It is a unique, self-directed, personal assessment and then, re-calibration if or as required, that the Torah established for us at the start of the seventh month of the Jewish calendar year.

The first day of the month: Rosh Hashana. The tenth day: Yom Kippur. The fifteenth: Succot. Revelry for sybarites are not part of the program. Rather, prayers, liturgical poetry, traditional ritual and family-centred culinary enjoyments and permanent recurring remembrances are.

Individual and collective memory are the river on which Jewish peoplehood flows – forever.

What is taught in school is reinforced in the home. What is lived at home has been learned in school. That is, and will always be – the self-perpetuating, integrated gear of the wheel of Jewish life.

The smooth functioning of that gear is very much on display with the Tishrei trilogy of holidays – usually at or near the very start of the school year.

David Zalik, the co-founder of the Zalik Foundation, has written an op-ed on the essential role of Jewish day school education in helping launch our children onto a life-long path of self-confidence, goodness and purpose.

The essay is impressive and important. It was published this week by eJP (https://ejewishphilanthropy.com/jewish-day-schools-are-a-bubble-and-that-is-the-point/?utm_source=cio)

We reproduce only a few short excerpts.

•••

“…Let’s turn to the only outstanding question that matters: What is actually best for your child, not only their college prospects? 

“Children flourish when they’re known by caring adults, surrounded by stable friendships, rooted in a community and given a clear sense of who they are and where they belong — the very conditions Jonathan Haidt, in The Anxious Generation, argues modern childhood has been quietly stripping away. It’s increasingly where developmental psychology has landed. 

“Jewish day schools didn’t set out to become well-designed environments for raising children in the 21st century. They simply held onto what children need most while much of the culture let it go. These schools work because they provide three things that have become scarce in modern childhood: children who are known, children who belong and children who grow up with a clear sense of who they are. 

“A day school lifts that burden (of being the “other” in public school.). The holidays are everyone’s holidays, the calendar is theirs, the rhythm of the place is their own. Your child isn’t the different one here — they’re home. They get to spend their formative years not performing or defending an identity, but just living, with all the attention that frees up for friendship, curiosity, and joy. For a lot of children, that’s the difference between enduring school and loving it.

“There’s a deeper form of belonging here, too, that most children today grow up without: the felt sense of being part of something older and larger than themselves — a people, a story, a chain that runs back hundreds of generations. It’s one of the quieter losses of modern childhood, hard to name until you meet a child who has it. A day school hands a child that inheritance early, as a birthright, rather than leaving it as something they might go looking for later, if they ever do.

“Most (secular) schools teach children what to think about and how to score well. Few teach them how to be a person. Day schools build ethics into the day itself, not as a poster on the wall but as something students spend years discussing and practicing. They come out having absorbed a simple, unfashionable idea: that a life is measured not only by what you achieve, but by what you owe other people.

“A child who knows what they believe and has somewhere they unmistakably belong, moves through the world differently. That’s the kind of confidence that doesn’t crack under pressure.

“The child who first knows exactly who they are is the one who can later walk into a room full of difference and engage it without fear and without dissolving into it. Security isn’t the opposite of openness. It’s the precondition for it.”

•••

Helping our children learn and understand who they are, as knowledgeable, caring Jews on this earth, is the Jewish schools first task. And the Jewish home’s eternal embrace.

•••

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.

•••
Shabbat shalom

Gmar chatimah tovah

Grassroots for Affordable Jewish Education

September 18, 2026

This evening, after the third star appears in the sky, as the sun retreats further west, we can look to a new horizon: the Jewish calendar year 5787. Rosh Hashana will have arrived.

We hope and pray the year will indeed bring the sweetness that for centuries has been the thoughtful yearning of our traditional holiday greetings. Sweetness aside, it falls to us – as it has always in every generation – to help fashion our tomorrows and to steer our lives toward the future we yearn. As the late renowned rabbi, scholar, historian, teacher Prof. Michael Brown often said: “We will write our future. It is not yet written.”

But we need Heaven’s help.

And so, during the Holyday that starts tonight and ushers in the Ten Days of Awe, our prayers glide toward the ultimate issues of our existence: a healthy, rewarding life for our families, alongside the imperative of a life well and purposefully lived according to the values of the eternal people whose history and traditions we share.

