Why do giants feature so prominently in our stories for children?
I recently had the joy of reading some chapters from Roald Dahl’s BFG to my six-year-old godson. Reading to him as he got ready to sleep gave me such warm nostalgia. I remembered my own childhood, hearing this story for the first time; feeling at once so safe, and like anything was possible.
To children, the whole world feels populated by giants. Grown-ups are so much larger and, just like in Giant Country, have built everything to their size. Some adults, like the BFG, are kind and fun. But some, like Fleshlumpeater and Bonecruncher, are decidedly nasty and cruel.
So we give children stories where they defeat giants, and help them process these menacing creatures so much larger than themselves.
The Austrian-Jewish psychiatrist Bruno Bettelheim explored fairy tales as one of the ways that children gain their sense of self and develop confidence. In The Uses of Enchantment, Bettelheim writes that “although adults can be experienced as frightening giants, a little boy with cunning can get the better of them.”
Such is the story of Jack and the Beanstalk. I remember so gleefully participating in the school pantomime of this story. (I played Jack’s mother, of course.) Through play, we children could act out a world where we saw those bigger than us for the lumbering oafs they were and used our wits to bring them down.
Giant stories have probably existed as long as we have had the words to tell them. In our Torah portion, Shlach Lecha, Caleb, Joshua, and their intrepid band of boys set out on an adventure to see the Promised Land.
Upon arrival, they spot frightening giants, the children of Anak. “We looked like grasshoppers compared to them, and they must have seen us the same way.”
To show the other Israelites back in the wilderness how enormous their foes were, they brought back the ogres’ food. A bunch bearing a single cluster of grapes required two of them to carry it on a pole. They rolled a pomegranate the size of themselves back out of the land of Canaan.
Throughout the camp, everyone burst into terror. Only Joshua and Caleb had faith that the giants could be beaten. We, of course, identify ourselves with those fearless leaders.
“Fairytales,” says Bettelheim, “intimate that a rewarding, good life is within one’s reach despite adversity – but only if one does not shy away from the hazardous struggles without which one can never achieve true identity.”
“Do not be afraid,” say Caleb and Joshua. “Have faith. Trust in each other. Trust in God.”
Here our Torah gives us the same gift of instruction as a fairytale. It reminds us to be brave and use our cunning, because the giants can surely be defeated.
In Torah, grammar is always important. Joshua and Caleb insist: “we can defeat them.” This is not an instruction to others or a profession of their own greatness. It is an invitation to collective power: together, we are going to conquer the giants.
Later, Joshua and Caleb are proven exactly right. They destroy the children of Anak and drive them out, cowering, into Philistine towns. Later still, King David will slay the last of the remaining giants, a monster called Goliath. No wonder this is one of the best stories to tell at cheder.
These fairytales continue to serve us long after we have outgrown them. Now that we are grown-ups, the world may not still feel so magical, but we still have giants to slay.
The problems facing us are manifold in this world dominated by racial injustice. The oppressions of our age are many-headed monsters, far bigger than the enormous ogres of our stories.
I look at the children in our synagogues and feel pained that, perhaps, they will be less protected from the horrors of the world than we were. I wish we could insulate them a little longer from harsh realities.
As an adult, I discovered that my beloved Roald Dahl actually didn’t much like Jews, but, by then, I was secure enough not to be bothered by it. I see that our young people are far less protected from the nasty views others hold. They are already having to learn the skills to deal with antisemitism in their schools and in the material they see online. I feel blessed not to have had to confront such evils until much later.
I do not envy the challenges our young people face, but I feel deeply proud of how they have risen to the task.
On Sunday 10 May, members of RSY and LJY joined the rallies against antisemitism in central London. Holding true to our Progressive values, one of the movement workers’ placards denounced Islamophobia, racism, and anti-immigrant hatred, alongside their condemnation of antisemitism.
They held their heads high, and refused to back down on the prophetic call for unity. Racism are enormous giants to conquer, but these are the battles that have animated the Jewish religion since its inception. The earliest prophets promised “vindication and justice for all who are oppressed” (Psalm 103:6).
For the supposed infraction of drawing connections with other oppressed groups, our young people were harassed as they marched. They were completely unobtrusive, but drew great ire from the Christian fundamentalist sect, Stop the Hate.
Yet, according to the Birkbeck Institute for the Study of Antisemitism, the UK’s only academic thinktank on anti-Jewish hatred, drawing connections with others’ struggles is precisely what we need to do.
