At a major conference, this past summer in New York, on the future of American Jewry, several of the Jewish leaders in attendance were reported to have said that “making Jewish education more accessible is the key to many of the challenges facing American Jews today.”
The conference was held against a backdrop of increasingly open displays of antisemitism there – indeed throughout the Western World – generally not seen for many decades by most of the country’s Jewry.
Elan Carr, CEO of the Israeli-American Council and former U.S. special envoy for monitoring and combating antisemitism in the first Trump administration, told attendees of the conference: “A greater threat even than the antisemites is our own well-being internally, our own loss of identity, our own distance from our history, values and knowledge from our texts.”
There was general agreement at the New York gathering over the need to make Jewish education more widely available to young families. Not surprisingly, there were disagreements regarding best approaches to make education accessible. But at least the debate there has been joined and somewhat narrowed to the means, not to the ends.
Related to the very subject our co-religionists in the USA heatedly discussed this past July, was a “shout-out” this week in The Times of Israel, by Dr. Alex Pomson, a pre-eminent teachers’ teacher, expert on Jewish education Diaspora, to lay and professional communal leaders of our own community.
Pomson’s team at Rosov Consulting, conducted a study initiated by UnitEd, on behalf of the Israeli government’s Ministry for Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism, on the impact of rising antisemitism on Jewish day schools worldwide, with a special focus on trends since October 7, 2023.
He wrote: “Jews everywhere are experiencing profound social and cultural changes in how their fellow non-Jewish citizens relate to them. Jewish communities in North America, Europe, Australasia, and, to a lesser extent, Latin America, are seeing generationally high incidences of antisemitism; they are feeling much less secure than 10 or 20 years ago. In the course of our study, we reviewed such phenomena, and it is clear that few countries have avoided these trends.
These patterns are widely known by now; they don’t need repeating here. What is much less well known — and the prompt for our work — is what these changes have meant for Jewish day schools and especially for Jewish day school enrollment. How have schools fared in this changing climate? Our analysis of enrollment data and our interviews with school heads revealed widely varying responses….”
The Jewish day schools in Toronto, Pomson’s team concluded “have responded nimbly and decisively to the changing socio-political climate.” GAJE has consistently written – since October 7 and even well before then – about the measures adopted by the schools and by lay and professional leaders in our community to help bring Jewish education within the reach of more and more families. That Jewish education is the irremovable anchor that provides the best chances for a confident, secure, Jewishly-literate future has long been understood by decision-makers and “elders” of our community. Even, if not especially during these difficult times of “profound social and cultural changes”.
Lay and professionals involved in Jewish education in our community, deserve high praise and constant kudos for their efforts. GAJE will never stint in acknowledging the good that they do and have done for our community. But, as everyone knows, however, more must be done.
Many are involved in this ongoing effort, including of course, GAJE.
Pomson’s op-edarticle can be read at:
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GAJE’s legal team will appear before the Court of Appeal at 10:00 on November 21, 2025 to argue that the Divisional Court was wrong, in September 2024, to reverse Judge Papageorgiou’s decision of August 2023 that had allowed our case to proceed.
If you wish to contribute to GAJE’s lawsuit, please click here. Charitable receipts for donations for income tax purposes will be issued by Mizrachi Canada. Your donations will be used for the sole purpose of helping to underwrite the costs of the lawsuit. For further information, please contact Israel Mida at: imida1818@gmail.com
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Shabbat shalom. Am Yisrael Chai
Grassroots for Affordable Jewish Education (GAJE)
September 12, 2025
Grassroots for Affordable Jewish Education 