I want to begin with an emotion we don’t often associate with education, especially not in formal classroom settings. That emotion is fear. So I want to start with a very simple but deep question: What is it about Israel education that is scary right now?
We’re not talking just about challenges or complexities. Lots of things in Jewish education are challenging. But Israel education, particularly since October 7, has become genuinely frightening—for students, for educators and for the communities we’re part of.
We fear the backlash our students may face if they speak publicly about Israel—both in school, and especially outside of school. And in some cases, even within Jewish schools, where Jewish and non-Jewish students sometimes share space. We fear misrepresentation of Israel in external narratives—uneducated views dominating public conversation.
We fear overwhelming students with trauma but also fear underpreparing them. We fear that their Jewish or Israeli identity becomes tied only to tragedy. We fear the influence of social media, celebrities, influencers, posts without nuance, all feeding our students a worldview shaped by reaction rather than reflection.
We also fear that students are being pushed into binary positions, either “pro-Israel” or “anti-Israel,” with no space for complexity, criticism or care. And we fear the challenge of teaching that nuance, especially in the face of conflict, anxiety and rising antisemitism.
These are real fears. And maybe naming them helps us take one small step toward managing them.
So What Is the Purpose of Israel Education?
I want to share three simplified educational models that have shaped our thinking about Israel education. These aren’t mutually exclusive, and none is perfect—but together, they offer useful ways to reflect on what we’re trying to achieve.
The Classical Zionist Model
This model sees the purpose of Israel education as preparation for aliyah, or at least for serious advocacy and support. It’s about building a life committed to Israel—through action, not just emotion. It’s why generations of children were taken to the top of Masada and told, “Masada will never fall again,” or taken to the kibbutz to dig the land, feel the dirt under their fingernails and told, “Let’s build something here,” or taken to a beit midrash and told, “Let’s learn Torah in Israel and live in the space in which all of these books that we’re surrounded by took place.”
This model had clarity, narrative and vision. It built the State of Israel.
Its strength lies in its power, the idea that you can move people with a story, give them purpose and root their identity in sovereignty and peoplehood. But it can feel outdated today—a little like reading Laura Ingalls Wilder in a world of Minecraft. The narrative doesn’t always land with modern students, who live in a post-ideological, hyper-individualized world. They may not feel they are shaping history but rather being swept along by it. The call to build the land has become, for some, a suburban middle-class life, albeit in a country facing ongoing civilizational struggle.
The Engagement Model
This approach, which I personally spent years championing, sees the goal as helping every student find their own personal connection to Israel. It might be emotional, intellectual, spiritual; maybe felt while standing at the Kotel, hearing Hebrew spoken on the street or seeing a Jewish diplomat represent a Jewish state.
This model prioritizes individualized connection, and it aligns well with modern educational values: student-centered, pluralistic, emotionally aware. It asks, How can we move each student forward on their own Jewish journey?
The downside? It assumes Israel is inherently engaging—and for many Jewish students today, it isn’t. Some never go. Some are indifferent. And others are actively alienated. Plus, real engagement has high costs, emotionally, educationally and literally. Think of Birthright—an amazing initiative, but one that’s required billions in philanthropic investment over the decades.
The Jewish Peoplehood Model
This is the least well-defined of the three. Even the word peoplehood—amiyut in Hebrew—is a modern invention, coined by educators in the 1990s. There’s no Irish or Hungarian “peoplehood.” Jews made it up—and maybe that’s kind of beautiful.
This model centers not on Israel, but on Am Yisrael, the Jewish people. The idea is that Israel education is part of a broader project: helping Jews feel connected to each other, globally. Students in London should feel connected to their peers in Beit Shemesh, Berlin, Baltimore and Buenos Aires.
It’s a big idea, and it has emotional resonance. Many Jews instinctively do this—visiting shuls and museums wherever they travel, seeking out other Jews, feeling part of something shared. It’s immersive, and it speaks to something deep in the Jewish soul.
But it can instrumentalize Israel. In this model, Israel matters because that’s where the Jews are, not because of any intrinsic values or history. And that leads to uncomfortable questions: What happens when Israel no longer reflects the values we want it to? Can we still feel connected when we’re disillusioned?
Choosing Your Direction
There is of course no single answer. You have to work it out for yourself. None of these educational models—classical Zionism, emotional engagement, peoplehood—is perfect. But all of them offer something. They all have strengths. They all have blind spots. And they often lead naturally one into the other.
