Like every week, we are reading deeply instructive portions in the Torah reading cycle. This is the time of year when our ancestors Avraham and Sarah effect a revolution in the way much of subsequent humanity would forever imagine the world and understand the human place in the vast splendor and mystery of our earth and universe.
Avraham and Sarah did not fool themselves into believing their advocacy of a total moral-intellectual-spiritual sea change of thought would be readily adopted by his societal milieu. But nor were they daunted by the implications of the new view of human life they offered the world. They believed with all their hearts and with all the electricity in the pathways of their minds that their vision was correct. They were not swayed by doubters. They were not convinced by naysayers.
It is Avraham’s and Sarah’s determination and resolution that inspire GAJE. We follow their example in having decided that the only lasting way to make Jewish education truly affordable for the majority of the families who seek it for their children is to turn to the courts.
We know that the path is not certain.
But we also know that not trying is a rejection of the revolutionary spirit that has animated Judaism from its very beginnings, that has made Jewish life vivid and sustaining. Shall we reject this world-changing, revolutionary legacy of our forebears? We cannot. We will not simply reconcile ourselves to accepting as right or just or in any way appropriate for our society in the year 2021, the injustice of Ontario’s discriminatory educational funding.
If we do not believe that remedying the injustice is possible, that “changing the world” is possible, then it won’t be.
And so, in the coming weeks, GAJE will announce the launch of the lawsuit to try to end the discrimination in Ontario’s educational system against the funding of independent schools, in our case, denominationally Jewish schools. We are deeply appreciative of the many individuals who have thus far joined our cause, who have contributed to helping underwrite the lawsuit. We are raised half of the amount needed. Please encourage your friends to join in our effort.
This is our generation’s opportunity to permanently increase our children’s and grandchildren’s opportunities to experience meaningful Jewish education. If we do not try to do so, who will?
To donate to the cause, please click here.
(For further information, please contact Israel Mida at imida1818@gmail.com)
Charitable receipts for donations for income tax purposes will be issued by Mizrachi Canada. Your donations will be used for the sole purpose of underwriting the costs of the lawsuit.
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Be safe. Be well.
Shabbat shalom.
Grassroots for Affordable Jewish Education (GAJE)
October 15, 2021
Grassroots for Affordable Jewish Education 