Category:Children (subject)

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Children

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Overview

Ancient Jewish sources rarely discuss children or childhood as an abstraction.

That the Hebrew Bible’s writers do not have a specific interest in children per se, does not mean that children were not important. On the contrary, they were crucial to the world of the Hebrew Bible. Most people in ancient Israel only lived to be about 40 years old, if they were not killed first by war, childbirth, famine, or disease. In cultures whose members have short life expectancies, children and youth are about a third of the population. Young people were integral to society, and their stories are accordingly woven into the Hebrew Bible.

Procreating children was a religious obligation, a commandments given to Adam (Gen 1:28) and repeated to Noah (Gen 9:1-7). Having children was considered one of the greatest blessing in the life of an individual (see Abraham in Gen 22:16-18).

"3 Children are a heritage from the LORD, offspring a reward from him. 4 Like arrows in the hands of a warrior are children born in one’s youth. 5 Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them. They will not be put to shame when they contend with their opponents in court." (Psalms 127:3-5)

"Grandchildren are the crown of the aged, and the glory of children is their fathers." (Prov 17:6)

Having children is a blessing, life without children (or the death of all children) is a curse. Children are an importance labor force. They are the support and the future of the family. in particular, the life of elderly parents, and widows, rely completely of their presence.

The extended family is responsible for the care of children, including orphans or abandoned children (there are no State institutions for children, like schools or orphanages, no social services). Only in case of disputes within the family, the case could be settled in local courts or before a judge or the king (like in the case of the judgment of Solomon, where two mothers were both reclaiming the maternity of the same baby (1 Kings 3:16–28). Calling for a sword, Solomon declared his judgment: the baby would be cut in two, each woman to receive half. One mother did not contest the ruling, declaring that if she could not have the baby then neither of them could, but the other begged Solomon, "Give the baby to her, just don't kill him!" The king declared the second woman the true mother, as a mother would even give up her baby if that was necessary to save its life.

Children's Education

Mothers typically nursed their infants for two to three years, after which the child began to eat solid foods and grow into a young child.

Boys and girls learned from their families. As children grew, they learned tasks that were appropriate to their gender. In an agricultural society, children spent the first few years of their lives being cared for by their mothers and the other women in the household. While the men were off tending to the fields or herds, the women were completing domestic chores and caring for gardens and vineyards close to home (Meyers: 2013). Infants and young children of both genders belonged to this realm of women, thus learning and observing what took place in the household. As the children grew, they might be sent to tend the family flocks, like Joseph and Rachel (Gen 29:9, 37:2). Some jobs were gender neutral, yet other jobs were marked along clear gender lines. For example, both baking and weaving are associated with women in the Bible, so one can imagine girls learning how to carry out these tasks (Jud 16:13–14; Jer 7:14; Meyers: 2003, 430–31). Girls would continue to stay in the women’s realm, learning how to make bread, carry out daily household chores, care for younger children, gather dung, and various rituals related to the domestic cult (Garroway: 2017; Granqvist 1947: 137–39). When boys became old enough, they would accompany the men of the household into the fields. Ethnographic studies show that boys aged eight or nine watch over flock co-ops. They might also watch the newborn lambs, calves, or kids, protecting them and making sure they did not wander off (Granqvist: 1947, 130–32). The Bible also provides information on what makes a boy a man (Wilson: 2015).

Feeding, clothing and educating children in the family was an obligation.

"You shall teach them to your children, talking of them when you are sitting in your house, and when you are walking by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise." (Dt 11:19)

The life of children was marked by rituals. The first rituals were circumcision (for boys only) and naming (both boys and girls).

Childhood was much shorter than it is today in industrial society. The distinction between children, youth, and young adults is not neatly delineated. Children did not go to school (there were no schools); children were employed as force labor by their own family since a very young age--both as little shepherds and in fields, girls at home (cooking and water-carrying). Children learned the needed skills from their parents and relatives and were expected to be self-sufficient at a much earlier age than today.

Ancient Israel did not have a set time or ritual that clearly designates a person as an adult (the ceremony of bar-mitzvah comes from later times). However, the age of marriage would mark a significant transition in a person's life and can serve as a marker of adulthood. A girl would be eligible for marriage about the time she began menstruating, likely in her early teenage years (clearly youth by our standards). A young man would likely be a little older.

The Hebrew Bible recounts several women meeting their future spouses at wells. The narratives follow a similar literary pattern. Abraham’s servant stopped at a well and met Rebekah there (Gen 24:10-27). Jacob met Rachel at a well where she came to water her father Laban’s flock of sheep (Gen 29:1-11). Moses, too, met his future wife, Zipporah, at a well when she came with her sisters to water their father's flock (Exod 2:15-22). The well in the Hebrew Bible was the public space where boys and girls from different families could meet and know each other, and marriages could be arranged.

