You’re never too old to learn about cultural diversity.
I realized this over the weekend, on the eve of Hanukkah. My mom, a fourth grade teacher, told me about an incident she’d just experienced at a local party-supply store.
She was shopping for her annual Hanukkah lesson, in which she briefly teaches her students the meaning of the holiday, demonstrates how she lights our family menorah, and leads them in a spirited game of dreidel. Everyone goes home with a little bag of chocolate gelt, a dreidel and maybe a Hanukkah-themed pencil.
Poland faces a horrible wave of extremism after the election of a new right-wing government. As an educator and Polish citizen, I am not only scared by this type of radical hatred, but it also reminds me of the past because the same organization that marches on the streets of Polish cities today, organized boycotts of Jewish institutions and forbade Jewish students from studying at Polish universities before WWII.