I wasn’t planning to write this today, but something happened that compels it. We need to have a conversation about your daughters. I write to American Jews generally—and specifically to those who are more or less my contemporaries—and who have daughters who have spent a gap year, are spending a gap year, or might spend a gap year in a seminary in Israel in the future.
For years, I have been getting phone calls from girls my wife and I don’t know asking if they can come sleep at our house. In another place, time and culture, that might be fine. I was told my name is on a list of some sort.
We certainly don’t live in a time when teenage girls/young women calling men they don’t know and asking to come for a sleepover can’t not be scrutinized.
To be clear, when your daughters call me, they’re asking if we can host them and some friends for Shabbat.
For some time, as much as it mystified me that my name and number got on a list, it sometimes annoyed me with girls I don’t know calling and inviting themselves over. My perspective has since changed. Before the pandemic, we would host a number of young men and women, many of whom are family friends from when we lived in the U.S. and connected in age—and maybe even went to school—with our five eldest children, who were born there. Since the youngest of these five is nearly 21, we’re running out of family friends whose children are looking for home cooking and hospitality.
The pandemic slowed things down, but this year the number of calls has picked up to pre-pandemic levels. On one level, I suppose it’s a good thing to see life getting back to normal.
As the pandemic broke out, I was speaking to a close friend whose second daughter was here in seminary at the time. I related the kind of weird and awkward calls I would get. My friend explained that the reason this happens is that the seminaries (unlike the yeshivot that their sons went to) basically make your daughters fend for themselves at least half the time, sometimes three out of four weeks. My friend complained that the seminaries are making lots of money on your daughters, and should do more to keep the girls in. But my friend also explained that for the girls, in most cases the first time out of the house living on their own, fending for themselves means making their own Shabbat arrangements most of the time. And yes, that means the awkwardness of calling men they don’t know, whose names they got from some list, and inviting themselves for Shabbat. I was told to have more empathy for the awkward situation that your daughters are in. And since then, I have.
More recently, the way in which your daughters have been reaching out has morphed. Now, more than ever, rather than getting a call, I often get a text message, “Are you hosting for Shabbat?” More often than not, your daughters don’t say “Hi, my name is…” One of the best was “I heard you have really great shabbosim.” It’s all still odd to me, but I understand. More often than not, we try to make your daughters feel welcome. When we are not hosting, I feel bad, because they have to repeat these calls/texts any number of times. Each week. It must be stressful.
But the situation is broken, and someone needs to fix it. For starters, seminaries need to vet the “lists” from which your daughters are calling strangers. I don’t know who started the lists, but it’s my sense that they are by no means official in any way. I realize that this might increase their work, and even liability, but I assure you that if, God forbid, something horrible happens, they are plenty liable. They need to arrange more Shabbat programs for your daughters. Even just one more per month. You and they need to counsel your daughters in how to invite themselves respectfully, and even how to be good house guests. Not just that, but as one friend bemoaned, so many experiences are missed by not interacting with Israelis of all backgrounds who don’t hail from Teaneck, the Five Towns, Skokie, etc.
Recently, we hosted some of your daughters, who shared an awkward experience going to a family for Shabbat a few weeks prior, and housed in a room with no door. That’s inappropriate. Forget the kashrut, I asked them, how do they know they’re not going to the home of a pedophile, or a couple going through divorce, or some other trauma? The short answer: They don’t. It’s hit or miss. Thank God we’ve not heard a horror story of one of your daughters being abused, but there seems to be nothing in place to prevent that.
Honestly, it makes me want to host them all the more because I know if I do, that’s one less opportunity to be in an inappropriate environment. It’s how I look at it when I pick up tempistim (hitchhikers), knowing that I am a safe driver and that if they’re in my car they have a greater chance of arriving safely. The same with teenage girls on Shabbat: They’ll feel welcome, have good food, a safe environment, and a room with a door.
There was a funny situation recently when we hosted two of your daughters. They were actually engaging and interacted with our family more than others do. They were interested in my work connecting Christians with Israel. On Shabbat afternoon, I was checking in on them to see if they needed anything—there was a door, and I knocked. Our guest room doubles as my office. I found them sitting on the bed reading a Christian book about Jesus. I chuckled and thought that this is probably not what their parents sent them to seminary for.
As much as the seminaries need to step up and not cast off your daughters—and their responsibility—you might want to be a little more hands-on as well. You want to be sure that they are being good guests and making you proud. Counsel them. Know where they are going. Ask how it was. Be an adult pair of eyes and ears to be sure that they are not in an unsafe environment—and if they are, do something about it. (Hint: No bedroom door is a trigger.)
What compelled me to write today is a call I got, presumably from one of your daughters as she sounded young, and it was from a number with a prefix that many seminary girls use. I answered the phone and your daughter said, “Hi. Is your wife there?” That’s all. When I said she was, your daughter said, “OK, thanks.” And hung up. If it were not a call to my personal cell phone, maybe that would be a little less weird. But only a little. It was like a strange version of the crank call before caller ID, asking if your refrigerator is running, but creepier.
It’s one thing for us to host your daughters, because that’s what Jews do. I was mistaken to be annoyed by it before. But it’s another thing for your daughters just to assume that because someone is willing to host them that the situation does not need scrutiny. I suppose that Abraham didn’t need to worry about keeping the sides of his tent open to guests because of anything more than sandstorms. But we do. And if I am looking out for your daughters, you—and the seminaries that they attend—should be doing so all the more.
Jonathan Feldstein, formerly of Teaneck, made aliyah in 2004 and now lives in Efrat.
