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 Witness the following account by the sociologist David Schoem, who sat in on a class in a Jewish afternoon school in an upper-middle class American community: "In what was a typical classroom lesson, a seventh grade teacher asked the students to describe in what ways the Sabbath differed from other days of the week. In response to a student's answer that `on the Sabbath we pray,' the teacher said, `But you pray every day.' In this case not only was the teacher's response completely detached from reality, but the student who answered was also speaking in theoretical terms. Many of the students in the class had not been to a prayer service on the Sabbath for up to six months or more. When the teacher, who managed a restaurant on Friday evenings, then began to speak about `why don't we work on the Sabbath,' students giggled incredulously because of the question's absurdity. Clearly, this lesson that was being discussed in first person terms, was, in the student's minds, about a people that was far removed from their own reality."
Schoem spent one year observing classes. His recording of the comments of the students is very telling: "They teach you the same thing over again and over again and over again and over again"; "I think Hebrew school is dumb. I mean we don't learn anything." As the Talmud notes, much of what a child says can ultimately be traced to their parents' influence, an idea perfectly exemplified in this description by a very influential board member of the school in question: "Hebrew school is a boring thing. The goal is the Bar Mitzvah. And when they stand on the bimah , you don't want to embarrass you or themselves, Okay? That's where it really is?" Although you might argue that such schools are an extreme example of Jewish alienation, I tend to think that they are far more the rule than we'd like to think. It is very in vogue today to talk about how kids who receive a Jewish - especially a day school - education have a better shot at maintaining their Jewish identities than their peers. This is often true but in a complex way. A day school education can help stave off assimilation down the road, but it requires more than that to ensure a committed next generation. Ask your children how many of them intend to continue a regular form of Torah study - once a week? once a month? - once they leave afternoon school or even day school. If they say "they're not sure," then you've already been handed the sad facts - all those years of Jewish education and they're still not certain it's worth it.
Schools work best when they mirror an ethic of serious Jewish involvement and study that is stressed in the child's home. Without that sense in a child's mind that the values he/she receives at school are echoed in the home environment, a Jewish education can often a bitter parody, a comic satire of the real facts of the child's Jewish existence. If something is important for our children to have, then it's important for us to have as parents. I call on every parent reading this to resume or continue to pursue your Jewish education, on a weekly basis, starting immediately.
Hey kids, it's midnight on the assimilation clock. Do you know where your parents are?
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