Giving Thanks for Leaving Home

11/28/2025

I spent Thanksgiving yesterday visiting my elderly English grandmother in London.

It’s a home I know well, having lived there for most of the week during my elementary and middle school years.

Growing up three hours away in Bournemouth, a seaside city without a Jewish school, my parents made the difficult decision to send me and my siblings to London so we could attend Jewish school.

Every Sunday afternoon, my father would drive us on the long and traffic-riddled roads to London, where we would be lovingly cared for by my wonderful grandparents, until Thursday night, when he would bring us back home for the weekend.

I don’t think I personally suffered too much from homesickness, but it was definitely a difficult experience. Going through the highs and lows of elementary school without parents to come home to is tough. And while my parents tried their best to visit and were always available whenever we called, we did spend most of our formative years outside their direct care.

But more than it was difficult for us, it was difficult for my parents. Only now, as a parent myself, can I begin to understand just how hard it must have been for them.

Neither of my parents were shy about showing their emotions, and sending us off on Sundays was always a tearful experience. I remember my mother always standing at the door, waving goodbye while wiping away her tears. She would stand there sobbing until we were out of sight.

Yesterday, when I visited my grandmother, I spoke to her about this and asked what it had been like to host a group of boisterous, rowdy grandchildren, and whether she, a busy woman in her late sixties at the time, was really up for it.

She looked at me and explained that she had no choice. “Your parents and your grandparents wanted you and your siblings to grow up as proud Jews with a proper Jewish education, and for that to happen, you needed to be in a Jewish school,” she said. “So I did what I was able to do to help.”

I’m not sure I would recommend sending children away from home at such a young age, and I don’t think I would do it myself for our kids. But I am sharing this because we all need to recognize how critical Jewish schooling is for our children’s Jewish identities.

If we want children to grow up in a certain way, we need to put in the work to lead them in that direction. We can’t take anything about our kids’ future choices for granted, especially an identity that is under increasing attack.

If we want our children to grow up as proud Jews, and one day become parents to proud Jewish families of their own, the least we can do is give them the best Jewish education possible.

I’m not suggesting anyone send their kids away from home, but if you live in a place where Jewish schools exist, and if having children or grandchildren with a proud Jewish identity matters to you, please do not take it for granted, and do all you can for them to receive a strong Jewish education in a proudly Jewish atmosphere and environment.

Being in the UK this week, I didn’t celebrate a typical American Thanksgiving, but I am forever thankful to my parents and grandparents for making the most difficult sacrifices of all, and through much tears and pain, ensuring I would grow up a proud Jew.

Hadassah joins me in wishing you a Shabbat Shalom!

Tzvi