<p>Such an interesting coversation - I wish we were having it in person!</p>
<p>My experience growing up was that my parents shoved Judaism down my throat. From the time I was about 15 on, my mother in particular harped on the importance of marrying Jewish and raising Jewish children. Her threats to disown me if I married outside the faith haunted me as a teenager, yet I consistently dated non-Jews, whether out of rebellion or that was just who I was meeting - not sure. A lot of deceit and sneaking around ensued. In college, I had a bf at Georgetown, and while visiting him once an incident occurred that caused me a moment of clarity - I might even go so far as to call it a epiphany. While the relationship lasted a while longer, I knew in my heart that I wanted to date only Jewish guys in the future and to marry within the faith. I met my now-husband just a few weeks after ending the previous relationship. We are not terribly religious, but my cultural and ethnic identity as a Jew is very strong.</p>
<p>Fast forward 20 years and 3 young cousins have recently married or become engaged to non-Jews - which saddens me greatly. Many have written more eloquently than I can that the greatest threat to the longevity of the Jewish faith comes from within our ranks. For my sons, I have tried to find middle ground. They both attended Hebrew School and had Bar Mitzvahs and I agree with Yabeyabe 110% that Hebrew School is part of the problem. The kids tend to dislike it and once they have the Bar Mitzvah - want nothing more to do with Temple-related activities. That S2 has become so involved with BBYO seems in retrospect to simply be a lucky turn of events - he went a few times - some of his existing friends also went - he liked the older kids there - he liked that a lot of what they do is sports-related and social events - and he just kept going with it - now holding an officer position and attending out of state conferences. I have never and will never try to dictate to my boys that they should date only Jewish girls, but instead I hope that they come to that realization on their own, just as I did.</p>
<p>Hi again Rockville mom:
I just read your latest entry and agree whole heartedly. I also have 2 sonâs and am in a similar situation. If your second son is involved in BBYO and is interested in Business, has he checked out the ProjectNYC program through BBYO? My older son did that last summer (between sophomore/junior year) and felt it was a good way to spend 10 days in the summer. He met other jewish kids from all over the country and stayed at the dorms at NYU. Have him check out the website and see if itâs still being offered.</p>
<p>yabeyabe2 â sorry, but I have to disagree with your views on Hebrew school. Less is less. And knowledge is powerful. The more well versed our students are in Judaism, the better prepared they are to define themselves as Jews (whether or not that definition is entirely what weâd like it to be). </p>
<p>When theyâre off at college and non-Jewish students ask them about things, if all they can do is shrug and say, âI donât really know,â I think it encourages them to think that holding on to their Judaism isnât very important. </p>
<p>Children pick a lot up from their parents when we donât even realize it. Do they see their parents making Jewish choices and making Judaism a priority in some manner? Or do they see their parents complain about how burdensome it is to be Jewish (including Jewish education)? At the end of the day, telling them, as they apply to college â âby the way, remember your Judaism is important so go to a college with a good Jewish community and date and marry another Jewâ â is probably the least effective thing we as parents can do if those are in fact our goals for our children.</p>
<p>rockvillemom: I hope your S ends up at UDelaware so we can meet and chat in Newark- I think we would get along great (although my situation only mirrors yours to an extent â and I have learned a lot in the past 30 years!). </p>
