Is segregation the price Jewish teenagers must pay for a less stressful social life?

When I was seventeen, I used to beg to go out on Friday nights. My friends would congregate at one house every week after school, and they’d stay until late, drinking cheap wine bought from the wilfully ignorant man in the corner shop who’d decided they were all eighteen and didn’t ask any more questions. It was an institution for the group.

Unfortunately for my parents, I fell in with this crowd rather than the no-Friday-nights group with whom I’d gone on Israel tour. I can imagine that it would have been easier for them, and for me, if my friends had all been more like me – the rows over the Shabbos table would have been less frequent, I wouldn’t have had to work so hard to stay included, and I could have continued enjoying Friday nights at home with my parents and frustratingly undemanding younger brother.

Then again, perhaps it was healthy to have something to rebel against. My very liberal, tolerant parents never put an unholy amount of pressure on me about anything (except for the morning of my Physics GCSE, when my mother sat in the car outside the exam hall with me and plutzed about the fact that I could not remember a single one of the necessary equations or rules). They bought me nice clothes, fed me good food and took me on fun holidays. With my parents, I never really had much to complain about. And they were sympathetic when I (regularly) hated teachers; when girls at school were horrible; when (Jewish) boys didn’t fancy me. They looked after me and were supportive in all manners. So it was only natural that at some point we’d come to an impasse, and that’s probably a good thing, otherwise I might have developed those neuroses for kids who are never told ‘no’.

Unfortunately, if you send Jewish kids to non-Jewish schools, they may well end up being friends with non-Jews. And then, unfortunately, Jewish kids will be forced to choose between a healthy relationship with their nice Jewish family, and the friends and teenage years they want. It was a particular sticking point for me because I hated school and didn’t have many school friends; finding a solid group of friends from somewhere else was a miraculous surprise that didn’t hit me until sixth form. Finally, friends – and I was missing out on the most crucial events.