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March 3, 2006
Who do youth admire?
Choice of heroes different for new generation.
EVA COHEN
The Peretz Centre has been the host of a four-part Philosophers’
Café series discussing hemsekh, the Yiddish word for
Jewish continuity. On Feb. 22, the topic for the fourth café
was, “Who are the heroes of Judaism today for the younger generation
and is Judaism today meeting the needs of the younger generation?”
About 15 people showed up for the café, including moderator
Leslie Dyson. Interestingly, most of the people at the café
were of the 40-plus age group, without much representation from
any actual youth.
Dyson began by asking everyone who their heroes were. The responses
were quite varied but did include archetypal heroes such as Golda
Meir and Elie Wiesel. However, the conversation then switched to
who youth see as their heroes today, and since it was older adults
talking about youth, there was some hypothesizing.
Dyson is an experienced educator and meets with many youth groups
to ask them the same questions.
“For kids at school, the scope is even broader,” said
Dyson. “For kids aged 12 [or] 13, there is a huge range of
names brought up, but one that comes up every time is Adam Sandler.”
To introduce Sandler to everyone, Dyson showed a clip of The
Wedding Singer, a movie starring Sandler and Drew Barrymore.
The clip was of Sandler singing at a bar mitzvah and it made everyone
laugh, but it also sparked a new stream of conversation.
People shared their views as to what a hero is. Some thought that
perhaps with today’s celebrity-driven environment people become
heroes simply because they are famous and not because they have
done any greater good for the world.
People spoke of their own experiences and tried to make them relevant
to today’s youth. The conversation branched into how Jews today
are becoming very conformist, because they are a minority growing
up in a world of non-Jews.
One man mentioned how the youth of today don’t even know how
to kvetch anymore. The characterization was interesting, that a
possible lack of complaining marked whether youth have any ties
to their heritage. There were no youth present to counter this generalization,
but it could be seen from the look on the faces of a couple of parents
that their kids don’t spare them with any lack of kvetching.
Another discussion that arose was the difference between heroes
in Israel and the Diaspora. An Israeli woman spoke about how, in
her generation, people were tired of heroes, because everyone was
dying. She and others became tired of the sacrifice and wanted a
“normal society and not just the sword.”
The difference between heroes of varying countries also gave rise
to a discussion about the different types of heroes. The
discussion about Israel not wanting any more heroes suggested that
heroes are only of a muscular or physical presence. However, other
people in the group pointed out that heroes come from all backgrounds.
For instance, Elie Wiesel was mentioned at the very beginning of
the talk and he was not just a survivor of the Holocaust, but also
a literary hero, due to his ability to touch so many people through
text.
The intellectual hero, then, still has the ability to survive through
adversity. This further suggests that Judaism does not need to modernize
at all, because people always find their own archetypes, no matter
what the situation in the overall presiding society happens to be.
Even the love of the anti-hero, such as Woody Allen, gives the secular
North American Jew some sort of unique identity among the masses.
The mention of Woody Allen, however, touched upon what took over
the bulk of the conversation: what makes a hero – the fine
line between a hero and someone you just admire. Participants at
the event said they felt that youth today have many more heroes
who fall under the category of “admirable”, rather than
the “true heroes” of yesterday.
Eva Cohen is a freelance writer living in Ottawa and Vancouver.
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