Eric Cohen on the Questions Graduating Jews and Their Parents Must Confront

This week, the Tikvah Podcast offers up not a conversation but a speech. It's a speech that was offered up to American Jewish high school and college graduates by Tikvah's CEO, Eric Cohen. In the fall of 2021, four Jewish women—Carolyn Rowan, Liz Lange, Nina Davidson, and Rebecca Sugar—came together to create an organization for parents grappling with the challenges of raising committed Jewish children in today's confusing and contentious cultural environment. The Jewish Parents Forum organizes events for parents to get to know one another and to learn how to address the practical challenges facing Jewish mothers and fathers today, from the mainstreaming of anti-Semitism to identity politics to vociferous anti-Zionism to what to do about social media and phones. This spring, the Jewish Parents Forum invited Cohen to deliver a graduation address on these themes for students in Tikvah's education programs. In that speech, he raises questions that all American Jews are now confronted with—questions that are also those that all Jews at all times must ask and answer. Musical selections in this podcast are drawn from the Quintet for Clarinet and Strings, op. 31a, composed by Paul Ben-Haim and performed by the ARC Ensemble.