<p>Fortunately, I have found Reform Judaism better to my taste than Conservative and both my kids went/are going to URJ camps. This has been life-changing for them. D, who is going to Delaware, is also somewhat involved in NFTY and went with URJ to Israel. Much different experience than my Hebrew-School-crammed-down-your-throat experience. (S is only a HS freshman - Israel in summer 2011). Therefore, she shares values and FUN with her Jewish friends. At her visit to Hillel at UDel, she was already playing Jewish geography with the students and knew people in common from her NFTY and URJ experiences. She wants to get involved in Hillel, more than just going to services. While she has a non-Jewish BF right now (first non-Jewish one), she is clearly not as close with him as she was with her Jewish BF from last year. (That didnât last because she went off to camp and he went off to college.) Since she is working at her URJ camp this summer (only 3 weeks awayâŠ), Iâm not sure how long the current BF will last - hopefully till prom!</p>
<p>At her first meeting with her GC talking about what she wanted in a college, she said she wanted a good sized Jewish population. I nearly fell off my chair. Now she wants to do a Jewish studies minor. Itâs amazing to see, considering where I have come from.</p>
<p>Iâm pretty sure that S will be the same as D, although time will tell. So far, he is an A student, so his options will be different (hope that Emory isnât limiting Jewish students when he is ready to apply!).</p>
<p>Agree, rockvillemom - we would all have a great conversation IRL!</p>
<p>D1 (college class of 2013) is just home after her first year, and her Jewish BF from college is visiting. (A nice premed Jewish boy :D) Itâs a funny thing - I didnât convert for a long time after I was married and had kids, so early on in my child-rearing days I thought âhey, whatâs the big deal if they date/marry someone non-Jewish - I did it.â But after all the years and effort of raising Jewish kids and ultimately converting, I realized I do care. A lot. Both Ds are very involved in NFTY, URJ camp, URJ trips to Israel, etc. Finding a Jewish campus community was very important to D1 and I expect the same will be true of D2 in a couple of years.</p>
<p>
I know this belief is widely held, but I think it overlooks situations like mine, when I was a non-Jewish mother working very hard to raise Jewish children. Having a synagogue that welcomed us, an interfaith couple, with open arms, resulted in more, stronger Jews, not fewer. Okay, now Iâve gone way off topic. Sorry!</p>
<p>My son graduated from University of Delaware 2 years ago. It is a great school, he was a business major and I just loved the school. FYI he never even knew that there was a jewish holiday going on. He went to Hillel once, and was turned off. We are not a religious family
but that was the only aspect of Delaware that bothered me. It could of just been my sons lack of interest. When he moved off campus, 3 out of his 4 roommates were jewish.</p>
<p>Also there is an amtrack station on campus making it convenient.</p>
<p>On the other hand my second son is going to SUNY Binghamton and they will be closed for many of the Jewish Holidays, including Rosh ashana. He got into Honors Delaware, but we think that Binghamton will be a better fit.</p>
<p>I think the OPâs mother did the right thing to make her wishes clear about wanting her daughter to marry a Jewish man. As parents, we should make our values clear to our children what is important to us. These values can include religious preference, morals, values, character, etc.</p>
<p>If connecting to some form of Jewish life on campus is important to you, then be sure your child likes the leadership and activities at Hillel and/or Chabad on campus. I think many kids are looking for a home away from home connection.</p>
<p>All the kids I know who have done gap year in Israel love it and have a great time. Look into the programs at Young Judeaâthere is a wide selection of programs for a variety of interests. Also, some of the Israeli universities have a freshman year experience available (Technion, University of HaifaâŠ). I donât know if and how college credits transfer as my kids are not doing gap year. Not every U.S. university allows you to defer entrance.</p>
<p>I do not want to hijack Rockvillemomâs topic into a discussion of Jewish identity, but I disagree that âless is lessâ when it comes to Hebrew school. This can vary depending on the school, of course, but I think often âless is moreââbecause many kids tune out the extire experience when it is boring. </p>
<p>A thought for parents to consider is whether Jewish identity is best fostered in schools where Jews are a minority and more conscious of their being Jewish.</p>
<p>Many studies point to the value of Jewish summer camp programs.