Much of the holiday’s liturgical poetry speaks of the mysteries and wonders of Creation. But the words that truly focus our minds and stir our hearts are words of tender pleading and unbroken hope. Such as….

“Remember us for life. (Let us live another year. Please)

“Inscribe us in the Book of Life. For Your sake, God, life. (Let us live another year Please.)

“Our Father, our King, have pity on us, our children and our infants. ((Let us live another year. Please.)

“Our Father, our King, act for Your sake, if not for ours. ((Let us live another year Please.)

These and the many other entreaties with which we are all familiar, are deeply personal supplications. They are whispered privately. They are chanted aloud. But both the whispered and the louder voice of our prayers are uttered in plural form. Our individual lives matter. Our lives, all life, is irreplaceable. But our individual lives are tied to our community of lives.

It has always been thus. And thus, it will always be.

The late remarkable Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks described the essence of Rosh Hashana as thinking about, securing and building the future.

There are no prophets who can see tomorrow.

Nor are there any pundits, op-ed writers, hate-laden protestors, or knowledge-less experts who can hector their falsehoods and disrespect of truth onto a wilful, confident, strong Jewish community and our democracy-loving allies.

May we be able to say at this time next year that, indeed, we did our utmost tin 5787 to make it the best year yet, to secure and build our respective futures, to determine our own destinies for the betterment of our families, our people and the wider world.

Shana tovah umetukah.

•••

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.

•••

Shabbat shalom

Shana Tovah uMetukah

Grassroots for Affordable Jewish Education

September 11, 2026

This update is the last of calendar year 5786. The next one arrives on the eve of Rosh Hashana 5787.

The numbers are real, yet also, almost abstract, like very high floating clouds. We understand the science, but we cannot truly “reach” or “touch” them from within the earth-bound pressures and pleasures of our daily lives.

One way, however, that the numbers are within “reach”, is to understand them as the opposite of an abstraction, namely, as an affirmation of palpably verifiable Jewish peoplehood. Thousands of years: forebears, Moses our teacher, kings and judges, prophets, destruction, expulsion, dispersion world-wide and then…Return.

Upon reflection – which is one of Rosh Hashana’s perfect pre-occupations – the duration, nature, persistence, underlying values and singularity of Jewish peoplehood are a remarkable attestation of something undeniably transcendent and vital for the world.

As GAJE awaits the decision of the Supreme Court that will let us know whether we can proceed with our case for fairness in educational funding in Ontario, this moment in our annual Jewish calendar cycle deserves a re-appreciation of the peoplehood that has brought fulfillment and purpose to Jews from the very beginning, as well as blessing to the world. Indeed, it is the goose-bumpy sense of belonging to the Jewish people that motivates and has motivated GAJE’s efforts for more than a decade.

Israel’s President Isaac Herzog succinctly expressed the notion of Jewish peoplehood at a ceremony at the President’s Residence in Jerusalem in which he received an honorary degree from the Jewish Theological Seminary of New York.

“The State of Israel and Diaspora Jewry are both facing their own challenges, but the Jewish people have a shared destiny and a shared responsibility….

“May we all continue to build together that same wondrous chain of the Jewish people: a chain connecting tradition to scholarship, Judaism to the wider world, Israel to the Diaspora, and past to future….”.

President Herzog spoke eloquently. He referenced “shared destiny and a shared responsibility”, and the “wondrous chain of the Jewish people…connecting…past and future.”                                                                  

In speaking thus, President Herzog summoned the language and the themes held sacrosanct by countless sages and “ordinary” Jews throughout the ages. He deliberately echoed the parameters of Jewish peoplehood taught by Moses himself in his farewell address to the People of Israel – formerly a rabble of slaves, but at that moment, a free nation governed by law and principle – as they were about to enter into the Land of Israel. With a stunning economy of words, Moses framed the essential aspect of Jewish peoplehood. (Deuteronomy, Chap. 29)

“You stand this day, all of you, before the Lord your God: your tribal heads, your elders, and your officials—the entire body of Israel, your children, your wives, even the stranger within your camp, from chopper of wood to drawers of water – to enter into the covenant of the Lord your God…”.

