The kids are NOT alright
60% of 14-year-old Jewish teens sympathize with Hamas. And what are we doing about it?
In a California public high school arts class, a conversation unfolded between students. One shared that his great-grandparent had been a Nazi while a Jewish teen revealed that her great-grandmother, now 103, had survived the Holocaust. When another student heard this, he remarked, “I guess his great-grandfather didn’t complete his mission.”
Across the country, at a public high school on the East Coast, a math teacher’s personal choice of jewelry consists of a necklace with a Palestinian flag in the shape of a map of Israel and another necklace with watermelons on it.
•In an era where 91% of Generation Z obtain their news and world opinion from social media, we can’t afford to be passive about Jewish education and advocacy.
•When 60% of 14-year-old Jewish teens sympathize with Hamas, we’re failing our youth.
Yet there’s hope in these stark numbers. How? Education and empowerment.
These statistics demand immediate, decisive action. But instead of confronting these challenges head-on, our community is lost in debates about what to call our response.
•Is it “education” or “advocacy?”
•Are we “politicizing” our children or “empowering” them?
•Should we focus on “dialogue” or “action?”
• • •
While we parse these terms, our teens are learning to hide their identity in ways that should alarm us.
•They’re staying quiet about their trips to Israel.
•Some won’t even mention they’re Jewish in class discussions.
•They’re learning to make themselves invisible while we debate words instead of taking action.
When African-Americans advocate for their civil rights, when LGBTQ+ individuals demand equal treatment and when women push for equality, we call it empowerment. Yet when American Jews stand up for themselves, many of us hesitate, excuse the bad behavior and even demand that these stand-up Jews stop drawing attention to “their” issues.
We’re stuck in a defensive crouch, reacting to each crisis instead of building generations of empowered, knowledgeable Jews who naturally stand tall.
For too long, we’ve confused advocacy with hasbara, a reactive defense of Israel that puts us perpetually on the back foot, explaining and justifying. But real advocacy isn’t about defending Israel’s latest policies or actions. It’s about American Jews standing up for themselves and confidently asserting their identity and rights.
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Our established Jewish institutions are trying their best in a challenging landscape. Since Oct. 8, 2023, many have finally understood the problem and jumped in to address it.
Yet the outdated approach of separating education from advocacy feels increasingly disconnected from today’s reality. From Jewish day schools to youth movements to Jewish professionals in mainstream institutions, people still recoil at the word “advocacy.”
They think it’s just about Israel, but they are missing the urgent reality — our kids need advocacy skills just to walk around safely as Jews in America.
Our Jewish institutions have perfected the art of teaching the Holocaust while failing to prevent its modern incarnations. We’ve become experts at commemorating dead Jews while struggling to protect living ones.
This isn’t just misguided, it’s dangerously out of touch. It’s like watching someone in 1937 argue that teaching European Jews self-defense would somehow taint their religious studies.
Without a deep understanding of who they are as Jews, their place in our people’s story and their connection to the Jewish nation, how can we expect our children to stand up for themselves?
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The problem isn’t just institutional. Where are the parents in all this?
Too many are content to send our children to Jewish youth programs that prioritize “fun” programming over substance. When we leave teens to educate other teens, offering brief snippets of Jewish content between social activities, should we be surprised by the results we see?
We’ve become so skilled at teaching about Jewish persecution that we’ve forgotten to teach about Jewish power. And yet we’re shocked when they side with our persecutors in the name of social justice.
We celebrate when our teens attend Jewish gatherings that could be any secular club with a Hebrew name slapped on top. These programs might boost college applications and provide safe evening activities, but are we demanding they provide the education and empowerment our children desperately need? Are we satisfied with a superficial Jewish identity wrapped in pizza parties and leadership titles?
Real empowerment isn’t born from slogans or PR campaigns. It comes from knowledge of our history, our peoplehood and our rights. It comes from skills, including public speaking, critical thinking and articulate writing.
