Why don't American Jews support Obama, the president of the USA?

Who told you they don't? Some people are not yet convinced that Obama is making progressive decisions, and some of those people are trusting that he is doing so. There are many Jews supporting Obama. When an American man defamed the president on the radio over the proprosed health care bill, he was asked if he had read the bill. He said he had not, but he was sure he was right because he heard the bad news that he was spreading from someone else. This is what goes on all the time. And it spreads distrust.

Why does the Orthodox conversion process have to take nine months? That is so long! I want to get married to my Jewish boyfriend soon.

How long does it take to learn a language well enough to read it and understand it? How long does it take to acclimate to a new culture or get a college degree? For most people, a year is hardly enough.

You want to convert to Judaism. That is a big commitment. In fact, it is so big that rabbis are supposed to turn prospective converts away at least twice before agreeing to teach them anything. You really have to want it.

I know of a rabbi who does quicky conversions in nine months. His converts do not know how to read a Hebrew text or study a page of Talmud or critique a page of Torah from the Hebrew. They are certified to be Jews, but they know so little compared to what a Jew growing up in Torah knows.

A person who grows up with Torah knows about kashrus, knows her prayers and the liturgy and has a Jewish value system based on the Torah. She knows so much by the age of six, by the age of twelve and by the age of twenty when she is expected to start thinking of marriage and building a family. She will have spent countless hours every day of her school years from the first grade studying the Torah and the midrashim, the laws of shabbos and the yom-tovim. Before her marriage, she will learn how to be a wife and prepare for motherhood.

How do you fit all that into nine months? No matter how smart you are and how much you study, you cannot learn it all in nine months or eighteen. So do all you can, as much as you can in the time ahead, and when you have learned it all and understand the obligations and responsibilities of Judaism, then you will be in a position to convert, should you still decide to do that. And if your boyfriend is really your soulmate, he will wait for you to get married.

Does Judaism consider Islam a violent and vile religion?

No, far from it. The problem with the violence and hatred that we see is not coming from Islam but rather from the radical people who also happen to be Muslim. In cultures where women and children are chattel and people can capture and enslave other people, Islam is not studied, the Quran is misunderstood and its people misrepresent it.

Many of these people come to America or live in Europe. They come from Palestine, from Iran, from Iraq and from other places. They continue their cultural practices and show no respect for other religions or the people who follow them. They are on our college campuses and they live in our cities.

Of the two major religions besides Judaism, Judaism considers Islam closest. Islam sees Allah as the spiritual promised land, a place to reach in one's spiritual growth. The way to get to him is shown in the other religions by their prophets. Of these prophets, Islam reveres both Jesus and Muhammet, but even these men are seen as guides, not deities. Islam is not a religion of idolatry as is Christianity which arose first from a group of Jews who revered their teacher and leader as the Messiah and decided that he rose alive to heaven and never died. Actually, other people in the Torah are thought to have risen alive to heaven. One was Enoch. Another was Elijah, the prophet.

For Christians, Jesus/Yeshua is still alive. The new Christological movement within Lubavitch Judaism is doing the same thing. For now, these people are still Jews, but one day, they may have a new name, just as those who followed the gospels of Jesus were and are still called Christians.

I have come to believe that the Messiah came already and will return. What kind of Jew am I now?

I would say you are what is today being called a "Messianic Jew." You didn't say whom you believe to be your messiah. Is it Jesus (also called Yeshua) or Rabbi Shneerson, the Lubavitcher Rebbe or Rabbi Mordechai Tendler? There are a few self-proclaimed Messiahs in the Jewish world today although they do not have much of a following.

Jews have often believed that someone in some generation was a messiah. For a while it was Bar Kochba. He died. There was Shabbetai Tzvi. He converted to Islam taking along with him many of his following. There were four or five named Yeshu (Jesus), and no one is sure which one of them the Christians portray in their gospels.

Messianism of this kind is nothing new to Judaism. You are still a Jew although I will venture a guess that you were never an Orthodox Jew. After some generations (I think it is four or five of a line of women), your children will no longer be able to claim to be Jewish.

Is the violence of the Orthodox Jews in Jerusalem on the Sabbath sanctioned by the Torah?