Youth is described as a happy time (Qoh 11:9).

"9 Rejoice, young man, while you are young, and let your heart cheer you in the days of your youth.

However, life was hard. Children had only obligations. It was taken for granted that children had to obey their parents. They must learn. They must work. They have no rights. They are not even considered "people" but properties of their parents, who could dispose of them as they liked. Some of the terms that designated children were the same used for servants (na'ar, pais, boy).

8 Listen, my son, to your father’s instruction and do not forsake your mother’s teaching. 9 They are a garland to grace your head and a chain to adorn your neck. (Prov 1:8-9)

"6 Start children off on the way they should go, and even when they are old they will not turn from it." (Proverbs 22:6)

Obligations toward the parents were not limited to childhood. The commandment in the Decalogue (They must honor their parents; Ex 20:12; Lev 19:1-3) was not intended for little children (only) but interpreted more in the sense that children, when they have become adults, must continue to honor their parents and support them when they are old. The honor to the parents is second only to the honor to God.

The good and the evil child

It is the duty of parents to educate their children and discipline them.

Even a child makes himself known by his acts, by whether his conduct is pure and upright. (Prov 20:11)

A wise son makes a glad father, but a foolish son is a sorrow to his mother.(Pr 10:1)

Corporal punishment was recommended:

"Discipline your son, and he will give you rest; he will give delight to your heart." (Prov 29:17).

"Whoever spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is diligent to discipline him." (Pr 13:24)

"Folly is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of discipline drives it far from him." (Pr 22:15)

"The rod and reproof give wisdom, but a child left to himself brings shame to his mother." (Pr 29:15)

The life of the child, however, is protected. Punishment does not aim at the death of the child:

Do not withhold discipline from a child; if you strike him with a rod, he will not die.

If you strike him with the rod, you will save his soul from Sheol. (Proverbs 23:13-14)

Parents have obligations, but children have no rights. The parents are the children's masters. They may reprove them, beat them, and in extreme cases, even put them to death. However, there are limitations to the parents' authority. In order to avoid abuses, any extreme decision should be shared by both parents and settled before "the elders of the town". Only the city council (neither the parents nor the family) has the authority to decree the death of a rebellious son.

18 If someone has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey his father and mother, who does not heed them when they discipline him, 19 then his father and his mother shall take hold of him and bring him out to the elders of his town at the gate of that place. 20 They shall say to the elders of his town, “This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey us. He is a glutton and a drunkard.” 21 Then all the men of the town shall stone him to death. So you shall purge the evil from your midst; and all Israel will hear, and be afraid. (Deut 21:18-21).

The gender gap

There are only a few stories in the Hebrew Bible about children. In general, boys and young men receive more attention from the Hebrew Bible's writers than do girls. Sons were desired because ancient Israelite society was patrilocal, with the daughter moving to the house of her husband upon marriage. Although girls and women were valuable contributors to the labor of the household, a family without sons would be bereft of children to care for the parents in their old age.

Even miracle stories in the Hebrew Bible concern primarily male children: Both Elijah (1Kgs 17:17-24) and Elisha (2Kgs 4:8-37) are said to have revived the life of dead children-- the only son of a widow in the case of Elijah and the only son of a rich woman who had no other children.

Girls

Hard work was part of a girl's experience since an early age. They helped their mothers and the other women of the family to prepare food and clothes. They also helped raise their smaller siblings and serve the older ones. They were trained as midwives; child birthing was dangerous and needed the assistance of all female members of the family. They did farming and were employed as water carriers.

Although their participation to the ritual life in the temple(s) was restricted, women were responsible for preparing many of the customary, religious offerings. they were responsible for the musical performances during rituals and celebrations (see Miriam). Her religious choices were not free. While a man should remain bound t his vows, girls (and wives) were subjected to the authority of their fathers (and later, of their husbands):

3 “When a young woman still living in her father’s household makes a vow to the Lord or obligates herself by a pledge 4 and her father hears about her vow or pledge but says nothing to her, then all her vows and every pledge by which she obligated herself will stand. 5 But if her father forbids her when he hears about it, none of her vows or the pledges by which she obligated herself will stand; the Lord will release her because her father has forbidden her. (Numbers 30:4-5).

Child sacrifice

Precisely because children were among the most precious properties of a family, Child Sacrifice (especially of the first born male) was a common practice in the ancient Near East (including Israel) and in the ancient Mediterranean area.

• See Child Sacrifice

Starting from the 7th cent. BCE, the Israelites came to regard such a practice as contrary to their religion and to denounce it as a "foreign" practice.

The Child Hero ==

Childhood in ancient Judaism is defined as the time before marriage. There are only a few stories in the Bible involving children. They are mostly adolescents, youngsters (Samuel, David, Joseph, ). They are almost all boys, only a few girls are mentioned. The authors of Biblical texts are males. They have little experience of the life and feelings of a girl before marriage.

These stories reflect problems and experiences common to children in antiquity.

Childhood of Isaac & Childhood of Ishmael

Childhood of Rebekah

Rebekah is the pious girl. She is obedient to her family, she works and is very gentle and hospitable. Her girlhood ends with the marriage with Isaac. Some events of the narrative have become part of the Jewish wedding ceremony (the veiling, the blessing).

Childhood of Jacob & Childhood of Esau

Childhood of Joseph

It is the story of a child, Joseph, who sold in slavery becomes rich and famous, and then helps his family and his people. The story combines the topic of siblings conflicts with the "fear" of children to be sold, kidnapped or separated from their family. The message is that God protect the pious child, and that his duty remains to help his family.

Childhood of Miriam

Childhood of Moses

Another story of a Jewish child, Moses, who is abandoned at birth, is adopted and becomes rich and famous and helps his family and his people.

Childhood of Samuel

The story of a child, Samuel, who was born miraculously, is given up by his pious parents to serve God in the temple and becomes a prophet. Here the child is separated from his family but for the only legitimate reason, to serve God in the Temple. Children belong to their family, but first of all to God.

Childhood of David

As a child, David was chosen by God to become the leader of the people of Israel. Since his childhood he demonstrated his courage. David is a typical example of a pious child. He works (he is a shepherd), he play a musical instrument, and is courageous ([[David & Goliath]

Childhood of Tobias

The first children's novel describes the coming to age of a child (Tobias) who is instructed by an angel.

The first children's book of adventures (involving magic, demons, etc.). Jews now live in the Persian Empire (a larger and more cosmopolitan world).

It ends with the marriage which is the end of childhood.

Childhood of Daniel

Maccabean Martyrs

Young Mary

The first girl story. Like Samuel Miriam is given by their parents to be raised in the Temple. Once again the childhood ends with the marriage.

Young John the Baptist in the Desert

A child who (like Josephus) spent his childhood in the desert.

Young Jesus

Born miraculously, young Jesus like Samuel is presented in the Temple, like Moses grows up in Egypt, like David is destined to be God'd messiah, like Josephus is a model of wisdom even as a child.

Young Josephus

In his autobiography Josephus describes himself as the ideal child, from a noble family lineage, pious, and wise. The focus of education is now moving outside the family.

The Child Martyr of the Diaspora

Hellenistic-Roman times

Heroic children (Daniel & his companions, The "Maccabean" Children)

Refusal of exposing children and pederasty.

Emphasis on children in the teaching of Jesus. "Unless you change and you become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of God". Healing of children: Mt 17:14-18; Mk 5:22-24,35-43 [Jairus's daughter]

Jesus and Josephus (the learned children)

Rabbinic Times

Not having children is a disgrace: "anyone who does not have a son is regarded as dead, as a ruined person".

Husbands may divorce if their wives are barren. (Mishnah Yevamot 6:6).

The Talmud say that the Father, the mother and God all concur in generating a child.(BT Niddah 30h-31a)

The soul is given in the wombs, the evil inclination is given at 10 years (when a child is responsible)

The birth of a son is most wanted. Daughters are welcome but the birth of a son is the most desirable goal.

In childbirth, the mother's life takes precedence over that of her unborn child.

Death was very common and was seen as a punishment of atonement for their parents's sins.

It is God who give and God who takes away (Job 1:21)

In case of divorce children under the age of 6 were given to the mother. Older children

Orphans should be given to relatives or friends.

Education was divided for gender: it was central for boys (at the synagogue) and girls (at home).

Boys and girls were expected to follow the norms of the Law when they were adults (13 and 12 respectively) but the obedience to the norm was recommended since a much earlier age, as soon as they could.

At they could start to read, 13 was the age of the commandments, and 15 the age for studying Talmud.

Children have an active role in the ritual of Passover.

Post-Rabbinic Times

Children began having a much public role. Their rituals are now publicly performed in front of the community (circumcision, bar mitvah

In the Middle Ages circumcision became a more public event, to be performed at the synagogue.

A ritual of naming both males and females also developed.

There was also some rituals marking the beginning of schooling.

The major ritual that developed fro medieval times was bar mitzavah (13 year old boys) and bat mitzvah (12 year old girls).

