/ CLP Community Leadership Program

Are we teaching our children to disappear?

In this lecture at the Shalom Hartman Institute’s Community Leadership Program, scholar and diplomat Tal Becker addresses the quiet crisis facing modern Jewry: the dangerous normalization of shrinking our identity, hiding Jewish symbols, and adopting a passive victim mentality.

Beginning with a poignant moment in Paris where he reflexively tucked his daughter’s Magen David (Star of David) necklace inside her shirt, Tal uncovers how Jews across the Diaspora and Israel are internalizing fear and losing their sense of human agency.

Tal turns to the Book of Genesis to trace the philosophical tension between viewing human beings as helpless victims of circumstance versus empowered agents of destiny:

• Why Adam and Cain blamed others for their failures.
• Why we are named Jews after Judah (Yehuda)—the ONE biblical figure who repeatedly stood up, owned his mistakes (Tzadkah mimeni), and proclaimed “I AM my brother’s keeper!”
• How Viktor Frankl and Vasily Grossman teach us to maintain our humanity even in the darkest circumstances.

You can find the source sheet here