If we want Jewish life to survive, we must invest in the living

Jewish continuity has never come from educating others about our suffering. It always comes from educating our children about their story, faith and future.

I spent eight days in Berlin this spring, visiting concentration camps, walking through Jewish neighborhoods and trying to understand how a country reckons with its past. At nearly every corner, there was a marker of memory, a stumbling stone in the sidewalk, or a plaque. At one government building, I was surprised to see a mural depicting German history that didn’t conveniently omit the 1940s: a train headed to Auschwitz. It was honest and powerful. But as I walked those streets, warned not to be visibly Jewish, it felt like some things hadn’t changed at all.

What I saw in Berlin — the symbols, the history, the hatred that still lingered — made me think about my home, Pittsburgh, and how my community was choosing to remember and build forward after the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting.

Antisemitism is exploding across the world, even in the U.S., where millions of dollars have been spent on Holocaust education. It’s hard to reconcile: How is so much money spent on Holocaust education when nothing seems to change? In the U.S., there are 16 major Holocaust museums and memorials and dozens of smaller centers, including one in Pittsburgh that’s been open since 1980, yet antisemitism continues to rise.

In an article published in The Atlantic, Dara Horn, author of “People Love Dead Jews,” notes that because Holocaust education is disconnected from contemporary Jewish life, it often fails to address the very antisemitism it seeks to prevent by centering Jewish identity around victimhood. If this is true about Holocaust education, how have the Jewish people continued to survive, and, in many cases, even to thrive?

In his paper “The Secret of Continuity,” Rabbi Jonathan Sacks offered a simple answer to this question: Jewish education. Not mass education for the public, but Jewish education for Jewish children, teaching them where they come from and what it means to be a Jew.

Sacks wrote, “We live through what we learn. If we do not learn what it is to be a Jew, nothing in our environment, except antisemitism, will tell us … Jews survived, quite simply, because they devoted their best energies to education.”

A 2017 Pittsburgh Jewish community study commissioned by the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh found only 52% of Jewish children participated in some form of Jewish education, and the proportion of Pittsburgh Jews who identified either as Reform or Conservative declined since 2014 from 73% to 56%.

Compared to other communities nationwide, Pittsburgh has more young adults and kids involved in some Jewish life. But, as Jeff Finklestein, president and CEO of the Federation, and Evan Indianer, the study’s chair, commented, more needs to be done, and with “limited resources … we have to figure out how to use them most effectively.”

On Oct 27, 2018, less than a year after the study’s release, an antisemitic gunman murdered 11 worshippers at the Tree of Life building. The Tree of Life, a nonprofit formed after the shooting, is in the midst of a rebuilding initiative for which it aims to raise $75 million. The planned complex will encompass a synagogue for the Tree of Life Congregation, a museum focusing on the history of antisemitism in America, a center that will provide programs to educate the public about antisemitism and strategies to counteract it, and a memorial to the 11 people who lost their lives.

Carole Zawatsky, CEO of The Tree of Life project, said rebuilding is “a story of re-creation that will never let the killer tell our story.” In an interview with Pittsburgh Magazine, she described the goal as one of resilience, that in the face of the deadliest act of antisemitic violence in U.S. history, the Jewish people in Pittsburgh chose to “Get up and recreate … to tell our story of Jewish life in a dynamic and robust and important way.”

A moving and compelling vision that raises an important question: Is a $75 million museum, memorial and educational center the most effective way to tell that story? Will this model truly strengthen Jewish life in Pittsburgh, or is it just doing what we’ve always done: Build structures remembering how Jews died — and hope that next time the results will be different?

Pittsburgh has three Jewish day schools: Hillel Academy, Community Day School and Yeshiva Schools, all of which have taken on the challenge of providing Pittsburgh’s Jewish children with the kind of education Rabbi Sacks extolled. These schools and the broader community rely heavily on the Jewish Federation for funding each year. Tuition can approach $20,000 per child, and congregational membership fees can range from $1,300 to $1,750 annually, making full participation in Jewish life financially out of reach for many families.

So, if we were handed $75 million to shape the future of Jewish life in this city, wouldn’t it be better used to enrich and strengthen a community that needs it now?

As I spoke with members of Pittsburgh’s Jewish community, I realized I wasn’t alone in questioning this path forward. People are whispering. Maybe they think they’re in the minority. Perhaps they feel like they can’t speak up. But the doubt is there.

Holocaust education is vital — that’s why the U.S. has more than a dozen Holocaust museums. But Jewish continuity has never come from educating others about our suffering. It always comes from educating our children about their story, faith and future.

The Tree of Life project and the community’s primary focus is to Remember, Rebuild and Renew. Remembering the 11 beautiful souls who were killed on Oct. 27, 2018, is sacred. But how we rebuild and renew — that’s where we have a chance to reimagine. Holocaust centers have not curbed antisemitism, but when education has proven to be a way to ensure a proud, informed Jewish identity, why do we invest so much in memorials and so little in life that is happening now?

Remembering those taken from us doesn’t have to be limited to a memorial. It can also mean rebuilding our community and honoring their memory by investing in the Jewish schools that will sustain our future.

The future is in our children. A wise community would make them its priority. PJC

Mendy Cohen is a Pittsburgh native and recent University of Pittsburgh graduate. He covered the Pittsburgh synagogue shooter’s trial as an independent journalist and founded The Cohen Notebook on Substack, where a more detailed version of this piece may be found.