9 Steps to Raising Jewish Kids Today
Camps, Santa, and more
This essay is part of a new collection of work inspired by the anthology On Being Jewish Now: Reflections of Authors and Advocates. Want to contribute? Instructions here. Subscribe here.
When life gets overwhelming, I make lists. Breaking down a challenging task into manageable chunks and then ticking them off, one by one, makes my world feel less chaotic. Ever since October 7, I’ve been overwhelmed by the responsibility of raising my three Jewish kids. And so, here’s my list.
Teach them to wear their Judaism proudly in their hearts, but maybe not on their shirts or hanging from their necks or around their wrists. If they do fall in love with that one shirt with Hebrew letters on it, let them wear it. Note that next time you wash it, possibly make it “disappear” to the other set of drawers they never look in. Just in case.
Send them to Jewish camp where there are no rules. Where they can be free to sing loudly and proudly about their Judaism and about Israel. Where they are only two hours from home but world’s away from news. Where they can meet kids from around the world so they don’t believe everything they see on TV.
Keep that camp magic alive. Let them breathe pride back into you.
Email the teachers and coaches in the fall with all the dates of things your kids will be missing because of the Jewish holidays. Rewrite the email four times. Make sure they know the reason, but also that they know you don’t expect them to change the schedule. (But wish they would offer.)
Learn to be okay with it when your kid comes home from school with a handmade plate for Santa’s cookies. Find a deserving home for this thoughtful craft.
Make sure your kid doesn’t know the truth about Santa. Will this make him or her look immature in front of her middle school friends? Perhaps. But this is critical. Your kid can’t be the one to find out first and then share the breaking news with his non-Jewish friends.
Look for the good ones. The friends who stand up for you and your kids. The ones who text you Happy New Year in September. The ones who check if your kid eats pepperoni pizza. The teacher who buys a special blue and silver ornament for your child to decorate while the others do red and green. Hang that ornament in your house as a reminder that people do see you.
Dig out that shirt. The one you hid in the back of the drawer. Put it on the top of the pile and watch them come downstairs the next morning wearing it. Kiss them goodbye for school and hope they only cross paths with the good ones.
Start a countdown for summer camp.
Debra Arbit is a 44-year-old woman from Minneapolis who is a sucker for a goal. When she’s not wiping peanut butter off one of her three kids’ faces, you can find her cooking her way through cookbooks cover-to-cover on her Instagram. She loves to write and feed people to the point of bursting.
Instagram: @fortheloveofcookbooks
This essay is part of a new collection of work inspired by the anthology On Being Jewish Now: Reflections of Authors and Advocates. Want to contribute? Instructions here. Subscribe here.
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