No it is not. And those Jews who do so are a small group of radical Jews. Please do not identify other Orthodox Jews with them.

To pick up a rock on the Sabbath is a violation of the Sabbath. It is an act of carrying. To throw that rock is an act of violence, and violence is forbidden by the Torah. That’s why Israel has shown such restraint in the face of the violence dealt them by Hamas when they were shooting shells and using suicide bombers against the Israelis.

The Torah teaches us that we must restrain our anger. The first example is that of Cain who murders his brother Abel. Like any child who lashes out, he did not use his words to negotiate what he wanted or thought he needed.

This is the sin of those who throw stones at other people on the holy day. Jerusalem does not belong to them alone, and while one can sympathize with them over seeing others desecrate the Sabbath, they have no right to do it themselves and to commit acts of violence in order to make their point. If they were to kill someone in a spree of rock throwing, that would be murder.

Why do bad things happen to good people?

Nature is not always benign, and people can be cruel and nasty. If we caused no suffering during our lives, people would still suffer from droughts, floods, spoiled food and any number of things that can happen. Bad things happen, and they can happen to anyone.

Consider that when some bad things happen to people, others step in to help. We may be very good at relieving suffering, but we can all be very careless about causing it. The man or woman who hits a pedestrian isn't thinking if the person is good or bad.

Viruses do not know or care if a person is good or bad. The hurricane, the earthquake and the tornado don't think at all, either. So bad things do happen. As Jews, we hope that there is a plan of which all these things are parts. We trust that Hashem knows what is happening to us, and we just keep on living and fighting to live, no matter what happens to us.

Is sexuality part of our humanity? (from Chris Vaughan)

Just because we are human does not mean that sexuality is somehow separate from us. Adam and Eve were given sexuality as part of their physical being. “Male and female He created them.”

We humans were never meant to refrain from experiencing and enjoying our sexuality. The first commandment given to Adam is to be fruitful and multiply.

In Judaism, it is not a sin to stay single, but one is considered to have been “punished” if he has no children. No children are the consequence of not having a mate with whom to be sexual.

Priests in Christianity have traditionally been celibate, a state that has disturbed Jews, because it is considered a defiance of God’s charge to Adam and Eve to have children. Being sexual is part of our nature. To be celibate might appear to some to be an objection to nature.

Is that line “sticks and stone’s…words will never hurt me” a Jewish value? What is the Jewish Value?

I don't know where a lot of those childhood rhymes we learn come from. A Jewish child was in my house and found some money I had dropped on the floor and not bothered to pick up. She said to me, "Finders keepers, loosers weepers." I told her that finding and taking anything in someone's house is stealing; I took the money away from her.

I suspect that her mother didn't teach her about theft, because twice, in my house, her mother took something of mine without asking me and gave it to someone else. She didn't think she was wrong because she didn't see any value to the things she gave away. That they were mine meant nothing to her.

I once watched as a Jewish woman picked up some money on the street. The man who had lost it was coming towards her, not seeing her but counting the money he was holding, clearly upset to be missing something. She put the money into her pocket and did not give it to him. These women were both unschooled in Judaism. One would never be schooled and the other woman was new to Torah Judaism.

As for words, not only can words hurt, they can kill. They have killed and even resulted in suicide; and in fact, we have recently had teen suicides in the news as a result of cyber bullying. One of those bullies turned out to be an adult, a mother--an example of how immature and dangerous some adults are. Sometimes, we say things that we think are constructive, but we hurt the people we think we are helping. We call this inappropriate use of words "lashon hara." There are various forms of it. When our words hurt others, we call that "Ona'at devorim."
We Jews try to learn not to be using our words this way. We are all of us sometimes guilty of using words that hurt others, hurt ourselves or cause embarrassment. We have to be careful not to repeat such mistakes. We can only do that if we keep learning and try to be the best we can be.

Speaking of values, those two lines remind me of another line: "Might is right." That is a value that is also opposed to Judaism. Might is right is the value of the ancient Romans, the more recent Nazis and the present day radical Muslims.