In their report last year for the Runnymede Trust, these scholars showed that, by pitting the fight against antisemitism against the struggles of other minorities, the problem was only getting worse. Jews were becoming more isolated, and finding their battles harder.
What we needed, the Institute said, was to build alliances with other racialised minorities, so we could take on the mammoth system of racism together.
Here, the wisdom of established academics meets the optimism and zeal of youth. Just as in the earliest days of Judaism “the old dream dreams and the youth see visions” (Joel 2:28).
Young people – as you go out to fight antisemitism; as you lock arms in the struggle against all forms of racism; as you protest for a more equal world – please know that you are never alone. We are with you, and struggling alongside you.
However small you may feel, come stand on our shoulders. Don’t worry: we are standing on shoulders too. Shoulders of generations before us who battled poverty, war, pogroms, and genocide.
Yes, we Jews stand on the shoulders of ancestors going back centuries, who fought against the same giants you tackle now.
And when you realise that you are standing on top of this human pyramid, you will see that the ogres are much smaller than they first appeared. We may feel like grasshoppers in their eyes, but we stand together on a foundation they cannot even imagine, and that makes us enormous.
Just as Caleb and Joshua once cohorted the Israelites in the desert, we know we need not fear.
Have faith. In your traditions. In each other. In our God.
The following essay is published in the Movement for Progressive Judaism’s first book, Progressive Judaism, Zionism and the State of Israel, alongside 40 other contributors.
Stand on the edge of the canyon of history. Clasp your hands around your mouth and call out: who are the Jews? A hundred answers will echo back at you. Throughout the cavern, stories will reverberate. Voices saying you are monsters. Voices saying you are victims. Sounds of priests and prophets; legends and laws; heroes and martyrs. How do you choose? Which version of the story of the Jews is you?
***
From out of history come the sounds of persecution. In September 2025, Rabbi Laura Janner-Klausner appeared as a witness on the BBC’s Moral Maze. One of the panellists brought her a question. He said: “Sadly, the problem in the Middle East conflict is that both sides are right about each other. Do you share that view?” Rabbi Laura responded with a question: “Can you finish the sentence?” For a moment, the questioner fumbled, then put forth that both Israelis and Palestinians had “very little good intent, very little willingness to compromise.” He averred that, given half the chance, either the Israelis or the Palestinians would destroy the other. Their positive views of themselves were lies, and their demonisation of each other was the truth. Rabbi Laura ignored the simplistic stereotyping and talked about how interconnected Israeli and Palestinian lives are. I shuddered. I heard unspoken echoes of old European prejudices. The questioner certainly did not intend malice, but the well of antisemitism goes deep, and people draw from it without realising. Medieval passion plays depicted Jews as greedy, bloodthirsty baby-killers. Crusader propaganda portrayed Muslims as barbarous, fundamentalist hordes. The unflattering stereotypes of Palestinians and Israelis go back centuries, and do not originate from either party. They are the product of systematic othering. Who the Jews are is not only determined from within: it is, unfortunately, a conversation with bigotry. In some minds, you are still Shylock pursuing his pound of flesh. You are the snivelling moneylender. No matter how assimilated you have become, you are Fagin trafficking children into crime.
***
Go ask Bondi Beach who the Jews are. Dare those academics, who arrogantly proclaim that Jews are not oppressed, to tell that to Heaton Park Synagogue Manchester, or Tree of Life Synagogue Pittsburgh, or Hypermarche Paris, or Lee Park Charlottesville, or The Great Synagogue Copenhagen. From coast to coast, the voices echo. So many places will tell you that Jews are victims. History is littered with millions of Jewish corpses. In some minds, you are still the helpless child in striped pyjamas, with a yellow star stitched on your lapel, and a number tattooed on your arm. But don’t let that be your only answer. If we think of ourselves as permanent victims, we will rob ourselves of the agency God gave us. We will forget our power: to hurt and to heal. We must retell our story as Jews. We cannot think of ourselves exclusively as the persecuted, and never as the persecutor. Jews have entered history. We must take responsibility for what we do there.