“And not with you alone, do I make this covenant … But with those who are standing here with us this day before the Lord our God and also with those who are not with us here this day.”

Moses swept into his arms and into the eternal embrace of Jewish life and Jewish responsibility, the entirety of the people. All of us. Those present at that epochal moment. And those not present, namely, those who had died during the formative, 40-year march to the Land of Israel, and those of us not yet born. All of us. For all time.

That is why GAJE has striven these past years to achieve funding fairness for Jewish education – for the sake of those among us, those we brought us to this day, and for those yet to be born.

This is our reflection of Jewish education, peoplehood, Israel’s President Isaac Herzog and Moses, our teacher as we approach Rosh Hashana 5787.

•••

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.

•••

Shabbat shalom

Grassroots for Affordable Jewish Education

September 4, 2026

Not surprisingly, the imminent end of summer vacation and the return to school, have elicited pundits’ pleas to the government of Ontario to re-consider and revise the delivery of education in our province.

Earlier this week, for example, Matthew Lau wrote in the Financial Post: “With a new school year approaching, it’s time to remind everyone that Ontario’s public school system is a gigantic mess.”

Lau was straightforward, his commentary salted with obvious frustration. At times, one could also sense a measure of melancholy. For, as he made clear to the reader, it does not have to be this way.

Lau states that the quality of Ontario’s public education system “seems bound to deteriorate further”. The best remedy to arrest and repair the system, he maintains, is to give families more choice in the education of their children.

“Giving families alternatives to the government-run school system provides access to better education, while increased competition forces improved quality by breaking the government/union monopoly. School choice can also deliver fiscal benefits to taxpayers as government funding for students in unionized government-run schools is higher than for students outside it.”

Giving parents more freedom to choose the educational approach for their children, Lau maintains, results in better overall educational outcomes and better fiscal management for the government. He cites two American studies to prove the case as well as a recent study by Cardus, a non-partisan, faith-oriented think tank based in Hamilton. According to its website, Cardus is dedicated “to clarifying and strengthening, through research and dialogue, the ways in which society’s institutions can work together for the common good.” GAJE has relied on its research in the past and cited the think tank’s work in this space.

Lau wrote: “(A) recent Cardus study on independent schools in Ontario highlighted yet more benefits of school choice. Unlike British Columbia, Alberta, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Quebec, Ontario doesn’t allow a portion of families’ taxes to follow their children to a private school. Despite this, there is a clear demand for alternatives to the government-run system. The Cardus study found that more than 300 independent schools have been founded in the province in the past four years.

“Beyond improving academic outcomes, school choice gives families options other than the monolithic conformity of the government-run system.”

He concludes without nuance. “The evidence continues to show that more choice would benefit parents, students and taxpayers.”

Lau – and the studies upon which he relies, urge more parental choice in Ontario’s educational system because it is the substantively correct thing to do: educationally and fiscally. Ontario’s public education system is anachronistic, no longer adoptive of best educational practices, and dramatically out of step with most of Canada and the OECD states. Indeed, over the years, in this very space, GAJE has often called attention to that same research.

Equally as important, if not actually more, over the years, GAJE has pleaded with the province to allow more choice to parents in our educational system on the basis of undoing and repairing a longstanding injustice. To no avail. The province has refused to allow us to argue our case on its merits. The Court of Appeal has agreed with the province.

Anxiously, we await the decision of the Supreme Court of Canada, whether we will be allowed to argue the legal/moral/fairness/justice/equality basis for granting parents more choice in the education of their children in Ontario, as is the case in the next five largest provinces in the country.

•••

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.

•••

Shabbat shalom

Grassroots for Affordable Jewish Education

August 28, 2026

Last week we referred to renowned French philosopher, Bernard-Henri Lévy’s advice to Jews the world over regarding the rising tide of antisemitism. We did so specifically in reference to the report published by the Federal Government, Campus Antisemitism and Student Experiences (CASE). The findings of the report were grim. For example, one of the key findings was that some 96% of respondents said they had experienced or witnessed at least one instance of antisemitism over the previous 12 months. The report’s other key findings were of the same alarming order.