But if we don’t ask the question of purpose, we risk flailing around in response-mode forever. And not just individually. As educators, we need to ask this in our schools, in our departments, with our trustees and with our parent bodies. Why do we teach Israel? And what does a successful outcome look like?
From that question—purpose—come the next: outcomes. What are we hoping our students will do, or be, or become, as a result of the Israel education we give them?
Is it enough that they feel connected? That they can defend Israel in a debate? That they join a protest? That they make aliyah?
And what about the political atmosphere outside? Can we do the things we used to do, like have IDF soldiers visit schools, without facing backlash? Are we unintentionally shielding students from truths they need to wrestle with?
These are uncomfortable questions—but necessary ones. And they’re not just theoretical. I recently did this exercise with the staff body of a Jewish primary school. Jewish and non-Jewish staff sat together and asked: What do we want our children to walk away with at the end of Year 6? What would we be proud to see them doing, or horrified?
It’s not easy. But it doesn’t have to take hours. Start with 10 minutes in a staff meeting. Sketch it out. Ask: What is our school’s purpose for Israel education? Let that guide everything else.
Because we’re not only responding to rising antisemitism or social media misinformation, although that’s part of it. We’re also giving students tools to think for themselves when all they see online is celebrities posting single-sided narratives or simplistic slogans. And when that happens, they need a foundation strong enough to say, “I know this is more complex. I’ve thought about it.”
But here’s the challenge: We only get a few hours a week. Maybe a few hours a year. And we’re being asked to cover everything: justice, hostages, morality, politics, peace, identity, trauma. All of it. In that limited time, what do we prioritize: Truth? Peace? Advocacy?
The work cannot be to solve everything, but if we begin by asking the right questions, we can prioritize what will be the most impactful.
The Care Approach
Let me share one more idea—not a solution, but something that’s helped me think: the philosophy of care, from the American educational thinker Nel Noddings.
She wasn’t Jewish. She was a mother of 10, a grandmother of 39, and a philosopher of education. She argued that the central purpose of education is not knowledge, skills or even identity. It’s care.
She drew a distinction between:
Caring for people, relationships, students
Caring about ideas, causes, issues
We often jump to the second. But for students to care about Israel, they first have to feel cared for and learn what it means to care.
Her model is a cycle:
- Modelling: Teachers model care through genuine relationships.
- Dialogue: We talk with students about what they care about.
- Practice: We engage in embodied actions: yellow ribbons for hostages, writing letters, prayer, ritual.
- Confirmation: We affirm that their care matters, is valued and is real.
Eventually, caring becomes part of identity. And then they become the ones modeling it for others.
Caring in Practice
So maybe in this scary moment, we don’t start with ideology or advocacy or “the truth.” We start with care.
We help our young people care for Israelis, and from there, care about Israel. That might be the way in. That might be the work.
What might this look like in practice? Teachers who have tried using this approach have told me they have experimented with a number of methodologies.
First, as per the “practice” part of the cycle above, creating specific, regular moments in time when care for Israelis can be publicly demonstrated at school is essential. The analogous adult version is beginning each day by taking a new bit of tape and writing the new number (of days since October 7) on it. It embeds into the very rhythm of life a commitment and care. A school might have that number in a prominent public location or announce it at assembly each day.
Second, focusing on people rather than speaking in terms of world-historical ideologies, grand strategy or geopolitics is vital. Students need to relate to Israelis in the concrete rather than the abstract. There’s an old saying that people don’t follow ideas, they follow people with ideas. Similarly, students aren’t likely to connect to or care for “Zionism” or “the new, post–7 October reality.” They are more likely to connect to or care for Israelis—individuals, families or identifiable small groups—and as such educators should lean into this when planning curriculum.
Finally, demonstrating that those students whose views are challenging to you or to the school are nevertheless valued and listened to is essential. This does not mean that “anything goes” or that radical voices on the far left or far right should be included in education conversations. It also does not mean that all education should be sanitized so it is “comfortable.”
But it does mean recognizing that students’ challenges might also be coming from a place of caring for or caring about. Engaging with them as fellow “carers,” rather than top-down recipients of your superior knowledge, can help bring them closer to caring for and about what you as an educator think is important. Engaging with these students and their concerns models the very caring for that you wish to direct them towards.
None of this is easy—the opposite in fact. It’s hard and messy. But it’s also profoundly Jewish.
Adapted from a session given at the LSJS Jewish Studies Teachers’ Conference. LSJS trains UK teachers across a range of pathways and subjects. | lsjs.ac.uk/teach
