Every Israeli couple with children who move to the United States finds itself confronted with the quandary of how to maintain their offspring’s Jewish identity in America.
What kind of framework should we place them in, these new Americans ask themselves. Should we send them to a Jewish school? The Israeli scouts or regular extracurricular activities? Should we let them dress up for Halloween, or tell them to wait for Purim? Should we insist they speak Hebrew?
And if the children were born in America, a whole other issue is raised for these émigrés, or ‘yordim’: “Are my children Israeli?” Faced with these questions, New York-based Israeli psychologist Udi Sommer (who has two America-born children of his own) decided to take a coast-to-coast journey across the United States to survey how other parents were dealing with the same issue.

Sommer, a lecturer at the State University of New York, conducted dozens of interviews with parents in every major American city.
by Natasha Mozgovaya
Haaretz Correspondent in Washington DC
Click here to read the rest of the article on Haaretz.com
Back to Reviews