Lévy urged us not to abandon our optimism or our resolve in fighting back. “One thing is certain, he said. “We must not give up, because the battle, contrary to what some believe, is not lost in advance. Jews, the friends of the Jewish people, the friends of democracy and genuine liberals can win this fight.”

We refer again to Lévy’s exhortation because it was relevant this week too in light of the published report describing the toxicity of anti-Israel, anti-Jewish hatred aimed at Jews permeating Toronto Metropolitan University.

We shall not report on the details of the report. It is more of the same: falsification, vilification, and intimidation. But worse. Rather, we reproduce a different sort of exhortation for Jews. This one from an educator suggesting an educationally-based response to the anti-Jewish campaign.

•••

Josh Schalk, executive directorof the Jewish Youth Promise and a trustee of the Jewish Education Center of Cleveland, recentlywrote of educating youngsters about their Judaism in a manner that fosters manifestations of courage in representing themselves to the bad-mouthers.

(https://ejewishphilanthropy.com/were-teaching-jewish-teens-to-be-afraid/?utm_source=cio)

The following is an excerpt from Schalk’s essay.

“Organizations like TalkIsrael and Lost Tribe are spearheading new models that engage teens directly in the digital spaces they inhabit, encouraging them to share Jewish culture and values with pride and confidence rather than simply mitigating misinformation….

“When teens interact with people or content expressing confidence in who they are and pride in their Jewish heritage, it reshapes their relationship with their own identity. It reminds them that being Jewish is not just something to defend, but something to live.

“Jewish education must offer more of this — not just awareness, but courage.

“Courage is what allows a student to speak openly about their values, even when it’s uncomfortable. It is what grounds pride — not in denial of challenges, but in a deep connection to heritage, culture, and purpose. And it is what enables young people to engage thoughtfully with complexity, rather than retreat from it.

“This kind of courage is not abstract. It can be taught, and it must be cultivated intentionally. Moral courage means giving students the language and confidence to articulate who they are and what they stand for. Cultural courage comes from experiencing Judaism not only as history or obligation, but as a living, meaningful source of identity and pride. Intellectual courage equips students to wrestle with difficult questions about Israel, about history, about belonging without losing their sense of self.

“These forms of courage require a coordinated effort across the environments that shape young people in schools, camps, families, and their own communities. Classrooms provide knowledge and context. Camps create joyful, identity-affirming experiences. Parents model what it looks like to live Jewishly with confidence. When these forces align, they model what we’re trying to articulate to our younger Jewish generations. 

“None of this means ignoring the reality of antisemitism. It’s important our students understand the world they are navigating, and they deserve tools to respond to it. But caution is a survival tactic, not a foundation for identity. If we are not careful, we risk raising a generation fluent in responding to hate, but less confident in explaining why being Jewish matters in the first place.

The goal of Jewish education cannot only be survival. It’s our responsibility to raise the next generation of Jews who are proud enough and grounded enough to show up fully and lead.”

Schalk’s prescription is patently challenging and demanding. Bernard-Henri Lévy however would plead with us not to give up.

•••

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.

•••

Shabbat shalom

Grassroots for Affordable Jewish Education

August 21, 2026

The Association for Canadian Studies was commissioned recently by the federal government’s former envoy against antisemitism, “to survey Jewish students on their lived experiences of antisemitism on campus, as well as to survey the broader student population on attitudes toward Jews and antisemitism.”

The results of the survey were published last week on the Government of Canada website, under the title Campus Antisemitism and Student Experiences (CASE).

Key findings of the survey, as reported on the website, include the following:

• 84% of Jewish respondents said antisemitism is a serious problem on campus.
• 95.7% said they had experienced or witnessed at least one instance of antisemitism over the previous 12 months
• 70% said their university does not take antisemitism seriously, and 68% said their campus is not a safe and inclusive place for Jewish students.
• 72% limit what they say in class about being Jewish, and 57% avoid wearing or displaying Jewish symbols because of safety concerns.
• 18% of incidents cited faculty members, 7% involved teaching assistants, and 7% involved administrators or staff.
• 36% encountered course content or classroom discussion they experienced as antisemitic or biased, while 34% said a professor introduced Jews, Judaism, Israel, or Zionism when unrelated to the course subject.
• 45% encountered Holocaust denial or distortion often or sometimes, and 65% encountered it “at least rarely.”
• 81% reported hateful or discriminatory treatment of Zionists on campus often or occasionally; 71% reported antisemitic vandalism; 54% reported intimidation or threats directed at Jews; and 22% reported physical violence directed at Jews.
• 34% identified online or social media spaces as a location where incidents occurred, 33%identified student organizations or campus events, 25% classrooms or lecture halls, 23% nearby off-campus spaces, and 9% in student residences and housing.
• 33% reported the incident they described. Among those who reported, 63% were dissatisfied with how it was handled, and 52% of non-reporters said they did not think reporting would help.

