The Children’s Crusade:

Where are the Parents? Why Are We Letting the Students Run the Schools?

By 1212, the people of Europe were exhausted from a century of crusades – of warfare, political unrest, and upheaval. The rulers of the time, the European aristocracy, had bled their countries dry to fund their quixotic escapades in the Holy Land. Peasants had borne the brunt of these rising taxes and heavy corvées for generations. After more than 100 years of this delusional struggle, they had absolutely nothing to show for it. 

The Christians neither held Jerusalem nor found the Holy Cross, so what had all of this strife been for? 

Yet, after more than a century of imperial misadventures in the Holy Land, the beleaguered leaders of the Christian world were ready to make another, desperate attempt to conquer Jerusalem. 

Amidst the backdrop of a poetically and politically exhausted Europe, a 12 year old boy emerges with a passionate vision. He chides the leadership of Europe for their cowardice and preaches a renewed effort to retake control of the Holy Land and return the Holy Cross to its rightful Christian owners. 

This young boy preaches his passionate vision to the people of Paris. His words inspire over 30,000 people to join his crusade. The plan, he tells them, is to march south through Italy, and wait for the sea to split for the Christians as it had for the Hebrews. 

The sea, unfortunately, did not split, and 30,000 Christian children were eventually captured and sold into slavery in the port of Tunis. 

Until last Saturday, I had given the Children’s Crusade little thought. Before then, the only time I had thought about it was when I saw this picture:

Personally, I believe that Greta Thunberg is incredibly courageous for doing what she does at such a young age. But, politically, the fact that one of the world's most influential people is a child is appalling. No child should have to spend their childhood fighting their parents’ political battles. But they do, because we make them. 

We raise our children to be the crusaders we never had the courage to be ourselves. We tell children that they are the future, that they are the leaders of tomorrow, and we tell them that they will be responsible for the fate of the entire world. Yet, in the next breath, adults tell the young that the entire world is on fire and that there is nothing we can do to stop it. 

With such contradictory messaging, it’s not surprising that a 12 year old would have a messianic vision of the future. It’s not surprising that the world’s most vocal climate justice advocate would be a minor. It’s not surprising that antizionist parents let their 8 year old children chant “From the River to the Sea,” on a megaphone.  

The Children’s Crusade is a historical lesson in parental cowardice. When adults abdicate the throne of social and political responsibility, they force their adolescent children to grow up before they are ready. Greta Thunberg is like an Infant Queen of Climate Justice. She is too young to know how to navigate the political intrigues of the adult world. She is too young to know who she can and can’t trust. She is too young to do this on her own, so surely there is some adult regent who whispers in her ear. 

All of this is bad for Greta. She has a right to a childhood just as much as any other child, but that childhood has been taken from her. Just as childhood was taken from all of those little boys and girls who were sent on an unaccompanied mission to the Holy Land to do that which their elders had failed to do for five decades prior. 

Last Saturday, I found myself in downtown Los Angeles, climbing up Grand Boulevard on my way to an art exhibit. As I walked above the horizon, I saw, less than half a mile away, a row of pickup trucks flying Palestinian flags. Protestors were shouting from the truck beds with megaphones. 

It suddenly dawned on me why there was no traffic at 6 P.M. on a Saturday - they had blocked the road. As I looked behind me, I realized I had nowhere to go. There were skyscrapers to my right and to my left, an antizionist mob in front, and a deserted street behind. 

So, I did the only thing I could – I stopped and sat down where I was. I felt like a stone in a stream, powerless against the raging torrent. 

The first row of protestors to pass me by were the trucks. These filled me with terror as they were covered and made to look like the trucks which carried our beautiful sons and daughters into captivity. Then came a school bus, with a man in full ‘freedom fighter’ garb standing on top, waving the Palestinian flag. This scene filled me with a dread I had only ever heard in David’s Psalms. So, knowing nothing else to do, I began reading some Psalms, and I felt some calm return to me. 

After the first row of pickup trucks, a procession of people on foot and in all manner of vehicle passed me by. And I waited, for there was nothing else to do. 

But then, I saw what was, and remains, the most upsetting scene I have seen thus far at one of these rallies. I saw a 9-year-old, with a megaphone and facepaint, sticking his head out of the sunroof of a car, as he led the crowd in chanting “From the River to the Sea.”

I was heartbroken. This boy was the age of my religious school students. In another world, they could have played together. But could they play together now? Or would this 9-year-old call my students a colonizer? 

But, as an educator, I couldn’t stop myself from thinking the obvious – there is no way this kid knows which river and which sea he’s chanting about. We stopped teaching geography in schools before I even started first grade, there is no way that a 9-year-old knows where the Jordan River is. 

At the beginning of this horrifying rise in antisemitism on college campuses, I found myself constantly asking some questions. 

“Where are the parents? Where are the parents who are paying $70,000 a year for their children’s college education? Even if someone is not Jewish, wouldn’t they be upset that their children’s education is being shortchanged by this nonsense?” 

(Video showing an antizionist interrupt an MIT math class. Posted originally by Bill Ackman)

When I was at Princeton, I did the numbers. I calculated that the cost of each lecture I attended was roughly $100 (a little more, actually). Skipping class to sleep in meant that I was wasting $100 on my own laziness. That means that every class that gets interrupted, or walked out of, costs each parent over $100 in wasted tuition. 

I keep asking myself, where are the parents? How could they be OK with this? But now I know where they are – they’re driving the truck.

In the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, an angry mob of Sodomites comes to Lot’s house. They demand that Lot give the mob the angels that have come to stay with him. Lot, in order to protect what he thinks is important, offers the mob his virgin daughters instead. 

Many people who read this story ask, “how could a father do something like that? How could a parent offer their child up to the mob like that?” 

Well, we’re seeing it happen today. Parents should be concerned that their children are becoming radicalized. Parents should be concerned that their children are being miseducated. Parents should be concerned that their children are telling them they want to go on a crusade against the current rulers of the Holy Land. 

Children’s Crusades do not end well. The children who lead them often find themselves enslaved by the very people they thought they were crusading for. 

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