Many years ago, I was working in the Soviet Union. My job was to teach Hebrew and to give some professional instruction to the local teachers who had been teaching Jewish studies in the underground. On one occasion, I met an old woman who was one of the local teachers. She had a rather esoteric issue of grammar that she wanted to discuss with me. Well, as soon as she spoke, I was convinced that she was a native Hebrew speaker. It was obvious that she was talking without having to translate to herself from Russian, and her language was rich in sayings from the Jewish sources. So, I asked her who had sent her to Russia. No one had sent her, she insisted, moreover she had never even been to Israel. I thought that she was joking around with me, so I insisted: "Who sent you?" However, in fact, she was a Soviet citizen, and absolutely fluent in Hebrew.

Her story was incredible. She had grown up in Riga, Latvia between the World Wars. Latvia was then an independent state, and the Jewish community had a nice variety of schools for their children. The school that her parents chose for her was the Tarbut School, dedicated to Hebrew language education. As soon as the children arrived at school, there was only one language: modern Hebrew as spoken in the Land of Israel. The teachers only spoke in Hebrew, the textbooks were all in Hebrew - and the children spoke with each other only in Hebrew. It was an immersion school. Apparently it worked very well. Hebrew became her language, and she could express herself in it just as well as in her parents' languages (Yiddish and Russian).

Ever since my return from the USSR, I thought that a Tarbut school - total Hebrew immersion from kindergarten through to eighth grade at least - could produce Hebrew speaking American Jews as well. It really is so simple, especially since it would be so easy to find teachers nowadays. Yet, every time I would meet a committed American Jew, and toy with the idea of a Tarbut school in the USA, I would be told: "Forget it. It won't happen. No one would be interested". There were those who thought that a Tarbut graduate wouldn't do well on his SAT's! It was obvious to me that this instinctive negative reaction was a result of a number of factors. First of all, the importance of language in the shaping of Jewish identity is not understood on the intellectual level. American Jews think that carrying the Jewish heritage from generation to generation in English is essentially the same experience as in Hebrew or in Yiddish. Secondly, on the instinctive level, creating a Hebrew speaking public was felt to be a removal from the American experience. Jewish education, so I understood from such discussions, could not be conducted in a way that contradicted the central experience of American Jewry - the primacy of the American identity.

A few years ago, I was teaching a class in Jewish history at a high school program for American Jews. I was lecturing in English, and I noticed that one of my students was taking notes in French. "How do you know French so well?", I was curious to know. "Do you speak French at home?" No, his parents were typical English speaking American Jews, born in the USA, as were all his grandparents. There was a French language charter school in his town, and his parents placed him in that school. Everything was taught in French, and everyone finished eighth grade fluent in French. "Wait a second", I said, "wasn't anyone afraid that you wouldn't do well on your SAT's?" No, he had never heard of any such concern. "Well, what about the problems of being part of American society?" No, that was never an issue either. Then came my final question: "If there had been a Hebrew immersion school in your town, would your parents have sent you there?" No, probably not!

How could it be that for a French language immersion school "there are no problems", but everyone had reservations about a similar school in Hebrew? The answer is that many Jews seem to have problems with establishing a clear and distinct identity in the American world. So, studying French - being able to read literature in the highest level - was not seen as a threat to one's American identity. It remains a foreign language in spirit. However, the Hebrew school was more threatening. Hebrew is not "foreign" - it radiates our own identity. The fear was that it would be an identity that negates the experience of Americanization. Hence, the instinctive reaction was always "no", and only later came all the justifications (such as SAT scores).

The agenda should be the following: The Jews have become Americans. It is no longer an issue. They are part of American society - part of the mainstream - and this is a fact already for a number of generations. In the process, their Jewish identity has been watered down to merely a religious experience for people who actually are not too religious. It is a very secondary aspect of identity. Jewish identity needs some prodding - not the American identity - and the return to a Jewish language would change the very essence of the Jewish experience.

One doesn't have to bring Swedish-speaking children, sit them around the camp fire, and explain to them that they are Swedes. It's obvious - just as it was obvious eighty years ago that Yiddish speaking children had a Jewish identity. However, Jewish children today in the USA are brought to summer camp to sit around the fire - and to be told that they are Jews. It's no longer obvious. Language is the chief carrier of identity - and that language is American English carrying a self-evident American identity. Bilingualism (English-Hebrew) would create a situation that being a Jew is simply obvious.

Well, the immersion school would do the trick, but it would seem that the struggle for Jewish identity based on a distinctively Jewish language had been given up. Recently, so I read in the Jewish press, a Hebrew language charter school was opened in Hollywood, Florida. The concept is that essentially this is a public school, financed by the state, but the school can have a special angle, just like the French school experience of my former student. It's quite a dramatic development - quality Jewish education for free.

Sadly, I learned that many in the Jewish community tried to block the founding of the school. Most surprisingly, rabbinic leadership has come out against the new concept. The school, as any public school in the USA, must be without any religious instruction, and these rabbis claim that there cannot be Jewish education without religion. A new Hebrew language charter school will start in NYC next year. Again, opposition to the founding of the school was heard among prominent Jews. One claim was that the public school creates a common civic identity, whereas a Hebrew charter school (just as the schools in other languages) will create an identity distinct from the common American identity.

Fortunately, the charter schools are constitutional, and they cannot be blocked. As long as a public can be found that wants a Hebrew education, more and more charter schools will be opened. So I hope. Yet, in brief, I'd like to argue with those who oppose.

Let's start with the Reform movement rabbis who challenged the legitimacy of the Hebrew charter schools. A normative Jewish educational experience in America is the Sunday school/afternoon religious school. The children go to public school where there is no exposure whatsoever to any Jewish content, and then they spend a few hours a week in the local synagogue studying prayer, the Hebrew alphabet and perhaps a few Torah stories. This meagre education is typical, normative. It would obviously be a better educational experience to go to a Hebrew language charter school, study Jewish history and Hebrew literature - and then spend a few hours a week in the local synagogue studying prayer and perhaps a few Torah stories. Why would a rabbi prefer to meet in synagogue on Sunday morning a child who takes Spanish lessons in school instead of meeting a child who is comfortable in reading Hebrew? How strange. The charter school does not rule out the already existing religious instruction or bar-mitzvah lessons in the synagogue. On the contrary, the charter school will create a much more serious bar-mitvah student - one who actually understands his haftarah!

The ones who fear the non-American aspect of the Hebrew charter school can take a deep breath and calm down. The children are part of American society. What is foreign today to most Jews in America is "Jewishness". It's an urgent problem. If integrating into America was an issue in 1920, the collapse of Jewish identity is the issue in 2009. Concerned Jews should be worried about the continuity of Jewish identity, not the further integration of an already successfully integrated community.