Protests and Penguins
How do you make a difference?
How do you influence people for the better? How do you change society?
Protests with placards? Literature with arguments? Acts of kindness leading to conversation? Demonstration by example?
After contemplating this for many years, my answer is: All of the above! Everything has its place. Some things work better with some people than with others.
With this website, I try to influence society with written arguments. And it does make a difference; I explained how it effects change in my post titled “You’re Just a Charedi Basher!”
But I also have another job, my primary one, being the director of the Biblical Museum of Natural History and its 26 staff members. In this role, I exert societal change in a very different way, albeit with different goals - though there is also some overlap. Instead of protests, we have penguins; instead of literature, we have lizards; instead of arguments, we have Arks.
And we exert all kinds of influence. As I type these words there is a group of secular Russian young adults touring the museum. I noticed that one of them is wearing a Santa hat. The museum tour will teach them to greater appreciate their Jewish heritage and their connection to the Land of Israel.
Then the other week we had a visit from Amutat Leshem. This is an Israeli nonprofit organization that works with approximately 30 yeshiva high schools, with the goal of expanding the number of yeshiva high schools that offer secular studies and to improve the quality of academic learning, so that every student graduates with a full matriculation certificate alongside their yeshiva learning. The economic benefits of this both to the students and to society is immeasurable. (And the percentage of graduates who enlist in the IDF is higher than among the general Charedi population.) The organization recently brought their team to the museum for a staff excursion day. But they ended up finding it so interesting and educational that they decided to encourage the schools they work with to bring their students!
All these groups are only able to visit the museum at highly subsidized rates. And thus these visits, and the educational benefits they bring, are only able to take place thanks to the generosity of our supporters, who are thrilled to be a part of this unique mission. If you would like to be a part of effecting change in this way, please donate at www.BiblicalNaturalHistory.org/donate. Thank you!