This usually marked also the age in which parents were no longer obliged to support their children.Boys were expected to work at a very small age, and girl to be married.

A girl is under the authority of her father until he is married, Then her husband's authority superseded her father's.

Pre-Modern Times

From the 17th cent. we have the first manuals of how to raise your children.

Brantspiegel (Basel 1602), First manual on how to raise your children, written by R. Moses ben Henoch

Children should not remained naked, nor perform their bodily functions before people. They should be threatened with the rod and occasionally struck lightly with it so that they know what the rod serves for.

They should not be given new clothes but old and inexpensive clothes. As soon as the child can speak, he should be instructed to recite prayers.

In the book we also have the earliest evidence of the practice of blessing child on Shabbat's eve. ""After the service [on Sabbath eve in the synagogue] is finished, they seek their home; in parting from one another they wish each other not good-day nor good-night, but a happy Sabbath: the parents bless their children, the teachers their pupils."

Another mention of it, at a much later date, occurs in the prayer-book of Rabbi Jacob Emden, printed first in Altona, 1748. A long passage in this book begins with the words: "It is the custom in Israel to bless the children on Sabbath eve after service or upon entering the house."

This blessing as pronounced upon the boys is, "May God make thee like Ephraim and Manasseh" (Gen. xlviii. 20), and upon the girls, "May God make thee like Sarah, Rebekah, Rachel, and Leah" (compare Ruth iv. 12); and, in addition to this regular formula, any special blessing may be added according to the desire of the one bestowing the benediction.

Jewish children's literature (by Linda R. Silver)

Modern Jewish children’s literature first emerged in America less than 100 years ago, when The Adventures of K’tonton, by Sadie Rose Weilerstein, was published in 1935. Relative to the classics of mainstream children’s literature, Jewish children’s literature is much younger, having stood the test of decades, not centuries. Despite this newness, there is a robust selection of Jewish children’s books that have become classics to several generations of readers.

From the Smallest

Weilerstein’s unruly, thumb-sized K’tonton was modeled physically after an S. Y. Agnon character, the tiny Rabbi Gadiel Hatinok. But unlike Agnon’s character, who bravely battled anti-Semitism, Weilerstein’s is a mischievous Jewish child who leads his loving parents and readers on a merry chase through the Jewish holidays.

K’tonton takes a ride on the chopping knife his mother is using to make gefilte fish for Shabbat dinner; sneaks off to the synagogue at Sukkot and gets swung about on a lulav; goes for a ride on a runaway dreidel during Hanukkah ; falls into a bowl of hamentaschen batter on Purim; barely escapes being locked up in the basement with the everyday dishes during Passover; and takes flight on an arrow at a Lag Ba’Omer picnic.

Fantasy abounds in the K’tonton stories, distinguishing them from the stoic bible stories that previously dominated Jewish children’s literature. The viewpoint is proudly and affirmatively Jewish. As an old woman in a synagogue says while watching K’tonton, "A wonder child…Even when he runs away, where does he run to? The synagogue!" Today’s audience can experience the whimsy of these original stories in The Best of K’tonton (1980).

Holiday Reading

Since K’tonton, a whole host of other books about the holidays have been written for Jewish children. Author Barbara Cohen wrote two beloved classics for young readers, The Carp in the Bathtub (1972), a Passover story, and Molly’s Pilgrim (1983), which touches on the similarities between Thanksgiving and Sukkot.

"Could you eat a friend?" is the question that drives The Carp in the Bathtub, when a sister and brother decide that they can’t let a carp that they love like a pet become the family’s Passover gefilte fish. Set during the Depression, the tongue-in-cheek humor, animated characterization, and compelling story still win the affection of readers.

Molly’s Pilgrim has a sadder tone as its main character is a Jewish immigrant child who is picked on at school for being different. Two strong women in the story, an understanding teacher and a loving mother, are pivotal characters who, each in her own way, convince Molly’s classmates that Jewish immigrants are not so different from the American Pilgrims they study and admire.

All-of-a-Kind Reading

Yet, the best known and most widely read of Jewish children’s classics focus on family–Sydney Taylor’s five All-of-a-Kind Family books (1951-1978). The author based them on her own experiences growing up in a large Jewish family in the early 20th century. In the series, Mama and Papa are hard working immigrants and parents to six lively children.

As newcomers, the kids and their parents work to adjust to American society while remaining faithful to their Jewish heritage. In All-of-a-Kind Family Downtown, for example, the sisters reach out to Guido, a poor Italian boy struggling to care for his sick mother, by inviting him to join in decorating their Sukkah on Manhattan’s Lower East Side.

Throughout the five books, the family grows and changes while retaining the strong bonds that love and shared traditions create. The All-of-a-Kind Family books were the first Jewish children’s books to cross over into mainstream literature. Taylor legacy’s has been honored with the creation of the Association of Jewish Libraries’ Sydney Taylor Book Award, which recognizes outstanding Jewish children’s literature annually.

Holocaust Literature

Just as the Holocaust shaped modern Jewish history, its impact runs deep in the literary world. Anne Frank’s The Diary of a Young Girl (1952) marked the beginning of an outpouring of Holocaust memoirs, fiction, biographies, and non-fiction accounts–many of which were written for children and young adults.

A classic of that genre is Esther Hautzig’s memoir of her childhood in Siberia, The Endless Steppe (1968), as well as Lois Lowry’s Number the Stars (1989), a novel about the rescue of Danish Jews. Both books achieve a balance between depicting the horror of the Holocaust and portraying the hope that gives humans the power to endure.

Holocaust stories also have been written specifically for the youngest of readers. Terrible Things (1980), an allegory for young children by Eve Bunting, is often used as a child’s first introduction to the Holocaust. Using animal characters and softly colored illustrations, Bunting tells the story of the "Terrible Things" that come to the forest, first hunting every creature with feathers on its back. Everyone except the birds remark that they don’t have feathers; maybe the forest is better without the birds. But then the Terrible Things begin singling out all of the other groups of animals, until none is left. Bunting takes her text from the famous words of Pastor Martin Niemöller:

"When the Nazis came for the communists, I remained silent; I was not a communist. When they locked up the social democrats, I remained silent; I was not a social democrat.

When they came for the trade unionists, I did not speak out; I was not a trade unionist. When they came for me, there was no one left to speak out."

Jewish Folklore

Beginning in the middle of the 20th century, Jewish authors turned to traditional folklore for inspiration. The Wise Men of Helm and Their Merry Tales (1942) and its sequel, More Tales of the Wise Men of Helm (1965) by Solomon Simon were among the first modern collections of Jewish folklore published for children. Their dead-pan style and inexorably developed the fictional city Chelm–where is everything is backwards and humorously illogical–set the standard for other retellings of Chelm tales, of which there are many.

Isaac Bashevis Singer’s masterwork for children, Zlateh the Goat and Other Stories (1976), also brought to life tales from the Eastern European folk tradition, alongside a sprinkling of Chelm tales and stories teeming with the demons and devils that often inspired Singer’s literary imagination. The black and white illustrations by award-winning artist Maurice Sendak (Where the Wild Things Are) help to capture the soul of shtetl Jewry.

Classic Picture Books

The art of the picture book is one of the greatest achievements of modern children’s literature and is exemplified in many of the classic Jewish tales. In Something from Nothing (1993), written and illustrated by Phoebe Gilman, three different scenes unfold simultaneously through remarkable illustrations: the outsider view of shtetl life, the domestic life of a boy and his extended family, and the community of mice that lives cozily under the floor boards.

Eric Kimmel’s Hershel and the Hanukkah Goblins (1985), with haunting illustrations by Trina Schart Hyman, is based on the legendary character of Hershele Ostropoyler, known in Ashkenazi lore as a prankster who lived in poverty and targeted the rich and powerful. In Kimmel’s version, the resourceful vagabond matches wits with a scary and dark array of goblins determined to undermine Hannukah on each of the eight nights of the holiday.

In author-illustrator Margot Zemach’s It Could Always Be Worse (1976), an unhappy man, living in a house crowded with noisy children, heeds his rabbi’s strange advice and agrees to bring farm animals inside to join the crowd. Zemach’s illustrations of chaos spill across the pages, and the detail and movement capture to perfection the tumult and eventual peace.

The classics of Jewish children’s literature represent a broad spectrum of subject, style, point of view, and artistic technique. But they all point back to the stories and traditions that have been so integral to Judaism for centuries. Although intended for children, as classics, they have something to say to readers of all ages.

The American (integrated) Jewish child in the movies

Children in America now emerges as protagonists, as individuals having his-her own life. There is a generational gap. Contrary to their fathers, they enthusiastically embrace the new world, find new ways of relating with non-Jews and reconciling modernity and tradition

The Jazz Singer.

The problem arose: how Jewish children should keep their identity in a modern world. New stories now "replace" the traditional biblical stories.

Book: Elma Ehrlich Levinger (1887-1958)

Book: Sadie Rose Weilerstein (1894-1993), Adventures of K’tonton (1935), the tale of a thumb-size boy and his doting observant parents,

Book: Mamie Gamoran (1900-1984), Hillel’s Happy Holidays (1939), also a family-based holiday guide.

Sinatra.

The Holocaust child.

