In 1742 the English poet Thomas Gray wrote a poem Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College.
It’s a lengthy poem, but here’s a brief extract:
Alas, regardless of their doom,
The little victims play!
No sense have they of ills to come,
Nor care beyond to-day:
In knowing nothing, life is most delightful,
Where ignorance is bliss,
‘Tis folly to be wise.
In 2024, Brandeis University in America conducted a survey. Their findings were that one-third of non-Jewish college students in American universities embraced antisemitism or anti-Israel views.
From this survey we can conclude that in the rampant antisemitic and anti-Israel protests today ignorance is still bliss, from early times at Eton College in London to the present at universities in America.
In 300 years nothing has changed and highlights a reason those protesters are lining the streets condemning the Jews and the State of Israel is through sheer ignorance.
Edutainment
It’s a coined word, an abbreviation of the phrase ‘Education Through Entertainment’.
It was first used in 1954 by Walt Disney who explained it was a new kind of entertainment that goes far beyond amusing its audience.
A vital form of education through entertainment, both for adults and children, that treats a subject directly and meaningfully.
So let’s examine a prime example of edutainment applicable to both the Jewish people and Israel.
Leon Uris
In 1956, after visiting Israel for the first time, American author Leon Uris decided to write a novel about the origins of the state.
It was based on the story of rescuing Jews from war-torn Europe and titled Exodus.
Writing to his father during the visit he commented:
“The Jews of Israel are magnificent people. A kind of Jew you and I have never seen before.”
The primary readership of Exodus was intended to be non-Jewish Americans, because Uris interpreted Zionism as a variant of the historic yearning for national independence, as did Americans in 1776.
It was also among the first American novels to expose the horror of the Holocaust and he explicitly made the moral connection between the vulnerability of European Jewry and the formation of a state, ending the history of pogroms, massacres and genocide.
The success of the book was well beyond the author’s expectations.
Published in 1958, eventually translated into more than 50 languages, it became an international publishing phenomenon, the biggest bestseller in the United States since ‘Gone with the Wind’ in 1936.
By 1959 the sales of Exodus hardcover copies were 2,500 copies a day.
At the end of the year it was estimated by Bantam Books, publishers of the paperback edition, that sales might come close to 5 million copies, making it the largest advance print order in the history of publishing.
Thousands of readers wrote to Leon Uris thanking him for making Jewish history something to be cultivated, rather than be suppressed.
To some extent it contradicted the expectation of Theodor Herzl that the diaspora was fated, whether by pressure of persecution or the allure of assimilation, to vanish.
Yet, its value to the State of Israel is unquestionable.
Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion commented favorably:
“As a piece of propaganda it’s the greatest thing ever written about Israel.”
Leon Uris succeeded in telling a story that caused millions of readers to discard images of Jews as defenseless victims of the Holocaust and instead to see themselves as masters of their own fate.
“I am not writing this book for the Jews or the Zionists. I am writing this book for the American people in the hope that Israel badly needs understanding. I hope billions will read it.”
Can a novel, even one based on fact, be a tool for the dissemination of truth and understanding?
The success of Exodus clearly proves that effective public relations can be fostered through the use of edutainment.
Leon Uris was no great writer. Literary critics panned several of his books. He even admitted it.
But telling a compelling story is far more effective when written in a language which reaches the heart and awakens interest.
Jewish survival throughout the length and breadth of history is a remarkable story. We need to spell it differently to overcome ignorance.
