Winter is now fully upon us. Cold winds blow across the wide, climatic landscape of 2025, causing us to buckle up against the chill. They also blow cold societally, causing Jews in particular, to do the same against a chill that cuts far deeper.
This update is the last of 2025. If the word “positive” can be applied to increments of very small measures, then 2025 was, indeed, positive for the advancement of GAJE’s mission. But ours is still a work in progress.
In February, GAJE was granted leave to appeal the decision by the Divisional Court some four months earlier, that had accepted Ontario’s arguments against allowing our case to proceed and threw it out of court. On November 21, the Court of Appeal heard the appeal. We await the Court’s decision.
If our appeal succeeds, GAJE will have won the right to argue the merits of our case in court. It bears repeating that we launched our original application for fairness in Ontario’s educational funding in February 2022. In August of 2023, Judge Papageorgiou ruled that our case should proceed to a full hearing on its merits.
And so, we wait, and hope, for a good result from the Court of Appeal.
GAJE was founded in April of 2015. We are patient and we are determined to carry the flag of our cause high, proudly and with deep historical purpose. We will do so until there are no longer any reasonable legal avenues for GAJE to try to advance the cause. This is a promise by GAJE to the Jewish community: to all the generations of our people present, future and past too. To our children and grandchildren. And to our ancestors, whose ways, beliefs, heritage, traditions and love taught us that we must cherish and defend what is true and precious for all eternity: Jewish peoplehood.
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Last week’s update contained a short paragraph that was written by the New York-based educator and scholar, Mijal Bitton. It began: “And with that grief came a familiar fear…” However, due to a lack of attention, her authorship was not attributed. We apologize for the oversight. An author’s work must always be acknowledged.
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If you wish to contribute to GAJE’s lawsuit to achieve fairness in educational funding, 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 Thank you, in advance, for considering doing so.
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Shabbat shalom
Happy, healthy new year
Am Yisrael Chai
Grassroots for Affordable Jewish Education (GAJE)
December 26, 2025
Grassroots for Affordable Jewish Education 