Our students are our answer to antisemitism
That is why the battles begin not at university, not even in high school, but in primary school.
Last week, a year 7 student from Masada College was walking home from the bus stop. He was not wearing a kippah, his uniform bearing only a small logo, when a car slowed beside him in a leafy Sydney north shore suburb.
A man leaned out and screamed: “Jews are c***s! We love Hitler and we are coming back to get you!”
I can comfort his family. I can refer them to CSG, to the police, to the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies. But how do I answer the question, why does everybody hate us? This is the heartbreak of educating Jewish children in the Diaspora. Abuse does not wait for adulthood. It can come in childhood, on a walk home.
That is why the battles begin not at university, not even in high school, but in primary school. The loss of innocence does not wait. What books do we give our students, knowing some storytellers hated people like us? What do we say when children learn their hero, Roald Dahl, declared himself “antisemitic” and claimed “Even a stinker like Hitler did not pick on them for no reason”?
And it is not just Dahl. What about Greta Thunberg? What do we say when idealistic young Jews discover that some of the loudest voices for justice have also spoken against Jews or the Jewish state? This forces us to grapple with the question of art versus artist; can we separate the work from its creator, and should we? It makes the choice of literature we study in school harder, but also creates some of the richest, most necessary conversations.
Recently I led a session with year 6 students about flawed heroes, people who fight for justice in some areas but have said horrific things about Jews. I asked them to write down their questions, and their words pierced my heart.
Why do people hate Jews?
Why was Roald Dahl antisemitic?
Why do people hate Zionism when it is just about self-rule?
These are excellent questions; impossible to answer fully because they ask about something senseless.
As our students grow older, the questions become more complex. One of the most challenging areas we explore with them is the line between antisemitism and anti-Zionism. Are they the same? Is all criticism of Israel antisemitic? When does legitimate government criticism become an attack on the Jewish people themselves? These are not easy questions, but they are essential ones.
We must equip our students with the historical knowledge, context, language and intellectual confidence to explore them in all their nuance.
They need to understand motive. Most of all, they must be taught to think. To question. Because questioning is how we raise great minds to think critically and creatively.
We recently piloted a program with a nearby independent school, creating opportunities for our students to speak directly to non-Jewish peers about being Jewish today. Over three intensive sessions, we taught them the history and evolution of antisemitism, globally, in Australia, and in pop culture and social media.
Our students were extraordinary. They learned. They researched. They practised. They spoke with eloquence and grace. They held the room, captivating, thoughtful, proud.
They gave their peers a confronting history lesson in the hatred Jewish people have faced for centuries. They spoke about expulsions, pogroms, blood libels, inquisitions, ghettos and gas chambers. They showed images. They explained ancient slanders and modern conspiracies. They walked their peers through myths of deicide, the legacy of usury laws, and absurd accusations of global Jewish control.
They did this calmly and courageously.
They asked the room to consider a question Jewish children have grown up asking for generations. Why does the world hate us?
For many of the independent school students, this was their first real exposure to the depth and persistence of antisemitism. For our students, it was lived experience. They knew what they were teaching because they live it. They carry it. And yet they stood tall. Proud. Educated. Resilient. They are becoming the leaders our community so desperately needs.
In our Jewish schools, in the face of growing global hatred, we are raising role models. Our students are our answer to antisemitism. They are our response to ignorance. They are our hope.
Ours is a history of pain, but also of extraordinary resilience. A people who have faced more persecution than any other, and still sing, build, study and thrive.
Yes, we teach our children that Jews can be white, black, Asian and everything in between. That most of us are not rich. That we do not control the media or Hollywood, laughable ideas considering how much antisemitism those industries have enabled. And no, we do not have a secret cabal ruling the world.
Despite the heartbreak of what we must teach, despite not always having answers, I am proud of our children, of their grit, grace and courage. Proud of the Jewish schools raising the next generation of informed, thoughtful, powerful Jewish advocates.
Because even in times of darkness, we are a people who rise.
And rise again.
Raquel Charet is the principal of Masada College.