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www.btzedek.org.il. Volunteer or Change-maker? Some conceptual and existential dimensions and their current and future implications Machon L’Madrichei Hutz L’Aretz Wednesday, 19 th September, 2007 Yonatan Glaser Director, B’Tzedek. www.btzedek.org.il. Diaspora. Transformation. Action.
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www.btzedek.org.il Volunteer or Change-maker? Some conceptual and existential dimensions and their current and future implications Machon L’Madrichei Hutz L’Aretz Wednesday, 19th September, 2007 Yonatan Glaser Director, B’Tzedek
www.btzedek.org.il Diaspora Transformation Action Education Identity Israel
www.btzedek.org.il • Should a youth movement be… • An informal educational organization designed to transmit Jewish identity for the sake of Jewish survival. • OR • A counter-cultural movement of cultural, social, political and educational activists passionate about and working to transform themselves and the world around them in order to bring about Tikkun Olam.
www.btzedek.org.il • An informal educational organization, or • a counter-cultural movement? • When is a youth movement really the • first but pretending to be the second? • Do Youth Movements self-identify as the first? • Why pretend to be the second? • Why not really embrace the second? • How can we tell the difference between the two?
How can we tell between the two? • Declared goals; the gap/dissonance between them & reality • What really motivates key leadership? • What is the content of our leadership training programs? • Is educational programming driven by our vision or by Jewish literacy/identity/relevance? • What’s on our calendar? What do we discuss in meetings? • What language do we use? • What disciplines and professional practices do we draw on? • What relationships do we have (with which) organizations? • What projects have we taken on; are they add-ons or central to who we are? • Who do we bring in as speakers and role models? • We could go on… www.btzedek.org.il
www.btzedek.org.il • The adult-youth dimension to this… • Taming the revolution: blue-weiss, hacshara and hagshama – now adult-led youth organizations • Concept of Moratorium • Rosh HaShana story of Milchemet HaShichrur • And how could we miss… The Little Prince…..
www.btzedek.org.il The Little prince - Antoine de Saint Exupéry Once when I was six years old I saw a magnificent picture in a book, called True Stories from Nature, about the primeval forest. It was a picture of a boa constrictor in the act of swallowing an animal. Here is a copy of the drawing. In the book it said: "Boa constrictors swallow their prey whole, without chewing it. After that they are not able to move, and they sleep through the six months that they need for digestion." I pondered deeply, then, over the adventures of the jungle. And after some work with a colored pencil I succeeded in making my first drawing. My Drawing Number One. It looked something like this:
www.btzedek.org.il I showed my masterpiece to the grown-ups, and asked them whether the drawing frightened them. But they answered: "Frighten? Why should any one be frightened by a hat?" My drawing was not a picture of a hat. It was a picture of a boa constrictor digesting an elephant. But since the grown-ups were not able to understand it, I made another drawing: I drew the inside of a boa constrictor, so that the grown-ups could see it clearly. They always need to have things explained. My Drawing Number Two looked like this: The grown-ups' response, this time, was to advise me to lay aside my drawings of boa constrictors, whether from the inside or the outside, and devote myself instead to geography, history, arithmetic, and grammar. That is why, at the age of six, I gave up what might have been a magnificent career as a painter. I had been disheartened by the failure of my Drawing Number One and my Drawing Number Two. Grown-ups never understand anything by themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining things to them.
www.btzedek.org.il But is the difference important? Does it matter to me? Am I overwhelmed even thinking about it?
www.btzedek.org.il • Why #1: The world today • (when did you last Google/read a book about these?) • Economic injustice within and between countries • Environmental sustainability and global warming • Discrimination by gender, race, ethnic group, religion, sexual orientation, mind/body special needs, and more • Migrant workers, internally displaced peoples and refugees • Trafficking on women, slave trade • Religious fundamentalism and capitalist nihilism • Globalization, post-modernity and sustainable cultural communities • Political systems under threat and doubt • Peace and war, nuclear threat • Add your own
www.btzedek.org.il • Why #1: The person today • Alienation and the need for a community of intimacy (psychology) • Passivity and the need for a community of involvement (sociology) • Dependency and the need for a community of authority (epistemology) • Purposelessness and the need for a community of intention (teleology)
www.btzedek.org.il • What do we teach? • Semantic field of terms: • Jewish education, character education, identity, values clarification • Or • volunteering, community involvement, leadership, civic participation, active citizenship, social entrepreneur, advocacy, activism
www.btzedek.org.il Individual Organizations Whose problem? Whose power? Business Government
www.btzedek.org.il • What do we teach? • Professor Joel Westheimer’s model • The following is excerpted from “What Kind of Citizen? The Politics of Educating for Democracy” American Educational Research Journal. Volume 41 No. 2, Summer 2004, 237-269. Joel Westheimer, University of Ottawa. Joseph Kahne, Mills College
www.btzedek.org.il Kinds of Citizens: The Politics of Educating for Democracy *
www.btzedek.org.il • What do we teach? • Based on notion of multiple intelligences – by • Professor Howard Gardener: • Psycho-social intelligence • Or • Psycho-social-organizational-political- • ideological intelligence
www.btzedek.org.il • Dissonance between • declaration and reality: • Do Something – community involvement. Prof Westheimer’s research… • Our Education – massive sign-up campaign by youth for national education • Aherai – Israeli preparation for Army and High School grades • …and its Character Education Agenda • Tzeva – Israeli org’n “to attend to widening gaps in Israeli society” • … do they achieve their goals? Can they without addressing questions of social policy?
www.btzedek.org.il Judaism and Zionism Martin Buber “. . . [While] love can be embodied only in the life of individuals, justice cannot be embodied except in the life of a nation and in the lives of nations. . . . It is only a nation which is able to establish justice both amongst its various parts—individuals and groups—and in its relations with other nations, for the sake of its own salvation and the salvation of humanity in the making. For this purpose, a nation requires independence and self-determination.” Martin Buber, "The Holy Way," in On Judaism, New York, Schocken Books, 1975, p. 112
www.btzedek.org.il • Back to Youth Movements… • Do we have the intellectual discernment? • Do we have the core concepts? • Do we have the emotional bravery? • Do we have each other?
Social Justice Community Learning www.btzedek.org.il Youth Movement: Hagshama + Shlichut
www.btzedek.org.il Go to it…