The results are distressing. There is no denying or downplaying these abjectly appalling findings.

To help us understand what our next steps must be in light of the CASE data, GAJE offers the words renowned French philosopher and author, Bernard-Henri Lévy.

Lévy addressed a gathering last summer in Haifa on the world-wide rising tide of antisemitism.The philosopher-journalist-activist admittedthat he had beenshocked by the immediacy and the ubiquity of anti-Israel protests after October 7. But despite the enormity of the problem, Lévy pleaded that Jews must not abandon their optimism or their resolve in being able to fight back. Direct, if sparse, his words were unequivocal. They are germane and even inspirational.

“But one thing is certain: We must not give up, because the battle, contrary to what some believe, is not lost in advance. Jews, the friends of the Jewish people, the friends of democracy and genuine liberals can win this fight.”

We ought to heed Lévy’s words.

We have no choice.

•••

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.

•••

Shabbat shalom

Grassroots for Affordable Jewish Education

August 14, 2026

Since the beginning of time, it is fair to say, the overarching hopes and aspirations of parents have been to keep their children safe from harm. However, since the beginning of time, it is equally fair to say, parents have understood that such hopes and aspirations are impossible to fulfil. Dangers always lurk. Parents cannot keep all dangers away from those whom they love. Nor do children lead the fullness of their lives under their parents’ protective wings. But since the beginning of time, when it came to their children, parents have always tried to carve possible out of impossible.

October 7 birthed a relatively new danger for Jews in North America, especially for young Jews. We are inundated without cease, in every virtual, digital and physical space of communication, by vile, hateful, false accusations about who we are. Only this week, for example, viral conspirators accused Israel of causing the forest fires burning in Europe. Others (or perhaps the same) conspiracy champions accused Israel of engineering the migrant crisis at the Moroccan-Spanish border in Ceuta.  

Living under such constant condemnation and denunciation can create risks to our children’s sense of Jewish self, let alone, God forbid, to their physical selves.

In a brilliant, inspiring essay, Who gets to explain the Jews?, Steve Freedman, head of school at Solomon Schechter Day School of Bergen County (N.J.), reflects upon these worrisome challenges for Jews in North America. He acknowledges that we cannot eradicate the accusations, we cannot keep our children from colliding with the obsessively driving, resurrected ancient/modern harm. But he does suggest how parents can help their children cope.

We reproduce only select portions of Freedman’s essay. We recommend it to our readers.

It may be read at: https://ejewishphilanthropy.com/who-gets-to-explain-the-jews/

Freedman begins his essay by referring to societal similarities at the turn of the last century to our own time, when hateful lies about Jews – much as today – were the intellectual currency throughout much of Europe. Freedman writes that scholars and chroniclers of Jewish life, Ahad Ha’am, for one, worried that “Jews would start seeing themselves the way their accusers saw them.”

The purpose of Freedman’s essay is to try to prevent such an outcome. He argues that it is the “sacred space” of the Jewish day school “where a child learns, early, not to believe the accusation at all.”

•••

“The most urgent job of Jewish education right now is not fighting antisemitism directly. It is making sure our children are not first introduced to their own history, their own people and their own homeland by those who mean them harm. It is making sure they can explain themselves to themselves before someone else does it for them.

“That is the strongest case I know for Jewish day schools right now….the existential one. Who gets to a child’s sense of self first?

“A child who has already engaged with the real Jewish story, in depth, from people who love them, is much harder to indoctrinate into someone else’s version of it.