***
Take a walk to the well and call into it. Ask the well who the Jews are. The voice of the prophets will rebound, telling you that righteousness will flow out like an ever-flowing stream. You will hear the song of Miriam, whose fountain followed the Israelites in the desert; the cries of Hagar, who found water when she needed it most. At the well of Beersheva, our father Abraham and his rival Avimelech chose to share water. Abraham, the first of our people, showed that a Jew was one who could negotiate and apportion according to need. Still, the well may tell you that there is not enough water for everyone. That either we will drink or they will. The water might tell you that you have only one commandment, and that is to survive. If you do not drink, you will die. Atop West Bank settlements, religious Jews rejoice at surviving. They chant: “the nation of Israel lives on; our father lives on.” Let the water show you how some settlers have mains pipes filling their swimming pools, while Bedouin shepherds have to ration their water in butts. Yet other Jews fight for shared resources and shared futures. Rabbi Dana Sharon stands in the way of settlers who want to attack Palestinian farmers in the West Bank. She is an organiser for Rabbis for Human Rights. When I first met Rabbi Dana, I asked what had inspired her to get involved in peace activism. She said: “Ever since I was a child, I wanted to win the Nobel Peace Prize. Of course, I thought the problems in my own country would be sorted by the time I grew up, and I’d have to do it somewhere else.” She knew what kind of Jew she should be, and became it. In November 2025, Dana was shot with a drone by a settler wearing military fatigues. She was seriously injured. When I think of Dana, I believe that our father Abraham lives on. His message resounds: that sharing is a greater guarantor of survival than fighting.
***
Go to the Cave of Machpelah and stand at its entrance. This is a holy site in Hebron, where the founders of monotheism prayed. It is a tomb many thousands of years old, in Area A of the West Bank. You will have to get past checkpoints and walls and into a fortified compound, but you will find a cave. Clasp your hands around your mouth and call into the hollow: who are the Jews? A hundred answers will echo back at you. Here, Abraham procured a burial place for Sarah, and in turn was buried there. Abraham’s two sons, Isaac and Ishmael, came to bury him in Hebron. Ishmael had been cast out by his father. Isaac had nearly been killed by Abraham. We can’t imagine the pain they felt seeing each other, and performing a funeral for this man. Nevertheless, they prayed together at that sacred site. Here is an answer to who Jews are. We are the descendants of Isaac, who prayed at the same tomb with his brother, Ishmael. We are the people who choose non-violence, reconciliation, and prayer. The cave’s echoes continue, coming ever closer to the present day. The cave is a mosque and a synagogue, but the brothers do not pray together. In 1929, Palestinian rioters killed 67 Jews as part of a pogrom based on false rumours. In 1994, Baruch Goldstein killed 29 Muslims at prayer. Murder reverberates over the South Hebron Hills. Only last year, Palestinian peace activist Awdah Hathaleen was murdered by settler Yinon Levy. Despite the assassination being filmed, the killer has not been charged with a crime. Is this not also an answer about who Jews are? Can we reject it so swiftly because we abhor it?
***
So ask the shtetl yeshiva who you are supposed to be. Confronted with the horrors of some Jews’ deeds, you may wish to retreat back there. You might imagine life would be simpler before Jews had power that they could weaponise against others. Maybe the Satmar Hassidim were right and we all just need to keep our heads down until the Messiah arrives. So, go ahead. Pretend the Enlightenment never happened. Go back to the old Jewish study houses of a vanquished world. Sit at the rebbe’s table. Unless you’re a woman, of course. But, gentlemen, by all means, take a seat and open a holy book. There, in your Mishnah, you will read: “be disciples of Aaron, loving peace, pursuing peace, loving all creatures, and bringing them closer to Torah.” Hillel reaches out through the millennia-old books and grabs you by your shirt collar, and growls: did you think you could escape your responsibilities that easily? Our tradition demands you seek peace in your own world and lifetime. You cannot shirk away from the task of building a perfected world just because reality frightens you! The study of Torah may happen in the yeshiva, but you live out its precepts in the streets. You fulfil the commandments by acting and taking risks. If you want to be Jewish, you must know your past, but you cannot live there. You have to resist hatred, war, and greed in your own time. Be a disciple of Aaron. Love peace and pursue it.
***
Stand on the streets of any major city and start a chant: who are the Jews? In New York, London, Cape Town, Paris, and Sydney, you will find people protesting for peace. In every demonstration, no matter where you are, you will find a Jewish Bloc. You will see Jews standing proud in their heritage and furious at oppression. You will hear them invoke their ancestors and their traditions in the name of human rights. Truth echoes out through skies and seas as thunderous clouds. The prophet Jeremiah went to jail for protesting against the powerful. He chastised the false prophets who proclaimed peace where there was none. He accused them of putting tiny plasters on great gashes. Jeremiah’s rebuke of Israel was harshest because he knew that peace was possible and he saw what Jews could be. Go ask the streets and they will tell you: those who wave placards and chant songs of dissent today stand in the footsteps of the prophets. But the streets have other stories too. On those same marches, in other sections, there are people who chant words denouncing Jews. There are those who glamourise terror and those who monger hate. Yes, it is true that not everyone in the coalition for Palestine is there for Palestinian human rights. Some march because they want to see Jews destroyed. Some march against militarism, nationalism, and fundamentalism. Others march for militarism, nationalism and fundamentalism of their own. When Jeremiah denounced Israel, he chastised them they could not trust Egypt or Babylon. He attacked those who would ally with their enemies. The judgement of the prophet falls on every nation.
