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This lecture is one of a series of ten lectures that will focus on education in times of national disasters and calamity in Jewish History. These online lectures are held in conjunction with Sydney University’s Department of Hebrew, Biblical and Jewish Studies and Mandelbaum House.

This week’s lecture will focus on political education in the Jewish world.

Australian Jewry is facing a watershed moment with the passing of the Holocaust generation. The belief in maintaining Jewish identity as a response to the Holocaust is no longer a sine qua non. There is a transitional, generational challenge with increasing assimilation and a decrease in the percentage of Jewish children enrolled in Jewish day schools. This lecture is based on qualitative research undertaken with Professor Zehavit Gross, Bar-Ilan University. We found that there is an incongruity between what the adult community defines as the central components of Jewish identity, which are more particularistic, and the perspectives of Jewish youth, which are more universalistic, creating a crisis in Jewish education.

Prof (Emerita) Suzanne D. Rutland (OAM, PhD), Professor Emerita, Department of Hebrew, Biblical & Jewish Studies, University of Sydney, is a renowned Australian Jewish historian. She has published widely on Australia, the Holocaust, Soviet Jewry and antisemitism, is past president of AAJS, the Australian Jewish Historical Society and is a member of the Australian Delegation to IHRA.