It is not often that those of us who have never served in armed forces can receive direct instruction from a distinguished, former commanding officer who served long years in a highly dangerous combat zone.
It is even far less often when the commanding officer is not Jewish yet offers advice to a Jewish audience about the imperative of providing Jewish education whose aim is to help fashion “a Jew who stands up straight, proud and with dignity rather than ‘a Jew with trembling knees,’ to borrow from Menachem Begin.”
And so, GAJE calls attention to an op-ed written by Col. Richard Kemp CBE (Commander of the Order of the British Empire) and published last month by eJewishPhilanthropy. Col. Kemp served 29 years in the British Army, including as commander of British forces in Afghanistan and head of international terrorism at the U.K. Joint Intelligence Committee
He serves presently on the board of Club Z, an organization founded more than a decade ago in California that strives to better equip high-school age Jewish teens to cope with the anti-Jewish, anti-Israel buffeting they will inevitably encounter after they move on from their secondary school education .
Col. Kemp describes a multi-experience program of extra-curricular immersion that adds skills to the classroom knowledge that the teens have already acquired.
“They begin with learning what it means to be a Jew and a Zionist, because without that knowledge and the confidence it brings, too many are lost the first time they meet even passive hostility. Then come the facts, techniques and arguments that equip them for everyday conversation, formal debate and responding to online abuse. They learn how to build Jewish and Israel groups at school. They also learn leadership skills that will help them steady fellow students who have had none of this preparation….
“[E]ducation cannot do the job alone. What makes it hold is everything built around it: overnight retreats, practical experience in the community, mentorship, friendships and support that continues long after graduation. Each part reinforces the others.”
Col. Kemp pleads with community elders and funders to make available the immersive part of education as well as the classroom component.
“Napoleon said that in battle, the moral is to the physical as three is to one. The same is true here. A key aim of the Jew haters is to demoralize Jewish students: to drive them out, force them to hide their identity or even turn them against the Jewish state and their own people. Knowledge answers the arguments. Identity — and a community ready with backup when things get dark — is what keeps a young person from giving up.”
The op-ed is interesting and worthy because of its content as well as its author. It is available at:
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Shabbat shalom
Grassroots for Affordable Jewish Education
October 23, 2026