In contrast, the Jewish value is Justice is right. Having a Jewish homeland could only be possible if there is always a Jewish army. That does not mean that might is right in Israel today. But rarely if at all has Israel been the aggressor. True, those who settled overnight in the territories that were the homelands of non Jews for generations have trespassed on other's rights. For this reason, the move of the Israeli government to oust them is just.

What does it mean to you to be a slave to dress, friends, work , or habits?

You have asked one question and you have asked four questions. To be a slave to anything at all means to make it the more if not most important part of your life, so important that it overwhelms other interests and takes up much of one’s thoughts. In America, for instance, a large percentage of the population focuses on food, status symbols and money. One can even become a slave to exercise, denying his family his time in favor of satisfying his desire to go biking or swimming or hiking with the guys. A man may go as far as to deny his wife her connubial rights so as not to diminish the energy he needs or wants to have available for his exercise. When anything becomes so important that it takes over one’s life in some way that denies what is truly meaningful to his friends, family and community, then one has become a slave to it.
Workaholics do this. They may do it as an escape from family and problems at home. That’s a cop out that clearly shows a weak personality. Are friends so important that you insist on using certain language, dressing a certain way and flaunting some aspect of your person? Then you are worshipping your friends and whatever it takes to look “cool.” Is it so important to drink with your friends that you party to the point of becoming ill? Then that becomes a habit that is like a serpent biting at your heels. We can overcome any of these urges which crouch at your door. Not doing so is akin to worshipping them. We make idols of singers, of sodas, of dress styles, of Egyptian cotton, of money, of cars, of plaits or dreadlocks in our hair, of jewelry—you name it, it can become what we focus on and make more important than healthy eating, living and socializing.

I have a special needs child. I don’t feel like I am getting anywhere. How do I know I am making progress? What is the meaning of success? I happened

Success is not having a credit card and success is not a product. A better word for success might be a process, or “growth.” Getting a credit card is often a milestone in a young adult's life. If the person has not learned to manage money, having a credit card can be a disaster. It was for me. I got into such debt that I had to have someone bail me out. I no longer even have a credit card even though I trust myself not to get in over my head again.
I had an experience that illustrates what success means to me. I was working with a two year old boy, a beautiful child. He didn't talk. He did what we call in Hebrew "hitkashkesh." That would translate as “scribbled," but in his case, it referred to his making noises instead of words. We teachers would speak to him as we might do with a six month old, teaching him to take turns speaking. We didn't use any baby talk with him.
One day, out of the blue, he began to speak in the most perfectly intelligible sentences. All the staff went bananas. We couldn't hear his voice enough that day or the next. It hit me that we had been having success with him every day, even though all we seemed to be celebrating on that one amazing day was a milestone he had reached in his development.
A milestone like that lets you know that you have been having successes all along. If we had been working futilely, he may not have reached that milestone so well or when he did.
Success is a process and life is a process. They are hopefully intertwined. They are like a ladder. You climb each rung, and reaching the top is a milestone, but you cannot reach it unless you are able to lift a foot and move your body upwards. Our children have successes every day that we do not always get to see. Maybe we think the day was unsuccessful because there was no visible achievement. But the milestone, even if we think of it as a product, is not the success. The child and his growth is the product, and as he learns to function like a typical child, he has to climb many rungs of a ladder, and he will not climb each rung in a day or even sometimes in a week or a month. But every rung that he climbs invisibly towards that milestone is a success.
Celebrate each day with your precious child. I did, and while it hurt to see her grow up so fast, moving from one stage into the next, I was thankful that she was growing well. In a pinch, my infant was a toddler and the day it hit me, I cried. In a snap, she grew up and is a woman. Now, I watch her in amazement as she resolves situations on her own as she makes shidduchim for others, enjoys and cares for her husband and raises her own child. I was successful. I hope someday you get to celebrate your child’s successful development.

Should an observant Jewish girl study ballet? (A. C.)

Ballet is a sport with specific requirements that are at odds with Torah. The attire is one problem, and even though ballet can be a solitary sport, it is not meant to be. And why would you want your daughter to engage in a sport that places such emphasis on body size, shape and weight? And it may at times include men. It is not an activity that she would do with her husband except in private and assuming he also has studied ballet, and would she keep it up in solitude into old age with sufficient satisfaction?

