Josh Crandell is a sophomore at St. Louis Park High School and participates on the swim and debate teams. He traveled with BBYO to Eastern Europe and Israel for three weeks this summer. Josh is interested in current events and politics and worked on Barack Obama’s campaign. He loves to travel, loves animals, is a vegetarian, and enjoys spending time with friends.
PROSE - 2008
Grades 7 - 9
First Place - Asher Mintzer
Third Place - Josh Crandell
Grades 10 - 12
First Place - Aviva Oskow
Third Place - Yehudis Mizrachi
Prose, Grades 7 - 9: Third Place
One People -
Josh Crandell
“All Jews are responsible for one another.” ~Shavuot 39A
From kindergarten to sixth grade I attended the Minneapolis Jewish Day School. MJDS grounded its students in core Jewish values. They encouraged us not simply to recite prayers and assume traditions mechanically, but to incorporate fundamental Jewish ideals such as tikun olam or repairing the world. The measure of a good Jew, they taught us, cannot only be decided by the number of times we step into a synagogue, but also by the way we care for one another and seek to better the lives of our brothers and sisters less fortunate than ourselves.
However, I know that while I learned these values through my Jewish faith, they are not only Jewish values. The values of community and responsibility are American values, and even more broadly, core moral values that should be shared by everyone. It’s not enough for just some of us to prosper -- for alongside our famous individualism, there’s another ingredient in the American saga, a belief that we’re all connected as one people.
A couple of years ago I visited Sojourner Truth Academy, a new charter school in North Minneapolis. This school serves mostly low income and minority youth from all over Minneapolis. The Dean of Students accepted my offer of tutoring and assigned me to a fourth-grade classroom to work with an African-American boy named Jamal (Not his real name). Jamal was the most brilliant fourth grader I had ever met, including my own fourth grade twin brother and sister. Every Monday, I visited the school to provide him with academic enrichment, printing off new algebra or geometry assignments that were two, sometimes three years ahead of his grade level.
When I worked with Jamal, I tried to imagine what he must be feeling and the experiences he must go through each day. Besides the serious challenges he endured outside of school, he had to sit through math lessons that were lacking imagination and rigor, that were aimed at lower performing students. If he were at a wealthy suburban school or one like MJDS, I thought, Jamal, with this much potential, would surely not be forced to sit through these rudimentary lessons.
However, what troubled me most was my realization that there were neither rational nor moral reasons why Jamal sat at a desk at Sojourner Truth while by dumb luck or simple blessing, I was growing up in a completely different world, only a few miles away. There was no divine argument to support why I had received exponentially more opportunities to succeed than Jamal.
Though I am not a traditionally observant Jew, the value of tikun olam means to me that I cannot simply dismiss Jamal’s very real disadvantages as “not my problem.” While it’s easy to get caught up in my daily life of homework, swim team, debate, BBYO, Jamal’s and others’ lack of educational opportunities are my problem.
My close up experience at Sojourner Truth provides me with a different lens from which to view these kids. Some think that these families, and the urban communities in which they live, are beyond repair, hopeless products of their own culture. If others try to help, it is often to save just one child through perhaps a school voucher, with the expectation that this student “owes” them for the assistance. Still others believe that the fault of the disparity lies with an urban culture that does not value education, disregarding completely the fact that urban schools are overcrowded, literally falling apart, yet receive on average half the funding of their suburban counterparts.
This issue is not only about me helping Jamal, or me helping two, or three or twenty or even 100 kids like Jamal. This is an issue far bigger. As a society, we have an obligation to improve all schools and enhance the lives of all our brothers and sisters living with greater social and economic challenges than ourselves. We have an obligation to help every single person – not just one – but all of them. It is not a favor to them; we are commanded by our sense of morality, by our core values, to make the most serious of efforts. It is our duty. All human beings are responsible for their fellow human beings, just as all Jews are responsible for one other. Thanks to Jamal, I understand this responsibility a little better now.