In my lifetime my views have evolved based upon my personal experiences. Now, my work is assisting to lead a Jewish Day School north of Boston (Epstein Hillel). I sometimes work with Ari in his role assisting Jewish Day Schools to deal with all of the issues he describes so well in this and prior articles.
I differ about what's needed for non-Orthodox Jewish to succeed going forward. I started as an affluent, but house poor Jewish Dad who relied on his large and affluent Conservative synagogue for my daughters' Jewish education. But over time the synagogue "dumbed down" its religious school to attract less traditional families and meet some parents' demands for more time to pursue extracurriculars. I saw how as a result my children were less well prepared for their Bat Mitzvahs, and while I tutored my kids to bring them up to speed, I noticed the trend towards the chanting of partial Haftorahs and reduced service participation, and also changes in the post Bar/Bat Mitzvah study programs to make them more popular, but less educational.
As a result I started to look at Jewish Day Schools, but quickly reached the conclusion that while these would address my concerns, that I'd need to move to a less expensive home in order to afford them. I was considered too affluent for significant tuition assistance. Since I lived in a community with excellent public schools, it was easy to justify a decision just to stay with the public schools, and to rely on Jewish overnight camps, etc.
Now I live in a community where even the synagogues are struggling to support their religious schools. Unless you live close to a major city, the only options for excellent Jewish and secular education is at a school like where I work. But while all of Ari's barriers to increased attendance are real, I'm quite certain that the largest barrier to increased attendance is the high tuition cost, which is necessitated by the need to somehow balance the school's budget.
After October 7th, it has become even clearer how important Jewish Day Schools are to preparing the next generation of Jewish leaders, equipped with superb training in Judaism and Jewish values. The Jewish community's priority should be to dramatically increase the numbers of Jewish Day School students...a moonshot...by 2 or 3 times the current numbers. I personally believe that if tuition could be set much lower, say $5000/year vs. $30,000/year (or more) that this could be done.
But how to fund this? I believe that the money is already there. Our federations with multi-billion dollar balance sheets and large campaigns need to change their priorities/allocations, away from other agencies, and perhaps even away from Israel in order to support the schools. We need changes in laws in order to support school choice and vouchers. And we need to educate our most affluent donors that support of Jewish Day Schools is the single best way to support Jewish continuity. We needn't look far (Montreal or Toronto) to see how this might all work.
Time is of the essence. The steps Ari describes are smart but will take time. But the current moment demands boldness, and bold leaders willing to step up and to change the current paradigm. We really can do better than the status quo.
Thanks for such a thoughtful comment Michael. Always appreciate our dialogue on these topics. I didn't intend to question the importance of affordability. There's no doubt that escalating costs will continue to require increased philanthropic support. My intent was to push the conversation beyond philanthropy though to another driver which is how we portray and tell the day school story. In my view we've adopted incremental tactics in the area of admission/marketing that require renewed investment and thought. I realize it's not easy to garner the human and financial capital to do that, but I wanted to surface some ideas if that will existed.
In my lifetime my views have evolved based upon my personal experiences. Now, my work is assisting to lead a Jewish Day School north of Boston (Epstein Hillel). I sometimes work with Ari in his role assisting Jewish Day Schools to deal with all of the issues he describes so well in this and prior articles.
I differ about what's needed for non-Orthodox Jewish to succeed going forward. I started as an affluent, but house poor Jewish Dad who relied on his large and affluent Conservative synagogue for my daughters' Jewish education. But over time the synagogue "dumbed down" its religious school to attract less traditional families and meet some parents' demands for more time to pursue extracurriculars. I saw how as a result my children were less well prepared for their Bat Mitzvahs, and while I tutored my kids to bring them up to speed, I noticed the trend towards the chanting of partial Haftorahs and reduced service participation, and also changes in the post Bar/Bat Mitzvah study programs to make them more popular, but less educational.
As a result I started to look at Jewish Day Schools, but quickly reached the conclusion that while these would address my concerns, that I'd need to move to a less expensive home in order to afford them. I was considered too affluent for significant tuition assistance. Since I lived in a community with excellent public schools, it was easy to justify a decision just to stay with the public schools, and to rely on Jewish overnight camps, etc.
Now I live in a community where even the synagogues are struggling to support their religious schools. Unless you live close to a major city, the only options for excellent Jewish and secular education is at a school like where I work. But while all of Ari's barriers to increased attendance are real, I'm quite certain that the largest barrier to increased attendance is the high tuition cost, which is necessitated by the need to somehow balance the school's budget.
After October 7th, it has become even clearer how important Jewish Day Schools are to preparing the next generation of Jewish leaders, equipped with superb training in Judaism and Jewish values. The Jewish community's priority should be to dramatically increase the numbers of Jewish Day School students...a moonshot...by 2 or 3 times the current numbers. I personally believe that if tuition could be set much lower, say $5000/year vs. $30,000/year (or more) that this could be done.
But how to fund this? I believe that the money is already there. Our federations with multi-billion dollar balance sheets and large campaigns need to change their priorities/allocations, away from other agencies, and perhaps even away from Israel in order to support the schools. We need changes in laws in order to support school choice and vouchers. And we need to educate our most affluent donors that support of Jewish Day Schools is the single best way to support Jewish continuity. We needn't look far (Montreal or Toronto) to see how this might all work.
Time is of the essence. The steps Ari describes are smart but will take time. But the current moment demands boldness, and bold leaders willing to step up and to change the current paradigm. We really can do better than the status quo.
Thanks for such a thoughtful comment Michael. Always appreciate our dialogue on these topics. I didn't intend to question the importance of affordability. There's no doubt that escalating costs will continue to require increased philanthropic support. My intent was to push the conversation beyond philanthropy though to another driver which is how we portray and tell the day school story. In my view we've adopted incremental tactics in the area of admission/marketing that require renewed investment and thought. I realize it's not easy to garner the human and financial capital to do that, but I wanted to surface some ideas if that will existed.