Unlike other physical activities, ballet demands a certain body structure. A small body promises a center of gravity close to the ground. The toes on the feet have to have a specific form in which the first three toes ideally will touch the ground simultaneously when the toes are pointed downward. Since ballet is a competitive activity and is as demanding as it is, it is not one that is likely to build a good self-image in the average girl.

Better ways to develop strength for grace and balance along with a good self-image are through such activities as skating–-roller skating, rollerblading and ice skating. The girl can dress tzniyusly (modestly) and she can engage in the activity with her girl friends and with her husband and children later in life. She can continue the activity into old age, too, to keep up strength and to work for good balance.

While there will be girls who will desire ballet or running or even riding bicycles, the problem with all of these is that one cannot maintain an appropriate level of modesty. When my daughter was little, she loved gymnastics, and then at the beginning of one class (it would be her last), the teacher insisted that she stop dressing in normal clothing and put on a pair of leotards. She was horrified, and she refused to return there again. So I bought her a pair of roller blades, and she still roller blades, and she can do so with her husband. Even though she dresses modestly for her “workouts,” she chooses out of the way locations where she will be safe but not in sight of others. Additionally, rollerblading can be done indoors as well as outdoors. The same is true for roller skating and ice skating.

Other sports that are harder but possible to do only with other women or in solitude are swimming, basket ball, jump rope and weight lifting. I know women who do any and all of these things. One woman gets her exercise with a hula hoop, and I use walking and stair climbing to get my exercise, although I do not consider these a sport.

When considering activities for an observant girl, consider an activity that will provide a lifetime source of health and joy and that will get her out in nature as well as fulfill her indoors. If tap dancing is what she really wants, or ballet, make sure she understands what that will involve for her and what it won’t. It won’t involve performance except in a strictly female group.

In response to your post on vegetarianism, is the Torah asking us to conquer a desire for meat?

The short answer is yes. Actually, that is only one of the behaviors we are to restrain ourselves from doing. Hashem wants us to conquer all desires of the body.

When Hashem (G-d) made humanity (odom or Adam), He stated that mankind would have a specific power over the creatures of the earth. The verb "ridu" is in the plural, so it refers to all humankind, not to some man called Adam who is going to be put in charge of the animal kingdom. This principle of ridu means to make the animal kingdom subservient to man. That does not mean that we use animals as slaves or force them to serve us. Rather, the principle refers to the animal kingdom within a man that man would be able to keep under his control.

Like the fish, we love the water and like to swim in it. Like the birds, we love to fly. Even lions and horses have inspired people. Humanity throughout history in various places has even made these creatures into their gods, just the opposite of making the animals subservient to humanity. One of the reasons we sacrificed animals in The Temple was to make clear to ourselves and to other peoples that animals were not gods but were subservient to us. If they were gods, they would not be dying by our swords just as Abraham’s father’s idols could not resist his hammer that broke them.

Hashem's plan for Adam is to overcome the animal kingdom within himself, within every human being. In part, this was why Hashem did not want the Hebrew people to have a human king. No man should make another man subservient to himself or to others. This is in part the problem with what we call homosexual behavior between men. A man is not allowed to put another man by force into the position of a woman, women being subservient to men in a patriarchy. That includes men of his own position in the community, slaves and children. The Torah never said that homosexuals were evil or bad news or different in the sight of Hashem. The Torah did not even discuss them. The principle was all about power and subservience. This is also why a man should only have one wife and a woman only one husband. No man should treat his wife like anything but his mate. She is not his pet or his servant that he should allow himself to dominate her. Women also must not dominate their husbands.

This is our challenge to become divine-like by having power over all our animal compulsions. That includes resisting eating meat, having power over others, selling our children into slavery (just one way to sacrifice them to our lusts for power or money) treating slaves and debtors badly, and practicing any form of incest that is forbidden in the Torah. It also includes not stealing, murdering or doing any of the other do-not commandments that come later.

To place someone above oneself is to demean oneself and descend spiritually—to become like a beast. That is why someone who wanted to be a slave was to be marked like a beast with a tag attached to his ear. His behavior would not be seen as befitting a human station. This should remind us that free will involves only two choices. We can aspire to divinity or we can descend to the level of the animal kingdom within us, a realm of behavior which is far lower spiritually and behaviorally for humanity than even the animals demonstrate in their behavior.