When you know who you are and where you come from, when you understand your rights and have the tools to assert them, advocacy isn’t some extra activity — it’s a natural expression of your identity.
• • •
Rabbi Jonathan Sacks taught us a profound truth: When Jews act authentically as Jews, the world respects that. Yet somehow, we’ve convinced ourselves that advocacy is something separate from Jewish identity, as if standing up for our people is optional rather than essential to who we are.
We need to teach our children that speaking up for Jewish rights and dignity isn’t just a skill set — it’s part of what it means to be a Jew.
Just as we teach our children to pray, celebrate holidays and perform mitzvahs, we must teach them that advocating for their people is an integral part of their Jewish identity.
The artificial separation of Jewish education from advocacy mirrors another false divide we’ve been subjected to — the notion that Zionism is somehow separate from Judaism itself.
Just as our 3,000-year connection to Zion is woven into our prayers, texts and daily lives, advocacy is intrinsically bound to Jewish education. They are three strands of the same cord as our Jewish identity naturally encompasses our connection to our homeland, our understanding of our heritage and our ability to stand confidently as Jews.
When we fragment each of these elements — treating Zionism as political, advocacy as confrontational and education as purely academic — we weaken the very foundation of Jewish identity.
The strength of our future generations depends on understanding that these aren’t separate choices but essential, interconnected parts of what it means to be Jewish in the modern world.
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This isn’t theoretical. We’ve seen it work. At Club Z, we’re proving this approach every day. By combining deep Jewish education with practical advocacy skills, we transform teenagers into confident, articulate leaders.
We understand that when you start with Jewish identity and historical literacy, support for Israel flows naturally — not as a talking point to be memorized but as part of who you are. The proof is in our results: Club Z teens don’t hide their identity or shrink from difficult conversations; they lead them.
Other minority groups understand this instinctively. They don’t apologize for teaching their children to stand up for themselves. They don’t create artificial barriers between education and empowerment. Their parents don’t settle for watered-down cultural programming. They expect equal treatment — no more, no less — and they make sure their children have both the knowledge and tools to demand it. Why aren’t we doing the same?
In our pursuit of “nuance and complexity,” we’ve lost sight of fundamental truths. While we debate shades of gray, our children face stark black-and-white realities in their classrooms every day.
•There is a right and a wrong.
•There is fact, and there is narrative.
•There is truth, and there are lies.
Our obsession with nuance has become a paralytic, preventing us from taking the clear, decisive action our children need.
• • •
Return to those students in that California classroom. Imagine if the Jewish teen had been equipped not just with her great-grandmother’s survival story but with the knowledge and confidence to respond effectively to that antisemitic taunt. Imagine if she had the tools to transform that moment from one of victimhood into one of education and strength.
And consider that math teacher on the East Coast, wearing symbols of hate disguised as political expression — what if every Jewish student in that class had the understanding to recognize these symbols and the advocacy skills to address such behavior appropriately through proper channels?
These aren’t hypothetical scenarios — they are the daily reality Jewish teens face. When we fail to combine education with advocacy training and hide behind complexity instead of standing up for what’s right, we’re sending these teens into battles armed with nothing but good intentions and vague cultural awareness.
The Holocaust survivor mentioned in our opening lived to see her great-grandchild face antisemitism in an American classroom. After 103 years, after everything she endured and survived, is this the legacy we want to leave? A generation of Jewish youth who must either hide their identity or face hatred without the tools to combat it?
The time for half-measures and the careful separation between education and advocacy is long past.
Every day that we delay in the name of nuance, every moment we hesitate in the pursuit of complexity, is another day like that one in California, another classroom like that one on the East Coast. Every day we wait is another day we fail our youth, another day we dishonor the survival and resilience of generations before us.
The question isn’t whether advocacy belongs in Jewish education. The question is: How many more classroom incidents, how many more displays of hatred, and how many more hidden Jewish identities will it take before we accept that they are inseparable?
Masha Merkulova is executive director of Club Z. Write: Columnist@TheJewishStar.com
