For 843 days, the global Jewish community was living in between the horror of October 7 and the unknown horizon of the proverbial October 8. We reminded each other regularly, it’s still October 7.
Yes, time was passing by, a shocking 843 days separating us from the events of a day that still feels close and present for so many of us. We knew, within hours, that things were different, and we were forever changed. And the teaching of a forever-changed Jewish people became a core question for Jewish educators, still grappling with the shifting reality ourselves.
October 7 Jewish education was about existential loneliness and supporting students, families, and colleagues as they sought to make sense of the senseless. It was knowing and holding that making Jewish choices was now an experience of a vulnerable minority, concerned about safety and security, and rightfully so. It was wrestling with growing internal divisiveness.
If I have the same amount of time as I did before, and all of a sudden that time has the new (or renewed) priorities of instilling Jewish pride – not as a byproduct but as a minority in a world of rising antisemitism and geopolitics – ritualizing the fight for the hostages, and naming and dismantling and crossing community red lines, what falls by the wayside?
Is there still time for Jewish joy in a world of hostages and war, amid dilemmas around the war’s justness, recognition of Palestinian suffering, and the desire to see Hamas dismantled, while being confronted with the question: at what cost? By every definition, it is finally October 8, and the community of Jewish educators must answer the question: what does it mean to teach October 8 Jews?
Teaching October 8 Jews is going to be an exercise in balance. Balancing Jewish strength with Jewish vulnerability. Balancing Jewish joy with self-preservation. Building Jewish pride while allowing space for all the other elements of who a person is to also thrive.
Centering Israel and Jewish peoplehood and the needs of the individual learner and the commitment to the collective – and recognizing that all those things cannot be centered at the same time, so communal priorities will have to emerge. Looking toward the unknown future, built on the basis of the complex past.
Educating the October 8 generation
October 8 Jews have internalized Jewishness as a minoritized identity. While we have always been minorities, by any demographic study, to have a minoritized identity is not just a question of numbers, but rather of the impact of being part of a group that has been made subordinate or marginalized. It is making choices based on the vulnerability of one’s minority status.
It is the difference between being different and being other, and the othering of Jews in society is something that we have not systemically grappled with for multiple generations. Today’s young people are aware of their minority status, and meeting their vulnerability, while not allowing themselves to be defined by it, is a pillar of October 8 Jewish education.
The aftermath of October 7 galvanized a sense of Jewish particularism in many. Jewishness was in need of defense, it seemed, on campuses, in schools, in our social lives. On October 8, the pendulum is shifting for many once again. Headlines from within the United States and around the world now propel our action.
As Jews, we look at Minneapolis and at Iran and push our learners and ourselves: how do we encounter the complexities of our world as Jews?
Upon the news that Ran Gvili’s body was found, his mother, Talik, said, “The pride is so much stronger than the sadness.” Jewish pride has been a hallmark of the last two years, and that must continue as we cross the threshold of October 8.
A Jewish identity shaped by external forces is not a reality we can accept. We are not strong or weak because of the rise in antisemitism, or the end of the war, or the perceptions of the rest of the world. We are strong because of individual and collective internal senses of self and because of embedded confidence in who we are. October 8 Jews must be given that strong sense of self to carry with them in the world.
Teaching October 8 Jews is about educating a generation in order to equip Jews not only to survive the world as it is, but also to show up as full Jews within it: rooted, proud, compassionate, and capable of building Jewish life that is not defined by trauma, even as it refuses to forget it.
The writer is the senior director of knowledge, ideas, and learning at The Jewish Education Project.