***
Go stand at the viewing point in Sderot. Look out over the ruins of the Gaza strip. From this point, for two years, tourists watched bombs explode on houses like they were fireworks. Spectators could watch Jewish boots carry Jewish guns under Jewish flags into a densely-packed enclave. Why don’t you ask Gaza who the Jews are? Will you like the answer that you hear from the unnumbered dead and rubble? Does the bombed-out rubble think the Jews are heroes? You need not speculate. The words of Palestinians are publicly available, if you can brave the burning eyes of Gaza. Asmaa Al-Ghoul is a secular feminist in Gaza, who campaigns against the corruption of Fatah and the terrorism of Hamas. She witnessed more corpses than any soul could bear. After her cousin’s home was bombed, killing everyone inside, she wrote: “the house and its future memories have been laid to waste, its children taken to early graves, homes bombed into oblivion, their inhabitants homeless and lost, just as their camp always had been. Never ask me about peace again.” In the days of the Judges, Samson was held captive in Gaza; all his strength sapped and his eyes gouged out by Philistines. With the last ounce of energy left in his battled body, Samson pulled down the pillars of the temple, killing himself and everybody in it. We are brought up with stories of Samson. We call him “Samson the Hero.” I met with a father from Gaza who had not seen his daughters in two years. They were trapped in that war zone. He told me: “They are destroying the world on top of our heads.” I wondered whether echoes of Samson were still there in Gaza, raining down destruction on their heads. Is this our hero? In Hebrew, the word for hero, strongman, and warrior are the same. On military checkpoints, teenagers in IDF uniforms smile out from stickers, with words about who they were. For some, they are proof of ongoing Israeli heroism. All I see is dead kids, cast aside as cannon fodder for a vainglorious war. We need to find a way of separating out heroism, masculinity, and war. Vivian Silver used to transport people from Gaza back and forth from this borderland. She lived on Kibbutz Be’eri, and was murdered there by Hamas on October 7th. 3 days beforehand, she organised a march of thousands of Israeli and Palestinian women against war. Which is more heroic: to destroy an enemy or to make a friend? We need heroes whose strength is not in force but in fortitude. Maybe Vivian Silver’s spirit still echoes on Gaza’s borders, too. And maybe, then, there is another way to be a Jew.
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Go to your own heart and ask it who you are. The great medieval sage Rabbi Moses ben Maimon told us that the ultimate question was not “what should I do?” but “who should I be?” Rambam wrote that the point of our religious laws, stories, and rituals was to help us morally perfect ourselves. Our goal should be to become the best possible human beings, in terms of character and intellect. Rambam saw our religious inheritance as a guidebook on how to become moral agents. He taught that human beings are free to choose the right course, and showed that repentance is always available to us. You are not stuck with a fixed version of who a Jew is. You always have the ability to make yourself anew. You can become more peaceful, more loving, and more devout. Seek to be the kind of person who wants peace and justice. Let your actions follow the highest inclinations of your heart. Ask your heart who you are as a Jew. Let it tell you that you are a work in progress.
***
Now, return to the valley where it all began. Go stand on Mount Sinai. Surely this is the canyon of history. From atop its peak, the Ancient of Days spoke to you. Clasp your hands around your mouth and call out: who are the Jews? From out of this desert, the Jews spread knowledge of ethical monotheism throughout the world. At Mount Sinai, you once heard a voice: “I am the Eternal One your God, who redeemed you from the land of Egypt, to be your God.” It is time you introduced yourself too. Ask the canyon: who are the Jews? The question will come echoing back at you. Canyons echo. The canyon of history is no different. If history repeats itself, it is only because we keep asking the same question. Like a boomerang, your question returns to you: who are you? History is Jewish. It likes to answer a question with another question. This is your power and your burden. You must decide who you will be. You are the answer to who the Jews are.
Sim Lev 