How bad can we humans be? Consider the flood that Hashem caused in the time of Noach. Whatever men wanted, they took and did, and they thought of everything. There was no restraint at all. Rashi says that the behavior of humanity was rebellious against Hashem's laws and that the heroes of the time, the giborim, gained fame for the scope of their degeneracy. It was not a matter of one law or two but of whatever men could imagine doing. The broadness of their behavior did not exclude any one behavior. They were so bad that it was a mercy to the earth to destroy them. Consider how we behave in the world today, polluting the earth the way we do and hurting each other, committing genocide the way we do. What we eat is the least of our evil, although eating meat is a behavior that increases pollution of the air and water. We humans still do not restrain ourselves as Hashem wants us to do.

My friends tell me it is against the Torah to be a vegetarian? Is it?

While Hashem gave us permission to eat certain animals, He never said or implied that we must eat them. Because Adam and Chava (Eve) ate a forbidden food, they were ousted from Gan Eden. The food they ate was forbidden and therefore not kosher. Why it was forbidden is answered in part after they ate it. But that still does not say that the tree was safe to eat. It might have been poisonous—poisonous enough to overcome their immortality.

I once mistook a plant for an onion, and I vomited almost immediately after eating it. That was a good lesson, but I would have to say that I still have not learned that lesson. Many delicious looking plants are poisonous, either known to cause diseases like cancer or known to be fatal. While I know that, I still have to fight myself when it comes to tasting fruits. I was walking in the neighborhood just in the past few weeks, and I noticed a lovely fruiting plant growing in a neighbor's yard by the sidewalk. The fruits were about the size of cherries and just as red. I was enchanted, and I had to try one. It was delicious. It tasted like an apple. It could also have been poisonous. Curiosity could have killed the cat—me! While I do not have to eat everything, I like to taste everything. Therein lies my own struggle with restraint, and I do not fight against it hard enough when it comes to fruits.

When parents tell their children not to eat or do something, it is often for their own good and even for their protection. The proverbial cookie jar isn't going to kill them or give them cancer, but a belly full is not going to contribute to good health and could give them a belly ache.

As soon as we are told "no," we have to make a choice to restrain ourselves or to let our curiosity or desire get the better of us. Since mankind could not refrain from eating animals, Hashem, being as merciful as He is, gave them other prohibitions. Noah was given the law not to cut off the limb of a living animal. The Chinese do not obey this law. You can go to a Chinese market in China, and you can buy a piece of a living (and miserably dying) animal.

Read Bereshis (Genesis) 1:29. A person who is a vegetarian is keeping the first dietary law given to mankind. He is conquering his desire for meat. How can the Torah have a problem with that?

Unfortunately, there are people who will have a problem with that. People do not like when someone in a group acts differently. Look, that's one of the reasons Jewish people are so often disliked. We do things differently. Jewish people are as human as others, so if one person acts differently, it may make others at the table feel nervous. It is as if they are confronted with their own lack of restraint and feel guilty about it. No one likes to feel guilty, and if someone is of the opinion, even subconsciously that his guilt is a result of someone else’s behavior, he will fight back to protect his ego and justify his behavior.

The Torah is in great measure about the problem of restraint. Consider any number of people who could not restrain themselves from abominable behaviors: Cain who murdered his brother, the people who taunted Noah and had not restrained themselves from taking whichever women they wanted, Lot’s wife, Lot with his daughters, Kimchi, Bilaam, and thousands more. Adam and Chava were the first examples and the role model for all their children all the way to us. We have not learned yet to restrain ourselves and obey Hashem.

We are all of us humans, and we each have our own challenges, and the issue of restraint is often at the bottom of our behavior, and it is always about that free will—choice! Adam and Chava were curious and they liked their fruit. Lot’s wife could not restrain herself from looking back for her daughters, Lot could not restrain himself from committing incest, Kimchi had to bed Kosbi, Bilaam could not resist the wealth that Balak promised him, even when he had multiple divine warnings. Like so many others throughout the Torah and throughout history, Bilaam is an example of those who are more afraid of evil men than they are of Hashem.

