Teaching about Israel in a post-October 7 world

How do we educate about Israel in the aftermath of October 7? It is clear we are at a historical juncture where education about Israel is critically important. This requires that as a community we have an honest conversation about what is working and what needs to be improved. This vital conversation could be guided by a compelling new book written by Dr David Bryfman entitled Heroism and Hope, which discusses a path forward for Israel education.

Bryfman was born in Australia and today is the CEO of the Jewish Education Project, an American organisation dedicated to innovating Jewish education, supporting and elevating Jewish educators. His vision for Israel education in Heroism and Hope has been endorsed by Israel’s President Isaac Herzog and leading figures including in the World Zionist Organisation and the Jewish Agency for Israel. While often responding to challenges in the US, this book is relevant to all Diaspora communities including Australia.

In Heroism and Hope you say that Israel education must be “renewed and rebuilt” post-October 7. What compelled you to write it?

The events of October 7 and its aftermath created a higher sense of urgency and shone a light that brought attention to many of these issues in a harsh and stark way. Israel should be integral throughout all comprehensive Jewish education. Israel education needs to be proactive and not reactive. Israel education is not the same as hasbara. Israel education must be complex. Putting all of this, and more, together necessitated me to articulate why a new vision for Israel education is needed now. Because above all else Israel education must be good education, and good education is not a whole lot of adults telling young people what they must know, think, and believe about Israel, but rather offering them the opportunities to learn and experience Israel for themselves and enter into their own relationship with the people, land and culture of Israel.

You write that good Israel education must “empower individuals to … develop their own meaningful relationship with Israel.” You also note institutional reluctance to adopt this approach – are more institutions accepting this?

Of course there is resistance. This book challenges the status quo. Of course, it’s one thing to say that youth should be able to develop their own meaningful relationship with Israel – but that only works if they end up agreeing with you. The difficulty about the time we live in is that this is a different world to the ones in which our parents and grandparents grew up. Ask a young person today about Oslo, Rabin and Arafat, and you might as well be asking them about Herzl and Ben Gurion. But the bolder headline of this book is that the alternative to what I am suggesting doesn’t work – and never has. In the Western world, telling young people what they need to know, believe, feel, and do is almost a guarantee that they will make the opposite choices. The people who endorsed this book realise that good education ensures that young people can explore complicated issues and reach their own conclusions but their endorsement also signifies faith in the Jewish and Israel educational enterprise. Israel as a product, as fraught and complicated as it might be, is a noble one – but admittedly conveying that today might yet be one of our greatest challenges.

You draw distinctions between Israel education, Israel studies and Israel advocacy – what are the dangers in combining them?

Israel studies is the academic pursuit of knowledge about Israel, often in academic institutions, supposedly guided by characteristics of reach and objectivity. Israel advocacy is the activation to explain, defend, promote, or build support for the State of Israel, its policies, its people, and its role in the world. Israel education is the field that ensures that Israel is front and centre of one’s Jewish identity. These are all noble and important enterprises – but they aren’t the same. Israel advocacy for example is a great outcome of a good Israel education – but very few people start their Israel journey as advocates – rather it is through a process of discovering how important Israel is to them – and advocacy becomes a vehicle to express that commitment.

You write that excluding Palestinian narratives can be a “dereliction of duty”. What happens when we fail to include this in Israel education?

One of the biggest failures of Jewish education can potentially be when young people are first confronted with accusations about Israel (historically or in the present) in an antagonistic environment rather than in a safe space with a Jewish educator who cares first and foremost about them. Big caveat here – when it is age and developmentally appropriate to do so. The fact that some people call the War of Independence a “nakba” (catastrophe) is uncontested – so what service do we do for our children by pretending that the whole world is universally celebrating Yom Ha’atzmaut?

I am not suggesting that we lead with Nakba or claims of genocide by any stretch, but I am suggesting that good education demands that we treat our learners with respect and as smart – capable of grappling with difficult conversations. The weakest argument against this point of view has been, aren’t you scared that if you present the alternate view of history or current events to our youth then they will end up agreeing with the other side? First, the question assumes that there are just two sides to any argument (“us” and “them”) but secondly, and more importantly, this stuff is out there anyway coming at our kids on their phones, through their screens, and in their classrooms anyway and us hiding this from them does no service other than to display our own insecurities and vulnerabilities.

While encouraging intellectual honesty you write that there should also be boundaries – What should those boundaries be?