“A Jewish child should be able to spot a lie about Jews the way Ahad Ha’am’s generation could spot the blood libel: with no doubt. By the time that child is a college student, or an adult among friends or colleagues, they should also be able to recognize an uncomfortable truth about Jews or about Israel, and know the difference.

“A community that doesn’t educate its own children first, eventually lets someone else, an algorithm, a stranger, a viral post, decide which parts of its identity survive. That failure isn’t theirs. It’s ours.

“Ahad Ha’am’s half consolation was knowing the whole world could be wrong about the Jews. His fuller worry was that Jews would come to believe it anyway, once the accusation grew too diffuse to disprove outright. He was describing 1892. He could have been describing a comments section in 2026. Our job isn’t to teach children that the world is always wrong; that would be its own kind of lie. Our job is to make sure they meet their own story before the internet tries to write it for them, and to give them the tools to know, when the two versions conflict, which one to trust.

“Send them to Jewish day schools because culture, traditions and story are worth knowing on their own terms, before anyone else gets to explain them first. Not because the world might hate them, or because a stranger online might lie to them. An identity built only in opposition to what others say ends up limited and reactive, still defined by the accuser, just in the negative. They deserve the texts, the arguments and the memory that shaped our people, not as a defense to be deployed but as a self already formed. When they run into someone who gets Jews or Israel wrong, that inheritance gives them something no viral rebuttal ever will. The ability to stand in their own story while judging what other people say about it.

“Who gets to explain the Jews? If we don’t take our children’s Jewish education seriously, the answer will keep being: everyone but the Jews. And increasingly, a machine that doesn’t even know their names.”

•••

We must equip our children with the knowledge – the ability – to fend off the harm intended by today’s anti-Jewish accusers. Through Jewish education, our children must learn who they are. Only in this way will they know how to deflect and discard as utter rubbish and intellectual ordure, the calumnies shouted everywhere about Jews. And for this, they will be individualy much stronger and the collective Jewish future, more assured.

•••

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.

•••

Shabbat shalom

Grassroots for Affordable Jewish Education

August 7, 2026

One of the Jewish world’s most astute observers of past and present Jewish life – Andres Spokoiny – delivered powerful remarks recently in New York to an audience of philanthropists and communally committed but concerned North American Jews.

Spokoiny spoke about the burgeoning sense of disquiet Jews among American about their place in the United States. Though he spoke directly about current events in the USA and about current feelings among American Jews, his observations apply with equal accuracy and force to conditions of Jewish life today in Canada.

We reproduce only portions of Spokoiny’s presentation to convey the gravamen of his ideas and the clarity by which he presented them. The entire address, however, is worthy and important. Regular readers of this weekly update will immediately understand why GAJE has pointed to Spokoiny’s remarks when they read his four-part prescriptive call-to-action.

•••

“American Jews have lost something invaluable in the last decade: the feeling that their country and their community are exceptional…

“What is changing is the subjective relationship many American Jews have with America.

“After the murderous Hamas raids in Israel on October 7, 2023, that feeling of lost trust grew by orders of magnitude. The places that had come to symbolize the integration of Jews in American society, like universities and cultural institutions, became overtly hostile to us. The explosion of progressive antisemitism showed how alone Jews were politically and culturally. The conceptual structures that Jews had helped build — such as the human rights doctrine and diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives — were weaponized against them.

“Then came the realization that the left and the right will only fight antisemitism when it’s politically expedient, and that both sides will, to degrees small and large, kowtow to their extremists.

“I believe that antisemitism will recede, and things will “go back to normal,” because antisemitism always ebbs and flows. But we can’t unsee what we’ve been seeing in the last few years.

“So, what are American Jews to do with this realization?

“First, recognizing the truth can be liberating… Jews should stop searching for a permanent home in either political party and begin acting as independent political agents.

“Second, we must invest far more in Jewish education, identity and pride. If our place in American society is conditional, our own identity must be unconditional. Judaism — with its depth, history, and purpose — must fill the void before despair or self-rejection does. (Our emphasis)

“Third, we must strengthen Zionism as a central pillar of Jewish identity, invest in Zionist education, and promote engagement with Israel, even if critical. We should remain engaged in American civic life, but it’s clear now that the American project is not, as we thought, an intrinsically Jewish project – at best, it’s a secular project in which Jews may be able to participate.

