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Vulnerabilities
Over the next few weeks, more than a thousand young men and women will be departing on Israel Tour, a rite of passage that is now a central tenet of Anglo-Jewry.
For the vast majority, their time in Israel will be one of the most remarkable of their lives — and thoroughly enjoyable.
But, for others, it will not be. It is inevitable that among so many people there will be some who struggle to cope. As this week’s suicide of a young South African teenager shows, this can turn to tragedy.
His parents wrote that he was “struggling with his place in the world, his transition into adulthood, his identity and with his sexuality. He felt his pain was too deep to live with”. Many teenagers struggle with their mental health.
But Israel Tour guides are barely older than those they are shepherding and they cannot be expected to deal with this aspect of the trip.
It is vital that organisers have proper systems in place to pick up the sometimes hidden clues that help is needed — and can reassure parents that they are on top of this.
Shared memory
The revelation that former members of the Waffen-SS are regularly meeting far-right extremists in Germany to share their memories of the Third Reich is a perverse mirror image of Holocaust education, in which survivors share their experiences with a younger generation.
The rise of the German far-right is hardly news. But this report by the German domestic security agency not only re-emphasises the importance of shared memory — it shows how, in the wrong hands, it can be very dangerous.