1 min read
ByJC Reporter, Anonymous
A mother explains why she's shunning the post-GCSE 'rite of passage' for her daughter
June 21, 2018 11:10The GCSEs have finished, the sun is out and all the Jewish 16-year-olds are celebrating the end of school, and look forward to Tour. Because they’re all going on Tour. It’s a rite of passage, isn’t it?
Well, it is. But not for my daughter.
I’ve lost count of the times I’ve been asked if she’s going with FZY or BBYO. What sort of suitcase is she taking, do they really need hiking boots, is she taking a phone, can the kids be trusted to put on sun cream? And when I confess that she’s not going, there’s a look — wide-eyed surprise, fleeting judgement — that makes me cringe.
I don’t bother pretending when they ask (concerned, curious) why not. “It’s the money,” I say. “I can’t afford to pay thousands of pounds on one child’s summer holiday. I’d rather we all went away as a family.”
“But you can get a bursary!” they respond. I doubt it. My husband and I are both employed, and we earn reasonable salaries. We’re not the deserving cases that should get bursaries, the single-parent families, the genuinely poor. It’s just that we don’t have a spare £4,000 tucked away for Israel Tour, and if we did, we’d probably buy something else.
We’d like a sofa to replace the one that we were given by my mum, 20 years ago. Or we might put the money in our hopeful university fund. Or we’d upgrade our week in a Cornish cottage to — I don’t know — Portugal? Maybe we could even afford a short break in Israel.
Two batmitzvahs and a barmitzvah, years of voluntary contributions to their Jewish schools, two-week Israel trips in Y9 — bringing up Jewish children is expensive. Is the post-GCSE Israel Tour really essential to her Jewish identity, her love and understanding of Israel? I’m not convinced.
I worry that I’m letting her down — her older sister went, after all. But that’s partly why I’ve chosen to keep this one at home. Big sister came home with a tan, Israeli trousers, and a load of new best friends. Five years on, she’s bored with what she calls “the Jewish bubble” and avoids talking about Israel with uni friends (“It’s all too complicated”) She’s off on holiday soon, with her boyfriend (He’s not Jewish, since you ask). They’re going to Morocco.
