“Non-Jews respect Jews who respect Judaism, and they are embarrassed by Jews who are embarrassed by Judaism,” wrote the late, great Rabbi Jonathan Sacks in his book Radical Then, Radical Now.
It was in this spirit that Rabbi Sacks’s family and a group of admirers have launched a new initiative to bring his teachings to Israel – specifically Israeli schoolchildren – with the aim of making them proud Israelis and proud, unashamed Jews.
The project, which launched earlier this year, seeks to make Rabbi Sacks’s legacy accessible to children in modern ways, whether through TikTok-style videos or interactive educational content. The first year of the project will conclude with an event at the President’s Residence on Sunday.
The project involves different content ranging from enrichment materials (“Four leadership principles of Rabbi Sacks that can change the world”) and video activities, such as one titled, “We have a lot more in common than we think,” which involves a game showing teenagers that they are not alone. There is also a class competition intended for students in grades 7-10 that asks students to create a two-week chessed-style project, such as baking biscuits for soldiers.
Rabbi Sacks’s brother Alan, who helps steer the Rabbi Sacks Heritage Foundation in Israel, said that since his brother died, a number of people, family and non-family, have tried to bring his teachings to Israel.
“My brother had a worldview that involved engagement in the modern world as a proud Jew,” Sacks told The Jerusalem Post from his home in Jerusalem.
Rabbi Sacks remained relatively unknown in Israel
Despite his role as the UK’s chief rabbi from 1991 to 2013, Rabbi Sacks remains relatively unknown in Israel. This, his brother said, is a huge shame, as in his words, Rabbi Sacks “is the only Orthodox voice I know who can grab the attention and admiration of people who live in the modern world and outside of the Orthodox Jewish orbit.”
Modern approaches to being Jewish are especially important for modern, Israeli youth, who, as Sacks told the Post, often feel the need to identify as either Jewish or Israeli, as if the two are mutually exclusive. This distancing from Jewishness on the part of secular Israelis, and the shame and judgment associated with religion, is deeply saddening.
“If we don’t feel Jewish in this country, what’s the point of this country?” he said. “Every Jewish child in Israel should have the stories of the Old Testament as his or her cultural terms of reference, regardless of the level of religious observance.
“Without that story, without the story that we tell, what are we?”
Nevertheless, Sacks explained that you “can’t take 15-year-olds and throw a book at them; you need to get them involved either through interactive tuition or TikTok or something.
The team behind the initiative – with the support and advice of educators and former Education Ministry officials – asked educators to produce videos, lesson plans, debate structures, and a competition asking students to “do something to make the world a better place because that is your Jewish responsibility.”
They asked a popular influencer to front the videos.
“We specifically want to target children for whom religion is stigmatized by ‘settlers’ and ‘draft dodgers,’” Sacks continued. In Israel, there has been a persistent blurring between religion and politics, whereby “religion [is used] as a political tool.”
“Religion is supposed to speak truth to power,” he said.
What he wants children to see is that “all the things that people hold dear in contemporary Western society – human rights, the rule of law, charity, day of rest, respect for others – “every single issue which you hold dear, which modern liberal democracy holds dear, is in fact a Jewish idea.
“All I want is for them to realize that in all the things they do, be proud of it because you’re Jewish.”
Jewish pride was central to both the Post’s discussion with Alan Sacks and to the life and works of his late brother, who famously said, “I am proud, simply, to be a Jew.”
“So many are ashamed of being Jewish,” Sacks said.
He recalled a recent comment from the incomparable Douglas Murray, whom he referred to as “Israel’s greatest ambassador.” Murray said, “Jews are very powerful but weak, and they should be Jewish and strong.”
“While Jews are powerful – anybody in any field, the arts, the media, you can’t get a film made without going to a Jewish film producer – they are all embarrassed at being Jewish. They have immense power but they are afraid to use it.”
It is this power that the Rabbi Sacks initiative seeks to nurture. And it has been successful so far. Tens of thousands of schoolchildren have taken part in specially designed lesson plans, hundreds have participated in debates, and some of the videos have received 350,000 individual views. The team has planned a five-year program, each year of which will have a different theme.
“If we can show secular students an Orthodox rabbi who knows more about football and hip-hop than they do, they might actually pay attention,” Sacks said.
He recalled how much his late brother loved Lin-Manuel Miranda’s musical Hamilton, and how it revitalized an otherwise uninteresting page in the history book.
“My brother felt Hamilton took something dead and stale and made it vibrant and modern,” said Sacks.
And this is what he wanted for Jews.
“Judaism as something meaningful and contemporary, but without compromising its authenticity, that’s what my brother wanted.”