A Jewish Girl in Shanghai (2010)

Jewish and non-Jewish children

Children organizations

The Sunday Schools (open to boys and girls). Teaching in English. The Sunday schools offered a new model of Jewish education, no longer tied to Talmud and Torah, taught by men and generally reserved for males only. The curriculum presented Judaism as a religion with a catechism to master, Bible stories to mine for moral lessons, and religious practices compatible with American life. Women served as teachers.

Public schools transformed the children of immigrants into true Americans.

Many Jewish children (boys and girls) worked outside the family and were unionized.

Many Jewish children were enrolled in after-school programs and association (like the Jewish boy-scouts).

Diaries of the Holocaust (Holocaust Encyclopedia)

The Jewish child in the Holocaust is separated by his/her parents, forced to make decision of his/her own.

• (a) Refugees
• (b) In hiding
• (c) in the ghettoes
• (d) in the concentration and death camps.
• (e) among the partisans
• (f) witnesses and survivors

Introduction

At least 1.1 million Jewish children were murdered during the Holocaust.

Of the millions of children who suffered persecution at the hands of the Nazis and their Axis partners, only a small number wrote diaries and journals that have survived. In these accounts, the young writers documented their experiences, confided their feelings, and reflected on the trauma they endured during these nightmare years.

The Diary of Miriam Wattenberg

The diary of Miriam Wattenberg (“Mary Berg”) was one of the first children's journals which revealed to a wider public the horrors of the Holocaust.

Wattenberg was born in Lódz on October 10, 1924. She began a wartime diary in October 1939, shortly after Poland surrendered to German forces. The Wattenberg family fled to Warsaw, where in November 1940, Miriam, with her parents and younger sister, had to live in the Warsaw ghetto. The Wattenbergs held a privileged position within this confined community because Miriam's mother was a US citizen.

Shortly before the first large deportation of Warsaw Jews to Treblinka in the summer of 1942, German officials detained Miriam, her family, and other Jews bearing foreign passports in the infamous Pawiak Prison. German authorities eventually transferred the family to the Vittel internment camp in France, and allowed them to emigrate to the United States in 1944. Published under the penname “Mary Berg” in February 1945, Miriam Wattenberg's diary was one of the very few eyewitness accounts of the Warsaw ghetto available to readers in the English-speaking world before the end of World War II.

The Diary of Anne Frank

Anne Frank, who wrote her diary in hiding with her family and a handful of acquaintances in an attic warehouse in Amsterdam, is the most famous child diarist of the Holocaust era.

Born Annelies Frank in Frankfurt-am-Main, Germany, on June 12, 1929, she was the second daughter of businessman Otto Frank and his wife Edith. When the Nazis seized power in January 1933, the Franks fled to Amsterdam in order to evade the anti-Jewish measures of the new regime. Anne had received an autograph book for her twelfth birthday and began to use the volume as her diary, keeping a detailed account of events that took place in the “secret annex.” Acting on an anonymous tip, the German Security Police discovered the Franks' hiding place on August 4, 1944, and deported the inhabitants of the annex via Westerbork to Auschwitz.

In late October or early November 1944, Anne and her sister Margot arrived with a transport from Auschwitz to Bergen-Belsen, where both succumbed to typhus in late February or early March 1945. Following the war, Anne's father, Otto Frank, the sole survivor of the group, returned to Amsterdam in the summer of 1945, where former employee Miep Gies gave him Anne's diary and some further papers which she had found in the annex after the arrests. The diary first appeared in the Netherlands in 1947. Published in English in 1952 as The Diary of a Young Girl, the wartime journal of Anne Frank has become one of the world's most widely read books, transforming its author into a symbol of the hundreds of thousands of Jewish children murdered in the Holocaust.

Categories of Diaries and Journals

The prominence of Anne Frank's diary served for a time to eclipse other in situ works written by children during the Holocaust. Nevertheless, as interest in the Holocaust has increased, so has the publication of many more diaries, shedding light on the wartime lives of young people under Nazi oppression.

Young journal writers of this period came from all walks of life. Some child diarists came from poor or peasant families. Others were born to middle-class professionals. Some grew up in wealth and privilege. A handful came from deeply religious families, while others grew up in an assimilated and secular community. A majority of child diarists, however, identified with Jewish tradition and culture regardless of their degree of personal faith.

Child diaries and journals from the Holocaust era can be grouped into three broad categories:

• Those written by children who escaped German-controlled territory and became refugees or partisans;
• Those written by children living in hiding; and
• Those maintained by young people as ghetto residents, as persons living under other restrictions imposed by German authorities, or, more rarely, as concentration camp prisoners.