I don’t believe that there should be any xenophobia, homophobia or calls to violence in any educational setting. I don’t think that there should be personal slurs in any classroom. I don’t think that we should resort to Holocaust analogies in every serious discussion.

I used to say that if it is a viewpoint that can be expressed in the Knesset then it is permissible in my classroom. Have you heard parts of the Knesset lately? It is full of the hateful vitriol that I am banning in my classroom. And this is important – education must be better than the ways in which the adult Jewish community is currently behaving towards one another.

Many Jewish organisations are struggling with who to include for events/panels and who is “outside the tent”. What are your thoughts on that?

While communities debate tentpoles and red lines, educators just want to do what is right by their youth. Every organisation has the right, if not the obligation, to establish its own boundaries – and they should do so proudly and explicitly – and then people can choose where to go and invest their time and energy. But also, let educators do what they must do. I learned this the hard way, and I discuss it in my book. When a student expresses a viewpoint that I find morally abhorrent I cannot kick the kid out – I mean I can, but the end result is that I am probably forcing them to leave the Jewish institution and perhaps the Jewish people. Instead, I have to take a deep breath, take the child aside, and engage in a conversation with them starting with, “I respect you, so can you explain to me how it is that you came to have those beliefs.” As an educator I can only do that if I know that my boss and my board are going to have my back when parents or social media warriors come after me – and that is hard. But here is what is harder for many people to hear – today’s younger generation do not hold the same commitment to Israel that you may have, the word “Zionism” is tarnished for many people, the current Israeli government is not behaving in ways that many people believe uphold the moral and ethical vision of Israel as a Democratic state that they aspire to – and whether you agree with them or not, as an educator your job is not to clone young people to think and feel things more like you.

What is your advice to educators trying to help students navigate misinformation and disinformation on social media and AI?

I tell the story in the book of a group of parents who wanted me to lead a campaign to ban social media for all Jewish youth. I told them I thought it was a bad idea, but I am eager to see how the social media ban in Australia plays itself out for the younger generation. We as a Jewish community need to accept that social media and AI are here to stay and that we cannot and will not be able to defeat the algorithms that control their outputs. What we can do is develop a generation of youth (and adults) who use the best practices of digital citizenship to navigate this new reality. Is the source reputable? Is it supported by data? Was that the best possible prompt? Today’s generation of young people has more access to knowledge than any other generation the world has ever seen – our task as educators must continue to evolve. I am not suggesting that educators will be replaced by robots. But I do believe that educators who think that their only task is to impart knowledge and information will become obsolete over time.

You grew up in Melbourne, where Israel education is different to the US. What could each community learn from the other?

It has been a couple of decades since I lived and worked in Australia and travels around the world have taught me two seemingly paradoxical things. Every community is unique, and the challenges our youth are going through are still the same – at least in the Western world where access to information has been democratised. Jewish youth from Sydney to Buenos Aires, from New York to Johannesburg are all viewing the same things on their devices, asking the same questions of their teachers, and demanding the same respect from their Jewish communities.

You call for “more joy and less oy” in Jewish and Israel education – how can educators do that?

Yes. Especially when we understand that education is never just about the knowledge quotient. All good educators understand that education is about the ABCs – the affective, behavioral and cognitive components of learning – the head, heart and hands. But it’s not just about the days of celebration, the shabbatonim, the retreats and seminars – joy can and should take place all the time in Jewish education. A teacher who radiates positive vibes and Jewish pride can and does have an immeasurable impact on the ways their learners respond.

October 7 and its aftermath were devastating for the Jewish people. The ability to dance again is intensified when we understand that pain, and when we understand the heroism and hope that emerged from that day.

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks says optimism believes things will get better, hope believes we can make them better.

Where do you find hope?

Education is about hope. It is the core belief that every educator has the ability to transform lives, strengthen communities, and make the world a better place. Every time I walk into a school, a youth movement, a summer camp, a synagogue or any setting where Jewish learning is taking place I see not just optimism but an active commitment to hope.

It is easy to surround oneself with supporters and cheerleaders. But I also want to say that I most see hope when I see people who are self-reflective, and even critical, of themselves and others, not because they want to tear things down, but precisely the opposite, that by recognising shortcomings that they are actively able to build a better future – and these are the types of people who really bring me hope.

Heroism and Hope: Recharging Israel Education in a Post-October 7 World, published by Wicked Son, is available via Amazon.