As the semester comes to a close, I’m thinking about all the parents of college students who are about to have a series of difficult conversations. One of the great joys of being a professor is watching students develop their own beliefs about big, complicated ideas as they move from childhood to adulthood. But there is also a reason the world “sophmore” comes from the Greek words for wise and fool. This is a stage in moral development that’s always been a part of higher education: that moment when students know enough to be passionate but not necessarily analytical, and when they understand issues in broad strokes rather than nuance. I, for instance, am a little sad to report that my sophomoric faith in vegetarianism and dope-smoking as sufficient to bring about world peace has, sadly, not born out. (Though for those who still believe they can be contributory, if not sufficient, I tip my hat to you in your steadfastness.)
This year, I’m prepping for Passover while I teach my final classes, and I find myself thinking about the part of the Seder when we get to the Four Sons (or children, again, according to your tradition), and what it says to us about answering the questions college students bring home with them.
In the Haggadah, we are interrogated by one who is wise, one who is wicked, one with a simple nature, and one who does not know how to ask, and instructed on how to answer each. For those of you with college students coming home, I’d like to suggest a fifth child: the one who will be, but is not yet, wise. The one to whom we must speak with the respect due to someone who is on the path to adulthood, but also with the firmness that one speaks to a person who proposes a position without the necessary facts of critical understanding. This is true no matter what silly thing your kid comes home het up about, but for many of parents with kids coming home in the next few weeks, it’s going to be particularly true about the war between Hamas (and Hezbollah and the Houthis and, it seems, Iran and not just its proxies) and Israel.
As someone who, for years, bought the JVP anti=Zionist propaganda, I’d like to offer a few tools for talking about Israel with your kid who comes home with a deeply distorted view of the conflict. These are the things that finally opened my eyes. I can’t say that they will work for you, but I believe they are worth trying.
If your child asks: Why should international politics be based on the religious claims of any group of people?
Explain to them that the founding of Israel wasn’t, and its continued right to exist isn’t, founded on anything in Jewish religious texts. They are absolutely right that in a world comprised of many religions, many with conflicting beliefs and doctrines, international politics should and can’t be determined by the religious claim of any one group. Rather, Israel was founded to allow Jews in diaspora to return to their historical homeland and, along with the many Jews who had always lived in the region, have self-determination. Early European Zionists (who were not the only ones calling for a return to Jerusalem) argued persuasively that the centuries of violent persecution against Jews made the creation of a state to which Jews could freely emigrate and have self-determination was necessary for the survival of our people. This has been demonstrated by the many waves of Jewish refugees who were fleeing violence in, or expelled from, their birth countries.
If your child asks: But isn’t Israel an apartheid state?
Changes are good, your kid is more used to getting information from videos than reading, so point them here:
If your child asks, “But why don’t you care what Palestinians want?”
I, like many (maybe most) Jews, want peace and security for Palestinian citizens. But no matter how often I articulate why defeating Hamas and moving toward an era of mutual survival in the region is the only possibility for that peace and security, my position as a Jew means most people won’t hear me. I most often point them toward the podcast “Unapologetic, The Third Narrative.” If you only listen to one episode, make it this one:
If your child asks, “But why should white European colonizers be allowed to take the land from the indigenous people?
While I’m not always their biggest fan, I think the ADL’s explainer on this is one of the most balanced and accessible. But if you are a Jewish family, this might also be a good time to take a DNA test and talk about the results in the context of Jewish heritage. (Of course, converts are just as Jewish as those born into historically Jewish families. It’s that truth—that we are a people, but we are a people who are welcoming—that is particularly threatening to certain models of race and essentialism.)
If your child doesn’t ask anything, but simply chants “from the river to the sea” and stares at you angrily:
Remember that families, Jewish and not, almost all endure this period in the moral development of their children as they become adults. Whether what they are wrong about is the Hamas-Israel war, the value of dope smoking, or whether or not asking them to help with this dishes is patriarchal violence, being passionately wrong-headed is a developmental stage on the way to becoming an informed and active citizen. You, and your college student, just have to survive until this stage passes.
Have you seen the movie "The Believer?" "If you had come out of Egypt, you would have been destroyed in the wilderness with those who worshipped the golden calf." Look what happened to Danny. He destroyed himself.