How Do You Tell If Someone is a Jew? and Other Questions Young Readers Ask

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This fall, I read aloud The Travels of Benjamin of Tudela to a 4th/5th grade class who were studying the Middle Ages. It is a fictionalized account of Benjamin, a Jewish man from Spain, who in 1159 set out on a 14 year journey that took him to Italy, Greece, Palestine, Persia, and Egypt. It is a miracle that Benjamin's own travel story, which was translated into many languages, survives. We talked about how dangerous it was for anyone to leave his or her own community in the 1100s, and how Benjamin worked hard to learn new languages and fit in: he remarks that he would have been in grave peril if anyone discovered he was a Jew. Which prompted the question, "How do you tell if someone is a Jew?" Before I could answer, and with a rabbi's daughter sitting right at my feet, children called out, "You can tell by their hair!" "You can tell by their big noses!" I restored quiet and then asked them, "You want to know how you can tell if someone is a Jew?" They all nodded. And I said, "By how they dress." Long pause. "In Benjamin's time, Jews usually lived apart, in a ghetto, and wore traditional and distinct clothing. And nowadays, how do you tell?" Long pause. "You just can't. Period. Not unless the person is wearing traditional clothing, such as a yarmulke."

Oddly, the same exact question came up recently when I was reading another magnificent picture book aloud, this time to fifth and sixth graders studying WWII. The Grand Mosque of Paris: A Story of How Muslims Saved Jews During the Holocaust, is a riveting account of courageous Muslims, including the rector at the mosque, who sheltered Jews in their homes, hid them in the mosque, created false identity papers for them, and whisked them to safety in the south of France. And in this case, the students asked how the Nazis identified Jews, many thousands of whom were assimilated and had no distinctive clothing. I had to tell them the grim news that the French were keenly aware of who was Jewish and many people enthusiastically turned their neighbors over to the Nazis. The brave Muslims in this gripping story helped us talk about unimaginable horror by highlighting individual, personal decisions to do good.

And last week, I shared the picture book My Name Is Bilal with a group of 2nd/3rd grade students as part of a unit on immigration to America. In the story, a young Muslim boy and his sister must learn to cope with their new school and classmates who mock them for being different. The word "Muslim" was new for many children, but a couple of children commented that Muslims are terrorists who attacked the U.S. Before I could address that issue, however, one little boy said very calmly, "I'm a Muslim." The intellectual leap the group made at that moment was palpable. Someone blurted, "But he doesn't look like a Muslim!" I carefully explained about diversity of dress and observance among Muslims around the world, as well as tackling the terrorist stereotype.

Children spend a lot of their time sorting things into categories. It's what we teach from infancy on, with colors, shapes, coins, cars, you name it. It's the job of parents and teachers, however, to help dispel stereotypes. Frank conversations can emerge naturally when we read aloud to children: we get insight into their thinking and we can model our own thoughts about complex subjects. Two of my favorite children's writers are eloquent on these topics: Coloring Between the Lines by Anne Sibley O'Brien and Mitali's Fire Escape by Mitali Perkins

I only wish that the parent who, long ago, accused me of having a Jewish agenda in the library, and of relentlessly teaching about the Holocaust, had realized the richness and diversity of the library's holdings and the quality of discussion we have every single day. The way these children respond to books is a source of profound optimism for me.