I know my own Jewish summer camp was a formative experienceâso much so that I sent my kids halfway across the country to go there. (One didnât care for it. The other lives for it. Itâs my Jewish camp enthusiast who wants to do a year in Israel before college.)</p>
<p>My kids didnât like the USY thing â if they were giving up time to be involved, they wanted to read Torah or help on the catering committee. They seemed to feel that there was too much pressure to socialize and find BFs/GFs within the Jewish community.<br>
That said, both of them are seeing young women whose families are Jewish!</p>
<p>there are some students who will be more likely to walk into hillel and get involved on a campus where they feel they are in such a minority that they find the need for such a connection. there are some students who wonât bother to walk into hillel on a campus where they feel a sufficient Jewish presence that they feel no need to reach out for such a connection.</p>
<p>just further demonstrating that there is no one perfect type of campus Jewish community â it varies a lot by student â and sometimes it is hard to predict how a student will react once they are away at school, away from what had been their âcomfortâ zone their whole lives.</p>
<p>PRJ - thanks for sharing your story - I really had overlooked that possibility in my comment - I am so glad your synagogue was welcoming.</p>
<p>yabeyabe - donât worry about hijacking - this latest conversation is really pertinent. Iâve kind of made the assumption that finding colleges with a vibrant Hillel is crucial for S2, and Iâm not saying that it isnât, but as others have posted - there really is no guarantee as to what will click and what wonât.</p>
<p>When I was 20 years old and in college, I decided that I would try harder to date Jewish girls. I hadnât really been involved with a Jewish girl since I was a junior in high school, and it suddenly occurred to me that if I wanted women to like me more, maybe I should look for women (a) who were more like me, and (b) who would see my Judaism as a plus rather than an issue to overcome. The problem was, Jewish women didnât walk around with mogendavids on their clothing. I could, of course, have found them at Hillel services, but as a practical matter I wasnât interested in the women I knew there. (I was a regular Shabbat service attender, and felt very close to the Hillel rabbi at my college.)</p>
<p>My great experiment in J-dating produced the following:</p>
<p>â one ethnic Jew who had been raised as a Unitarian, and had absolutely no experience of Judaism as a religion (I ultimately married her)
â one ethnic Jew whose immediate family were all active followers of the Gurdjieff cult
â one Christian Scientist with a Jewish grandfather
â one mildly antisemitic Catholic, who learned three years later that she was, in fact, ethnically Jewish on her motherâs side, her mother having hid that from her until after she graduated from college (this is a sensational shaggy dog story)
â an adoptee actively engaged in searching for her Greek birthmother
â two committed Jews who happened not to be straight
â and . . . three actual straight born-and-raised-Jewish women, one of whom I could have been head over heels in love with had she not dropped out of college to join the IDF, and later the Mossad. (I was ready to keep kosher for her, but not to make aliyah. She has lived the rest of her life as an Israeli. She did, however, become an active peacenik.)</p>
<p>Anyway, the experiment was definitely a success in terms of finding women who would like me back, but it was surprisingly difficult to come up with actual, straight, unambiguously Jewish women. I would specify that every single one of these women had a Jewish-sounding name and âlooked Jewishâ.</p>
<p>For all B/B+ students, I think the most important step is to learn which of the following types of B student schools is the best fit:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>An instate public for financial reasons, among others.</p></li>
<li><p>An OOS flagship (other than UVA, UNC, UMich and a few more) for bigtime sports, etc .</p></li>
<li><p>A large non-flagship public (JMU, Towson, Temple) for its nonsports attributes, such as lots of academic options or fun, and moderate cost.</p></li>
<li><p>A medium-sized private (Elon, Marist and lots of Catholic schools) for being too small to get lost in, but big enough to not feel confined.</p></li>
<li><p>A âreachâ small school which prides itself on its rigorous prep for grad school (F&M) and where your childâs stats will be below the norm, but you feel they will rise to the competition.</p></li>
<li><p>A match or safety small school for its merit $ potential and/or its nurturing atmosphere (Alfred, Susquehanna, Muhlenberg).</p></li>
</ol>
<p>I think once you find the right category above, other attributesâurban/rural; strength in your major; % of Jewish kids will narrow the list to a reasonable number.</p>