Refugee Diaries

Refugee diaries were often composed in the late 1930s or early 1940s by children of assimilated Jewish parents from Germany, Austria, or the Czech lands. Many of these diaries address the issue of displacement, as all of these child writers had sacrificed the familiarity of home in order to seek refuge among strangers in distant countries.

Some writers, like Jutta Salzberg (b. 1926 in Hamburg, Germany), Lilly Cohn (b. 1928 in Halberstadt, Germany), Susi Hilsenrath (b. 1929 in Bad Kreuznach, Germany), and Elisabeth Kaufmann (b. 1926 in Vienna, Austria; d. 2003), fled with siblings or parents. Others, such as Klaus Langer (b. 1924 in Gleiwitz, Upper Silesia), Peter Feigl (b. 1929 in Berlin), Werner Angress (b.1920 in Berlin, Germany; d. 2010), and Leja Jedwab (b. 1924 in Bialystok, Poland), arrived alone in a strange land.

Child diarists who emigrated by legal means often described the tremendous bureaucratic difficulties involved in securing a safe haven and in obtaining the necessary visas and papers required for emigration. Diarists who fled illegally portray the harrowing journey through dangerous terrain and the constant fear of being apprehended.

Regardless of their means of escape, however, refugee diaries reflect the painful and confusing loss of home, language and culture; the devastating separation from family and friends; and the challenge of adapting to life in an unfamiliar and sometimes alienating world.

Diaries Written in Hiding

Like Anne Frank, some young people lived in hiding to evade the German authorities: in attics, bunkers, and cellars throughout eastern and western Europe. These writers—among them Otto Wolf (b. 1927 in Mohelnice, Czechoslovakia) in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia; Mina Glucksman, Clara Kramer (b. 1927 in Zolkiew), and Leo Silberman (b. 1928 in Przemysl) in Poland; and Bertje Bloch-van Rhijn, Edith van Hessen (b. 1925 in The Hague), and Anita Meyer (b. 1929 in The Hague) in the Netherlands—reflect the difficulties and dangers of their concealment.

Otto Wolf (1927-1945) was a Czech Jewish teenager who chronicled his family's experience living in hiding in rural Moravia during World War II. Otto Wolf (1927-1945) was a Czech Jewish teenager who chronicled his family's experience living in hiding in rural Moravia during World War II. - US Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Felicitas Wolf Garda

These children remained physically concealed for a significant portion, or for the entirety, of their time in hiding. Youngsters often had to remain silent or even motionless in their hiding places for hours at a time. Both children and their protectors lived in constant fear lest a raised voice or a footfall should rouse the suspicion of their neighbors.

Other young people in concealment, like child diarists Moshe Flinker (b. 1926, The Hague; d. 1944, Auschwitz) in Belgium and Peter Feigl in France, hid in plain sight, passing as non-Jews through the dubious protection of false papers and an assumed identity. These children had to adapt swiftly and completely to their new identities and environments. Young people learned to answer to their fictive name, and to avoid language or mannerisms that might betray their origins.

As most Jewish children were hidden by individuals or by religious institutions who embraced faiths different from their own, youngsters learned to recite the prayers and catechism of their “adopted” religion in order to avert the suspicions of both adults and their peers. One false word or gesture was sufficient to endanger both the child and his or her rescuers.

Diaries written in ghettos, camps, or occupied areas

Children and young people residing in ghettos in German-occupied Europe wrote the majority of diaries that have surfaced from the era of the Holocaust. Ghetto diaries often reflect the segregation, isolation, and vulnerability of their authors. They capture the extreme physical suffering and deprivation experienced by their authors and present the complex hardships and adversities that Jews faced in their struggle to survive. In ghetto diaries, the reader finds a firsthand account of the terror and violence of Nazi persecution, but also reads about young people who attempted to transcend their circumstances through study, creativity, and play.

The former sites of many ghettos in German-controlled eastern Europe, particularly in Poland and the former Soviet Union, have yielded many diaries and journals written by children. Renowned among them are the diaries of Dawid Sierakowiak (b. 1924 in Lódz; d. 1943, Lódz ghetto) and two anonymous teenagers from Lódz. Few complete diaries have been found from the Warsaw ghetto, but the fragmentary notes of Janina Lewinson (b. 1926, Warsaw; d. 2010) survived and were later incorporated in her latter-day memoir. Irena Gluck (b.1926- d. c. 1942), Renia Knoll (b. 1927), and Halina Nelken (b. 1924 in Kraków) wrote diaries in the Kraków ghetto, while Dawid Rubinowicz (b. 1927 in Kielce; d. 1942 at Treblinka), Elsa Binder, and Ruthka Leiblich (b.1926; d. c. 1942 in Auschwitz) wrote diaries recording persecution in their communities.