You do not have to let other people get on your nerves. You are on this earth to serve Hashem, not other people. I applaud you for your sticking to your vegetarian diet, and I also encourage you to continue what you are able to do and which so many other people are incapable of doing because they must have their meat.

Links:
http://www.jewishveg.com/jv.html
http://jewishvegetarianism.com/
http://www.jewishveg.com/schwartz/dietgod.html

Why does one spot of blood make the whole egg treif and make the other egg treif that I cooked with it? Why can’t they just be fleishig?

In the past, eggs were fertile unlike the eggs most of us buy today in the supermarket. A blood spot might have been the beating heart of the chick beginning to grow. Today, with eggs that are not fertile, the issue of life starting is no issue at all anymore. If you eat fertile eggs, you abide by the rules as established by the sages. But the blood of eggs is still not kosher and sometimes, you will find an egg where you don’t even see a blood spot but the white of the egg is pink from blood. That egg must be discarded.
Remember that the only eggs that are kosher are the ones that come from kosher animals—kosher birds and kosher fish. The eggs of turtles and platypuses and owls are not kosher.
When eggs are raw and to be broken for use, one usually breaks the egg and drops it into a glass dish. If you were to drop it directly onto a hot frying pan, the pan would become unkosher if the egg had a blood spot.
Consider another idea that is put forth in the Shulchan Oruch (Code of Jewish Law.) Fish blood is kosher and pareve, but if you collect it into a basin, you may not use it for food. This is because one should never create the appearance of eating or using blood. Someone might misinterpret what you are doing as using blood. The prohibition often translated as eating blood also refers to the use of blood in divination. It was a custom of other peoples to open a bird (thereby killing it) and to divine the future by the trickling pattern of the blood as it flowed out from the dead body of the bird. Using a blood egg might have created the same misunderstanding if one were to notice it. Jews were forbidden to divine or to use up an animal’s life needlessly. That’s why the pasukim (verses) contain the reminder that the life is in the blood: Lev. 7:26-27 and Lev. 17:10-14.
In some cases, the spot can be removed and the rest of the egg left intact. This is usually the case of a boiled egg. When the blood discolors the whole egg or cannot be removed without leaving a trace of blood, then the egg is not kosher. Most of the blood I have seen in eggs is so abundant that there is no thought of even trying to find a part of the egg to use. At times, there will be just a spot of blood. Usually, the spot is on the yolk, and trying to remove it would break the yolk. So that egg is not kosher.
When cooking eggs, the rule is to have three eggs in a pot at the minimum. Eggs were considered treif (not kosher) if one egg was cooked in a pot with a blood egg. If two eggs were cooked in a pot with a blood egg, they were not considered treif. Compare this to a pot of beef soup into which is dripped accidentally one drop of milk. The soup may still be kosher depending on the quantity of soup in the pot. In such cases, one should consult a rabbi.
It is not necessary to cook an odd number of eggs in a pot. That idea comes from the minimum number three of eggs that should be cooked together.
Some eggs are certified to be kosher. But this doesn’t mean they will be. You still have to check them for blood spots.
In my experience, when eggs are certified to be kosher, they have few blood spots because they have been checked so carefully. When I buy other eggs, I find lots of blood spots. And when I’ve bought fertile eggs, I’ve had to throw away so many that I stopped buying them altogether.
Do eat eggs. They are nutritious, containing some of virtually every nutrient known except Vitamin C.

How can I raise my adopted child so that I give Hashem a Jew?

