David Bryfman - Why Your Kids Don't Feel the Way You Do About Israel

Episode 81 of What Gives?—the Jewish Philanthropy Podcast from Jewish Funders Network, hosted by JFN President and CEO Andrés Spokoiny. In this episode, Andrés speaks with Dr. David Bryfman, CEO of The Jewish Education Project and author of the new book Heroism and Hope: Recharging Israel Education in a Post-October 7 World. David and Andrés ask whether October 7 genuinely changed Jewish education or simply forced into the open questions many educators had been wrestling with privately. David makes a provocative case: when adults demand to know why their children don't feel about Israel the way they do, they often reveal more about themselves than about the education their children received. He argues that young people need to arrive at their own understanding in their own way and their own time, even when they land somewhere different from their parents, while insisting that Israel belongs at the core of serious Jewish education rather than at its margins. Also discussed are the points where Andrés and David part ways, including Andrés's discomfort with the idea that education should stay neutral about the conclusions students reach, and David's argument for teaching the hard parts of Jewish history honestly so that students don't encounter them for the first time on a hostile campus.  Take a listen.