A number of wartime diaries came from ghettos in the Baltic countries: Yitskhok Rudashevski (b. 1927 in Vilnius; d. 1943, Ponary Woods) and Gabik Heller from the Vilne ghetto in Vilnius, Lithuania; Ilya Gerber (b. 1924; d. c. 1943) and Tamara Lazerson (b.1929 in Kaunas) from the Kovno (Kovne) ghetto, in Kaunas, Lithuania; and Gertrude Schneider (b. 1923 in Vienna), a German-Jewish girl incarcerated in the Riga ghetto.

Quite a large number of diaries survived from Theresienstadt in Bohemia (now the Czech Republic), among them the writings of siblings Petr Ginz (b. 1928 in Prague; d. c. 1944, Auschwitz) and Eva Ginzová (b.1930 in Prague), Alice Ehrmann (b. 1927 in Prague), Helga Weissovà (b. 1929 in Prague), Helga Pollackovà (b. 1930), Eva Roubickovà (b. 1920), and Paul Weiner (b. 1931 in Prague).

Many diaries were written by children outside the walls of the ghetto. Sarah Fishkin (b. c. 1924; d. c. 1942) for example, kept a diary in occupied Belorussia (today, Belarus) in the town of Rubezhevichi. Riva Goltsman described the first unsettling six months of occupation in Dnepropetrovsk, in Ukraine. Leon Wells (b. 1925 in Stojanov by Lwów-today: L'viv) kept a diary as a young member of a Sonderkommando unit in the Janów Street forced-labor camp in Lvov (Lwów), while Günther Marcuse (b. 1923 in Berlin; d. 1944, Auschwitz) recounted his experiences in a forced-labor camp at Gross-Breesen, once a vocational training farm for Jewish youngsters hoping to emigrate from the Reich. Isabelle Jesion wrote her diary under German occupation in Paris, while Raymonde Nowodworski (b. 1929 in Warsaw; 1951 in Israel) portrayed her life in Centre Vauquelin, a children's home run by the L'Union générale des israélites de France (UGIF).

Each diary reflects a fragment

Diaries by children, teenagers, and young adults during the era of the Holocaust reflect a great variety of personal backgrounds and wartime circumstances. Their authors often addressed themes such as the nature of human suffering, the moral and ethical dimensions of persecution, and the struggle of hope against despair. Each diary reflects a fragment of its author's life, but, taken together, the diaries provide readers with a varied and complex view of young people who lived and died during the Holocaust.

The American Way: The Coexistence of Religious and Ethnic Identities

• Film: Big City (1948)

Children in the new Israeli State

(a) The experiment of Collective Education in the Kibbutz

• Film Children of the Sun (2007 film)]

The Jewish child today (in Israel and the diaspora)

Jewish Educational Trends

Jewish vs public schools. Big emphasis on Jewish pre-school programs (as many as 100.000 are currently enrolled). Then Jewish children have the choice to attend Jewish schools (not only orthodox) or public schools. 200.000 kids are enrolled in private Jewish schools. For those who attend public schools there is a variety of after-school programs.

Religion and secularism. The ultra-orthodox see school as a way to protect children from secular society. Most Jews, however, attend public schools or do not see private Jewish schools in opposition to public education. Most students from private Jewish schools go to college, not to religious Seminaries.

Jewish identity and American identity.

Jewish Families have a lot of tools available today to raise a "Jewish" child who is integrated in a multi-ethnic, multi-religious secular society.

Book: Anita Diamant, and Karen Kushner, How to Raise a Jewish Child: A Practical Handbook for Family Life, 2000 (2nd ed. 2008)

Book: Books by Chaim Walder, Series: Kids Speak: Children Talk About Themselves (from 1993 to the present)

Related categories

• Rich & Poor / Women
• Little Children Blessed

References

• History of research on children in the Bible and the Biblical world: past developments, present state-and future potential / Reidar Aasgaard / T&T Clark Handbook of Children in the Bible and the Biblical World (2019 Betsworth, Parker), edited volume

• Judaism / Elisheva Baumgarten / Children and Childhood in World Religions: Primary Sources and Texts (2009 Browning, Bunge), edited volume (15-82)

• Children in Late Antiquity / D.L. Stamps / In: Dictionary of New Testament Background (2000 Evans & Porter), dictionary, 197-201

• Child, Children / Joseph A. Grassi / In: The Anchor Bible Dictionary (1992 Freedman), dictionary, 1:904-907

External links

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• The children of the Bible (1880 Armastrong), book / by Fanny L. Armstrong (Nashville : Southern Methodist Publishing House, 1880).

• The boys of the Bible