails Jewish students across the city working toward a badge system whereby they would commit to mastering several themes, partly of their choosing: Hebrew language, community service, Jewish arts, prayer, tikkun olam, and even attending camp. Once a week they would gather after school with their Jewish peers in a clubhouse atmosphere to socialize. Rabbi Levitt envisions that the program could be run through a JCC or through synagogues.
Her mention of synagogues and summer camp brings me to my last point. Many families I know are so tapped out by formal Jewish education they have little appetite to include shul or Jewish residential summer camp as a regular part of their family’s experience. I could devote a column to the historical and contemporary experiential importance of synagogues in anchoring Diaspora Jewish life, but for now I will say a brief note about camp: it is well known that Jewish camp is the single most important predictor of future Jewish identity.
To Rabbi Levitt’s ideas I would add that community institutions might think about ways to better catch the family market, especially after the very well-serviced baby and preschool years: whether it’s the monthly Havdallah & singing & pizza sessions that Agudath Israel is now running (and where I moonlight on Hebrew-rock guitar), or the Friday night family services and potluck dinners at Temple Israel. Jewish supplementary schools might also consider moving to a Shabbat model, providing for more experiential learning.
It’s hard to have one’s cake and eat it too, but with some creative thought, we may be able to enlarge the pie and create more meaningful and satisfying solutions.
**Appearing in this week's Ottawa Jewish Bulletin**
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