On Sunday I helped organize a rally at our JCC in support of the three teenagers, Naftali Fraenkel, Eyal Yifrach, and Gilad Sha’er, who were kidnapped last week in Gush Etzion. As part of our advertising, we used the Twitter hashtag “#bringbackourboys” that was developed to bring world attention to this horrific kidnapping. During the rally, one of our speakers made reference to this hashtag and its famous predecessor, “#bringbackourgirls,” created in reference to the nearly 300 schoolgirls who were kidnapped in Nigeria in April 2014 by the Islamist group Boko Haram.
And then I looked around the room. Perhaps I had been too nervous before then—nervous about what I was going to say; nervous about whether enough people would show up to fill the chairs—to notice that there was no one in the audience under the age of 50. No one. Not a soul.
The #bringbackourgirls campaign captured the attention and enthusiasm of Americans young and old, religious and secular, politically active and indifferent. It captivated world attention with its moral resonance and clear message. But where were the young Jews in the crowd yesterday? Why did the kidnapping of students their own age not resonate enough to take 30 minutes out of their Sunday evening?
I’m sure there are communities that have held vigils where teenagers and young adults have shown up. Particularly in more frum communities, where studying in yeshivot in Israel as teenagers is more common, the connection to the kidnapped boys (especially to the American, Naftali) might prompt a better young turnout. But I imagine that the experience in my community was more, rather than less, common. And it is not just at this event. Look around you at Yom Hazikaron or Yom Hashoah gatherings and see who is with you: the elderly, those who went to Zionist summer camps generations ago, and a handful of Israeli expats. In another generation or two, will we even commemorate these days in America?
The diagnosis for this inattention is far easier, I fear, than the treatment. Younger generations lack the experiential connection to the Holocaust and to Israel’s wars for existential survival. They/we don’t have relatives who survived the Shoah and probably never have heard a survivor speak. They didn’t stay up at night, on pins and needles, afraid that Israel might be wiped out in 1948, 1967, or 1973. Without these experiences, we lack a visceral connection to Israelis as a people. What happens in Israel is a news item, something to note, perhaps, and then go on with our days here.
So how do we build a deeper, emotional connection to Israel and its people? I’d love to hear your ideas.
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frum
Pronounced: FROOM (oo as in hook), Origin: Yiddish, devout or pious, generally used to identify someone as Orthodox, or strictly observant of Jewish law.
Shoah
Pronounced: SHO-uh (long o), Origin: Hebrew, the Holocaust.
