As early as her grandchildren could talk, Debra Weinberg would ask them, “What’s something good you did for someone else today?” at the family dinner table.
“Everyone from the youngest to the oldest has something to say, and they learn very quickly about how we as Jews are responsible for each other and for repairing the world,” Weinberg said.
The grandmother of four also helps prepare the Shabbat meal when she visits her children and grandchildren on Fridays, traveling from her Baltimore County home to Washington, D.C. She sees this gesture as a way to strengthen the next generation of her Jewish family.
Like Weinberg, the estimated 1.4 million Jewish grandparents in the United States today play a large role in shaping Jewish life. The growing numbers of adults ages 55-plus prompted the Jewish Grandparents Network to host the largest global virtual gathering of Jewish grandparents, the network’s first of its kind, on Jan. 27.
“We see the essential role that grandparents play in the Jewish future and in raising a Jewish family,” said Weinberg, the executive director of the Jewish Grandparents Network.
Some of the virtual sessions included building relationships with grandchildren who live far away, crafting meaningful moments with grandchildren, reimagining Jewish ritual and navigating multifaith and mixed heritage Jewish families.
Esther Safran Foer, a Washington, D.C., resident, has fond memories of making challah with her oldest granddaughter. “Food is a wonderful way to connect,” Safran Foer said.
Now in college at the University of Chicago — nearly 700 miles from the nation’s capital — Safran Foer’s granddaughter keeps up the tradition, baking challah and hosting her friends for Shabbat dinners.
“I am so gratified,” Safran Foer said.
Other local grandparents similarly involve themselves in family Jewish traditions.
Weinberg said she enjoys preparing the Shabbat meal for her daughters’ families on Fridays because helping out eases the burden on busy parents.
“Parents are really busy today, and they are involved in so many things in their children’s lives,” Weinberg noted. “If grandparents can be helpful and can focus on the Jewish family, I think it strengthens the Jewish family.”
She added that helping cook gives her a purpose, thereby improving her well-being. “I feel like I’m passing on Jewish joy,” Weinberg said. “It also creates the ritual of Shabbat, and different rituals really provide opportunities for grandchildren and grandparents to be together in a meaningful way.”
Bob and Mim Schultz of Silver Spring have two young granddaughters. When the family all lived in the same area, they would also gather for Shabbat dinners “just about every week.”
“It’s an educational thing,” Bob Schultz said. “If they don’t experience [a tradition], then it doesn’t become part of their adulthood. … Experience the traditions and have them learn about what it was like for you growing up and so forth.”
The Schultzes also read PJ Library books with their grandchildren, ages 4 and 7, and invite them to monthly musical Reform services at Leisure World, where they reside.
“We are grandparents, and the joy is to not have to do the parenting,” Mim Schultz said. “Our job is finished, and the joy is to share these Jewish traditions because we can.”
Though they may be generations apart, Mim Schultz and her granddaughters both enjoy singing along during services. “It’s joyful to us as grandparents that we can share that with them, so they can see that when you get older, you can still enjoy Judaism,” she said.
Sandy and Adina Mendelson, Bethesda residents and longtime members of Adas Israel Congregation, lit candles, sang songs after the meal and said Birkat Hamazon with the family on Shabbat when their six adult grandchildren were younger.
Attending Jewish camp — the elder Mendelsons first met at Camp Ramah New England — reinforces these traditions for youth. “They look forward to it,” Adina Mendelson said of observing Shabbat.
Some other families don’t have the luxury of living a short drive away from the grandkids. The Schultzes’ two granddaughters temporarily live in Australia and won’t return to their Aspen Hill home until the end of 2026.
Staying in touch is a challenge for them made possible by modern technology — Mim Schultz records herself reading books on the app Yoto, which plays the recording as audiobooks to her grandchildren on the other side of the globe. “We call it ‘Grammy stories,’” Mim Schultz said.
When grandkids get older, another challenge can arise when discussing Israel, a topic that came up during the Jewish Grandparents Network’s Learning Fest. Jonathan Kessler, the founder and CEO of Heart of a Nation, who presented at the webinar, spoke to this generational gap.
“Grandparents have known that Israeli leadership has been Likud and Labor, and has changed. We’ve seen that in our lifetime,” Weinberg said. “We know if you disagree with [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu and with the Israeli leadership right now, this is temporary. But for our grandchildren, Netanyahu, who has been in power for decades, is all they know.”
She added that grandparents have “context” that younger people may lack due to their age.
Sandy Mendelson expects these generational differences, even though he and Adina Mendelson have taken four of their six grandchildren to Israel around the time of the teens’ b’nai mitzvot.
“I would expect them to have some views [about Israel] along with the views of their generation because that’s the generation they live with, and their friends are different from our friends,” Sandy Mendelson said. “We’re many years different from them in age.”
Despite some ideological differences, he said his grandchildren largely feel they can say what they’re thinking.
“We don’t dwell on it, and we try not to have the differences be the topic of discussion around the Thanksgiving table, … but I think there’s respect for different points of view,” he said, adding that he and his grandchildren agree on most matters.
Whether lighting the Shabbat candles as a family or passionately discussing Israel, Jewish grandparents have one commonality.
“I think anybody who’s serious about Jewish life in our generation would like to see it continue,” Sandy Mendelson said.
“There’s a long continuity that goes far back that has great worth,” Adina Mendelson said. “I’m talking about culture and a people that has contributed a great deal to the world, and I would like to see those values and that knowledge passed on to my grandkids and beyond. So we do it for ourselves, but we do it for the future too.”
