Raising Jewish Children with Eyes Wide Open

Mosaic’s monthly essay is usually followed by several responses with a concluding statement from its author. In response to my January essay, “Despair Not!,” its editor Jonathan Silver departed from custom by convening a panel of young parents to comment on it from their perspective of raising Jewish children. He called them the “October 7 generation,” raised in the golden age of American Jewry, who now find their country plagued once again by the Jew-baiting we thought it had purged after the Second World War. They will have to bring up their children without the same advantage they remember from their own childhoods.

I had begun my essay with the Warsaw Ghetto uprising in April 1943, intending no comparison with the robust condition of Jews in the world today but with the degree of hostility they face. Historical patterns command our attention, and Jews must once again seriously contend with those who plan their destruction. I wrote that, living as a civilized minority among the nations, Jews have been made the gauge of political good and evil. “The worst political factions organize against us, and the best align with our common values. I can think of no exception to this political rule of thumb, which makes ours a frighteningly inspiring responsibility.” Jonathan asked how the young parents experienced and responded to conditions so different from the ones in which they were raised.

The discussion with David Schwartz, Elisheva Marcus, and Sarah Baird made me realize that the panel itself was the most authentic possible reply to my essay—young American Jews who form families and are confidently raising their children to be Jews. That is how it has always been and will remain. Whether this is the end of an era in America or merely a blip, as David wonders, the Jewish response is informed independently by the injunctions to procreate and to live by the teachings of the Torah. These young parents are doing conscientiously what Jews have always done: they are doing it now in the face of ideological-political assault that calls for different strategies and requires greater strength.