Raising a child to be a Torah observant Jew is the same whether the child is adopted or not. Just remember that a child born Jewish doesn't have to choose that identity, and an adopted child does. Also, if a Jewish child does not choose to live a Torah life, there is always a chance for return. If an adopted child does not choose to live as a Jew, he may become negative about Jews.
Adoption of a child is a subject all to itself, but I will share my experience. When my child was handed over to me, I had heard that her mother stated her religion as Catholic and Jewish. Of necessity, we had to investigate if in fact she was a Jewish woman or not. As it turned out, she was not. So the next issue was that of conversion. My family was Orthodox, so there was no question of any other kind of conversion. We found an Orthodox rabbi and in the presence of his bais din ( rabbinical court of three men) my daughter underwent a child conversion. She was immersed in a mikveh (ritual bath) and pronounced Jewish.
The status of my daughter’s conversion worked for her until she was thirteen. At that time, we moved to another state and we sought to enroll her in a yeshiva. There she might have attended had her conversion not been at issue. It was not acceptable to the head of the school. We found another yeshiva that agreed to take her, and in the course of that year, we found another rabbi, and with his bais din, my daughter underwent an adult conversion.
But these conversions are not what made her a religious Jew, and going to a Jewish day school or Hebrew Academy as so many of these schools are called is no guarantee that a child will grow up to be a Jew and marry another Jew. I had gone to a Hebrew day school as a child, and some of my friends left the fold and married non Jews. Others did not marry at all. The education guaranteed nothing. If you want your child to become a Jew, then make that the priority in raising your child. Ask observant mothers what they give their children to listen to and to read. There are videos for the children, too.
In the early years, the child should have plenty of experiences of being Jewish. He or she should hear Jewish music and Jewish stories. There are many choices today with all the albums and literature available for the child age two to six. By the time a child enters kindergarten and first grade, he should know some of the songs related to the parshiyos (weekly Torah readings) and the stories from the Torah about the forefathers and foremothers and their lives in the early world. Children also must have good experiences of Shabbos with the family and with other families and friends.
Many people send their children to a Hebrew Day school or to what are more “modern” day schools because they want the great secular education that these schools promise. These schools may not seem to downplay the Torah portion of their curriculum, but it comes across to the children. The other problem is that the presentation of Judaism in such schools is not fun for the child and may put him off to his Jewish identity and to Torah as sometimes happens. There is no better yeshiva education for a girl than a Bais Yakov school. These schools have opportunities for the girls to experience Torah Judaism as they learn about Judaism and Jewish history and as they develop their talents, skills and character. They become models themselves of Torah Jews. As for the boys, I cannot say what there is, because I never had a son, but there are many yeshivas, and it is up to parents to observe at these schools carefully before choosing one for their sons. Bais Yakov schools provide an excellent secular education for their girls, and there is no excuse for yeshivas for boys not to do the same.
Schools and summer camps are important for a child and the right camps are crucial for giving the child an experience of Judaism with hundreds of other children that he/she would not get at the regular school. And these camp experiences help the child meet and make friends and develop relationships that will last for the rest of their lives.
At the core of raising a child to be a Torah observant Jew is that we take our Judaism and our Torah seriously. Don’t leave it up to the school or the synagogue to any of the work for you. It is up to you to do it. Keeping kosher and keeping shabbos and tzniyus (the laws of modesty) are good examples. You cannot eat out if you keep kosher unless you eat at a kosher restaurant. You cannot go to movies on shabbos if you keep the day holy. And you cannot follow the current styles of clothes if you are going to dress as an example of a modest person. And if you take the Torah seriously, then you must learn at home weekly if not daily and share what you learn with your child. Maybe you study a halachah (law) a week or you read the weekly Torah portion and share the commentaries with your child. As long as there is a modeling of the importance and validity of Judaism, you teach the child its importance.
Many people fail to impart to their children that the Torah is the essence of our Jewish identity and way of life and that its precepts are kept for good reasons, the main one being that Hashem gave the mitzvos to us men and women as they are. Too many parents do what they want to do as opposed to what the Torah says to do. They do not pray or bless their children, do not do all the rituals with their children, and they may follow a style of dress that may even embarrass their children. The women may not light the shabbos candles on time. They may never bake their own challas. They may not keep taharas mishpochoh. And they may adapt Judaism to suit themselves, in essence creating a new religion where women act like men, wearing tallis and kippah and taking aliyas on the bimah that the men are supposed to have. These behaviors make a mockery of Torah. Keep a woman’s mitzvos and leave the men to do what is given to them to do. This is so important. I have a cousin who is Orthodox. She doesn’t cover her hair and did all this egalitarian stuff. Her daughter never married and is not at all interested in Orthodox or Conservative or any Judaism. And my cousin who questioned the way I raised my daughter cries to me, “Where is my nachas?”