My Second-Favorite Country - by Sivan Zakai (Paperback)

About the Book

"Drawing on a longitudinal study of Jewish children in the United States, this book presents Jewish children's learning about Israel as a rich case for understanding how children develop ideas and beliefs about self, community, nation, and world over the course of elementary school"--

Book Synopsis

Reveals how young American Jewish children come to develop their views about Israel

Israel has long occupied a prominent place in the lives and imaginations of American Jews, serving as both a symbolic touchstone and a source of intercommunal conflict. In My Second-Favorite Country, Sivan Zakai offers the first longitudinal study of how American Jewish children come to think and feel about Israel, tracking their evolving conceptions from kindergarten to fifth grade.

This work sheds light on the perception of Israel in the minds of Jewish children in the US and provides a rich case study of how children more generally develop ideas and beliefs about self, community, nation, and world. In contrast to popular views of America's youth as naive or uninterested, this book illuminates both the complexity of their thinking and their desire to be included in conversations about important civic and political matters. Zakai draws from compelling empirical data to prove that children spend considerable effort contemplating the very concepts that adults often assume they are not ready to discuss. Indeed, the book argues that over the course of their elementary school education, children develop and express deep interest in complex issues such as the intricacies of identity and belonging, conflicting ways of framing the past, and the demands of civic responsibility. Ultimately, Zakai argues that in order to take children's ideas seriously and better prepare them for a world full of disagreement, a substantive shift in educational practices is necessary.

Review Quotes

"Zakai (Jewish education, Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, Los Angeles) has written an important study about how Jewish American children attending Jewish day schools relate to Israel."-- "CHOICE"

"In My Second-Favorite Country: How American Jewish Children Think About Israel, Sivan Zakai offers a novel suggestion for how to approach Israel education: let's listen carefully to students' sense-making. Zakais' book is a must-read for educators who see it as their responsibility to help students make sense of the world in which they live, in which we all live, and in which we all may have a lasting impact."-- "Reading Religion"

"Rich in anecdotes, featuring children sharing their thoughts in their own words, My Second-Favorite Country serves as important testimony that conveys the need to listen to children on the topic of Israel. By arguing for making Israel part of what Jewish children know versus just a place they have positive feelings about, Zakai charts a course forward for helping them become authentically attached to Israel."-- "Contemporary Jewry"

"Exceptionally well-crafted and fascinating. By illustrating Jewish-American children's grappling with identity and community, Zakai has provided a necessary and long overdue contribution to Jewish Studies."--Theodore Sasson, Middlebury College

"Featuring impressive data and compelling prose, My Second-Favorite Country is the first longitudinal study of American Jewish children that is outside of the framework of heritage tourism. . . . Will certainly make a lasting impression in the field of Jewish Studies."--Ari Y. Kelman, Stanford University

About the Author

Sivan Zakai is the Sara S. Lee Associate Professor of Jewish Education at the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion.