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Why Be Jewish?
Extra Curricular Lesson | Grades 7–12 | by Zion Ozeri, Josh Feinberg, and Dara Unterberg

Opening

Before showing the photograph, share these words from Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks about the Jewish future: 

The future for Jews and Judaism, in Israel and the Diaspora, is fraught with risk…We will not understand Judaism, or the Jewish people, or the trajectory of Jewish history, until we ask: ‘What made Jews different?’...What are Jews called upon to do? And why, in the twenty-first century, does it matter? 

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, Radical Then, Radical Now 

Discuss:

• Rabbi Sacks asks, “What made Jews different?” What do you think he means by different here?
   
• What have Jews believed, practiced, or carried forward that has allowed Jewish life to endure across radically different times and places?
   
• What, in your view, makes Jewish life worth carrying into the future?

Part 1: Reading the Photographs

Photograph 1: Holy Ground

“Holy Ground” Rehovot 1982
All images © Zion Ozeri. All Rights Reserved.

Look closely at the photograph and discuss:

• What might the relationship between the man and the child be? What in the photograph leads you to that interpretation?
   
• How does the photographer use the positioning of the two figures to connect them visually?
   
• The photograph is titled Holy Ground. What might be “holy” here: the place, the activity, the relationship, or something else?
   
• How does this verse from the book of Exodus enhance your understanding of the photograph’s title?

Exodus 3;5
And He said, “Do not come closer. Remove your sandals from your feet, for the place on which you stand is holy ground.”

• What does this photograph suggest about how Jewish life passes from one generation to another?

Photograph 2: Herzliyah Beach

Pre-draft training course, Herzliya Beach, 2025
All images © Zion Ozeri. All Rights Reserved.

• What do the setting, the figures, and their movement suggest is happening here?
   
• What contrasts do you notice between the activity taking place on the beach and the larger setting around it?
   
• These teens have chosen to participate in a pre-draft to IDF training course. How does knowing that change the way you understand the photograph?
   
• What might motivate someone to prepare in advance for a responsibility that still lies ahead?
   
• What different picture of Jewish life and responsibility does this photograph offer from Holy Ground?

Part 2: The Text

Text 1: An Ongoing Dialogue

To be a Jew is to be a part of the ongoing dialogue between earth and heaven that has persisted for two thirds of the recorded history of civilization and whose theme is an urgent now at any time in the  past: to build a society that honors the human person in our differences and commonalities, our singularity and interdependence.
Lord Rabbi Jonathan Sacks - Radical Then, Radical Now

Text 2: Judaism Still Matters 

Judaism gave humanity the idea of hope, the notion that the future can be better than the past, that people can grow individually and collectively, creating lives of meaning and societies of justice. Its rituals carry echoes of eternity and the accumulated wisdom of four thousand years. It makes us transcend our own narrow lives and it places us in a chain of life that spans across millennia. Being Jewish is participating in a conversation across time and space, a dialogue whose goal is the improvement of the human condition.

…Today, as humanity faces unprecedented challenges, Judaism can comfort, inspire and guide. As it did in the past, it can provide ethical guides and life-affirming practices in a time of perplexity and upheaval. It can teach us, again, to protect our own and, at the same time, connect us with the world. It can reaffirm the dignity of every human being and the responsibility we have for our common home. It’s not just that ‘Judaism still matters’, but that Judaism is indispensable.
- Andrés Spokoiny — author and Jewish communal leader, personal communication

Discuss:

• Rabbi Sacks describes being Jewish as participating in an “ongoing dialogue between earth and heaven.” What do you think he means by this? What does being part of that dialogue ask of a Jew?
   
• Spokoiny says that Judaism “places us in a chain of life that spans across millennia.” What does being part of that chain give us? What responsibilities might come with it?
   
• Spokoiny describes Judaism as both “protect[ing] our own” and connecting us “with the world.” Why might a strong Jewish identity require both?
   
• Both texts describe Judaism as something we inherit, but also something that asks something of us. What do we receive, and what are we responsible for carrying forward? 

For further research: 
Why Be Jewish?
A Biography of Rabbi Jonathan Sacks | The Rabbi Sacks Legacy

Part 3: Synthesis

• Holy Ground looks toward what one generation passes to the next; the young men and women on Herzliya Beach are preparing themselves for a responsibility that lies ahead. What do the two photographs together suggest about what it takes for Jewish life to have a future? 
   
• Return to the question we began with: What makes Jewish life worth carrying into the future? What would you now add, change, or complicate in your original answer?

Follow-Up Activity

Agents of Hope 

Take a photograph that captures something that gives you hope for the Jewish future. It might show a person, place, practice, relationship, responsibility, or ordinary moment.

Give the photograph a title and add a one-sentence caption explaining what you want the viewer to notice.