The challenge of finding creative ways to address affordability

Important Reminders

Let CIJA Know

We continue to urge interested individuals to make their opinions known to the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA) that the affordability crisis in Jewish education is the pre-eminent and most pressing concern of modern Jewish life in the GTA and that it requires immediate attention. You may send your opinions to CIJA online at www.cija.ca/grassroots/.

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Limmud Conference

The annual Limmud Toronto conference takes place in just over two weeks on March 19 at the St. Andrews Club & Conference Centre in downtown Toronto. The program includes a number of key sessions that relate to the subject of Jewish education including:

• Jewish Education: Do We Want it? Can We Afford It? – Jeffrey Stutz
• A Viable Alternative to the Financial Crisis in Jewish Education – Sholom Eisenstat

Other sessions also focus on Jewish education but from different perspectives. We encourage you to consult the website at limmud.ca for the full schedule of events and register for the conference.

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From the record

In 1992 the Jewish Federation of Greater Toronto appointed the Jewish Education Commission to consider a number of issues related to “the specific role of the Federation with respect to Jewish education”. Submissions from the public were invited.

In its submission to the commission, the Board of Jewish Education, in its very first paragraph, reiterated the historical commitment of our community to its Jewish families. If a restructuring of the Federation’s approach to funding Jewish education is required, the Board emphasized that the restructuring “should assure the continued existence of a system that guarantees the right of Jewish education to all children whose families seek to provide them with such an education, regardless of the family’s ability to pay.” (Our emphasis)

The system no longer maintains this guarantee. In fact, the system is now driving parents away from intensive Jewish education for their children. Alas.

It is now imperative – urgently so – that the community apply all its collective resources to restore that historic guarantee.

Shabbat shalom.

GAJE