Every Saturday, junior Eitan Rattner attends four hours of school at Holy Child, the Argetinian school in Washington, D.C.. There, he learns social studies, language and literature.
Holy Child is an extension of the Argentinian education system, and Rattner attends to learn more about his family’s culture. When he graduates Holy Child in spring 2025, he will receive a diploma from the Argentinian Department of Education.
“[The school] is something that I found very special … because it teaches me a lot more about where I come from and it allows me to have a space where I can relate and be with other people who share my identity,” Rattner said.
Nearly every U.S. citizen is a descendant of immigrants in some way. In 2023, 27% of U.S. citizens were first or second generation immigrants, according to the Migration Policy Institute.
The CESJDS Admissions Department reports that members of the JDS community speak over 10 languages in their homes, including Hebrew, French, Spanish and Farsi. The Rattners are one of these families, speaking exclusively Spanish at home.
Both of Rattner’s parents are immigrants, having moved to the U.S. from Argentina in Sept. 2001. The family maintains their Argentinian culture in the house through foods and customs. However, Micaela Carmio, Rattner’s mother, notices differences in her kids’ lives from her childhood.
For example, she was hesitant to send her oldest child to sleepaway camp, since children do not leave home until after college in Argentina. But after seeing how the experience benefited her daughter, she sent her younger children as well.
“I don’t find a difficulty for them having a different culture than me, because I see them having a very significant Argentine culture embedded [in] their everyday life,” Carmio said. “I think it’s more of an advantage for them to be more open to cultural differences.”
Senior Skye Feinstein also experiences dual culture. Feinstein’s mother is from Scotland, and after traveling for 20 years as an on-site reporter for Reuters, she ended up in the U.S., where she started a family. As a result, Feinstein grew up on Celtic fairy tales and often uses Scottish phrases.
The biggest difference Feinstein sees having an immigrant parent is the long-distance relationships with family members.
“I’m really close with my Scottish family,” Feinstein said. “But I think honestly the major difference between me and other people’s families is that it’s less about when I do get to visit them and more about when I don’t get to visit them … For some people, your family is a block away, and for us, it’s a plane away.”
It is also common for students and faculty to have Israeli parents. Athletic trainer Romi Nachman’s (‘18) parents moved to the U.S.
from Israel in the mid-’90s. After Nachman graduated from JDS, she had to decide whether to attend college or join the Israeli Defense Forces like her entire family had. Nachman said that the sacrifices her father made to move to the U.S. influenced her decision, and she ended up going to college to get an education before making a decision about the military.
An important connection to Israeli culture for Nachman is remembrance days, something she says she had more of a connection to than her peers, as she considers herself Israeli. According to the Pew Research Center, a majority of second generation immigrants most often identify themselves by their family’s country of origin.
“A big thing that I have always thought about as a child of immigrants, is balancing the difference between being an Israeli and being an American,” Nachman said. “ … Obviously I’m physically living in America, and have to do all the things that a citizen has to do. But in my heart, I feel more present in Israel because the majority of my family lives in Israel.”
