Earlier this month, Lisa Popik Coll and Gail Norry, board chair and vice chair, respectively, of Prizmah: Center for Jewish Day Schools cast a challenge to the wide Jewish community of North America of high Richter scale magnitude and potential benefit.
Citing the recent previously unimaginable philanthropy by Ruth Gottesman who donated $1 billion to cover medical school tuition for students at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, and by Michael Bloomberg in the same amount to cover medical school tuition for students at Johns Hopkins Medical School, Coll and Norry askied the very bold question: “What if the next billion-dollar gift went to Jewish day school tuition?”
In an article published by eJP, entitled The next billion-dollar gift, the authors noted that Gottesman justified her remarkable act of generosity as a way to make medical school education available for students “whose economic status is such that they wouldn’t even think about going to medical school.”
Why not adopt that very same approach to enable families who couldn’t even think about being able to send their children to Jewish school, the authors urged.
It is not surprising that Coll and Norry have put this formerly out-of-the-box question on the Jewish communal agenda. They were inspired by the eye-catching generosity of Gottesman and Bloomberg, and compelled by the imperative to act urgently in the face of the current context of rising threats to Jewish life, at home and abroad.
They explain their thinking plainly and honestly.
“A year ago, few of us could also have imagined the wave of unbridled antisemitism that has hit since Oct. 7 and its effects on every aspect of our lives, especially education. We believe the best way to fight antisemitism is with Jewish pride and Jewish joy. We need to raise a generation of strong, proud, knowledgeable, literate and unapologetic Jews, and there is no better way to do this than Jewish day school.
“But antisemitism should not be the only reason that families enroll in Jewish day schools. All Jewish families, from every denomination and at every level of observance, should understand that they can find a community and educational home at Jewish day schools.”
And so, the authors, ask with a pleading and hopeful heart, for the next billion-dollar gift by a civic-minded, Jewish philanthropist intent on improving the world, to be made to embed Jewish education permanently into the deep infrastructure of Jewish communal life.
GAJE agrees with the authors. Now more than ever.
Perhaps a continent-wide communal summit is warranted on the subject of making Jewish education truly affordable for all?
•••
The Coll/Norry article is available at:
•••
The appeal by the Government of Ontario of Judge Eugenia Papageorgiou’s refusal last summer to throw out GAJE’s application for fairness in educational funding, was heard in early June by a panel of three judges. The court reserved its decision.
GAJE will publish the court’s decision as soon as it is known to us.
•••
If you wish to contribute to GAJE’s lawsuit for fairness in educational funding in Ontario, 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.
•••
Shabbat shalom.
Am Yisrael Chai.
Grassroots for Affordable Jewish Education (GAJE)
July 26, 2024
Grassroots for Affordable Jewish Education 