On the treadmill recently, I came across a great show: “Finding Your Roots” hosted by Henry Louis Gates Jr. on PBS. If you aren’t familiar, Gates does genealogical research to uncover the lost family histories of his celebrity guests, and in some instances is able to really connect them to their roots. For many guests, this experience is deeply emotional. Learning more about their ancestors inspires them to think about where they come from and contemplate their own place in history.

As you may have guessed, the rabbi in me immediately zeroed in on Gates’ Jewish guests. Most of these Jewish celebrities shared similar family stories: their ancestors faced horrible antisemitism in Eastern Europe and undertook extreme hardships to immigrate to the United States, so that their future children could live freely as Jews. Some discovered extended family who didn’t make it out, and instead perished in the Holocaust.

Despite the similar stories, I was surprised by the difference in their reactions to hearing them for the first time. Some were visibly moved and wept as they grasped, for maybe the first time, what their ancestors went through because they were Jewish. But disappointingly, some of the guests seemed…indifferent. One reaction in particular really bothered me:

Gates found a great-great grandfather’s obituary. This man grew up in rural Poland and became an orphan as a child. Despite his tender age he would walk many miles through bitter cold to recite the Kaddish prayer for his father’s memory every single day for the entire year, never missing it once.

I was blown away, and so excited to see the guest’s reaction to this moving revelation that I nearly fell off the treadmill.

The celebrity? Unmoved.

As someone who has devoted my life to getting Jews to care about being Jewish, it hurt to watch. But then it got me thinking about our mission here at JGSI:

To inspire the next generation of young Jewish leaders to find their own roots, and nurture those roots to cultivate and continue what is our proud and vibrant Jewish community.

Are we doing a good enough job? Or, like this celebrity, will we be met with indifference?

I am so inspired by our Jewish roots and by everything our ancestors sacrificed so we could remain Jewish, and I am working hard so that this next generation will be inspired as well!