“The only collective Jewish project is Israel. That is not an ideological statement but a fact. That, of course, doesn’t mean blindly accepting any Israeli policy or not fighting for Palestinians’ rights. The opposite: if Israel is our only collective project, we must engage with it from the inside, defending its democracy and its liberalism and fighting against the dark forces that seek to capture it.

“Finally, we must stop apologizing for defending Jewish rights. Changing hearts and minds about antisemitism is, at best, an improbable task. Antisemitism rises and falls for reasons largely beyond our control. What we can do is protect ourselves — physically, legally, politically and culturally — and use every legitimate tool available to defend our community.

“Jews should stand in solidarity with other oppressed minorities because it is the right thing to do. But we should cease having naïve illusions about others standing up for us. We need to continue “building bridges” — but we need to learn when to burn them.

“This American Jewish moment is painful and unsettling, but it’s an opportunity to rethink some of our basic premises and plan according to new principles. Thinking less about our exceptionalism may be liberating. Sometimes it’s good to let go. That energy used to keep aloft something that is collapsing can then be used to enrich our own identity and rediscover our tradition. Clinging to delusions won’t help — looking reality in the face just might.”

•••

Like so many of the scholars, historians, thinkers, planners, educators, parents, grandparents, and ordinary Jews who are studying these unparalleled times and trying to offer the best ways for Jews at home and abroad to forge strongly through present difficulties, Spokoiny too calls for strengthening the Jewishness of who we are. Education is the imperative we must embrace. And treasure.

Spokoiny’s remarks may be read at:

https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/american-jewish-exceptionalism-is-ending-heres-what-must-come-next/

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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

Grassroots for Affordable Jewish Education

July 31, 2026

A year after Covid restricted almost all social and other inter-connections among most human beings around the world, a number of leading individuals involved in Jewish education in North America conducted an assessment of the state of Jewish education as a result of the intervention of the pandemic.

When the school year ended this summer, some five years after the post-Covid assessment, a similar assessment of the different areas within the Jewish education sector of North America was published. It was no longer a pandemic that forced adjustments to the delivery of Jewish education. Rather, it was a confluence of other events – equally unparalleled in our lifetimes – that forced changes to the infrastructure of Jewish education. As the authors of the recent assessment wrote: “Much has changed since many of us first participated in these updates during the pandemic: the Oct. 7 attacks and the experience of rising antisemitism; back-to-back wars in Israel; and the overall polarized nature of politics and society today.” 

And so, eight scholars and educators published, The state of Jewish education: Insights from leaders across the field. The authors wrote about seven specific educational sectors: early childhood education; adult learning; part-time Jewish education; Jewish camp; Jewish day schools; Israel education and college engagement; and Jewish community education.

The document is illuminating. It is also encouraging despite the challenges and deficits that the authors documented. It is encouraging because the assessment itself was undertaken as an awareness of the communal needs of the hour and of the resolve required to respond as needed.

Space does not permit excerpting from the entire article. Rather, we shall share only some excerpts from the section dealing with Jewish day schools. It is entitled, Investing in excellence: Update on Jewish day schools, and was written by Paul Bernstein, CEO, Prizmah.

(We do recommend the entire article to our readers. It can be found at: https://ejewishphilanthropy.com/the-state-of-jewish-education-insights-from-leaders-across-the-field/?utm_source=cio)

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“Over the last six years, Jewish day school enrollment has grown consistently year after year… The question is no longer whether our schools are good enough; increasingly, Jewish day schools are competing with the best independent and public schools in their communities. Alumni are visible as leaders in government, business, and across Jewish communal life.

“Among Jewish college students, Jewish day school alumni are four times more likely to feel a strong connection to Israel than their non-day school peers and twice as likely to say Jewish identity is central to their lives…. Investing in Jewish education is the most meaningful response to antisemitism, and visionary philanthropists are increasingly acting on that conviction.

“The challenge to building a thriving Jewish community in the wake of Oct. 7, 2023, is not a lack of resources, but whether we direct those resources toward deep and transformative Jewish education. As Bret Stephens argued, the goal should be “to make high-quality Jewish day school education available and affordable to every Jewish family that wants one.”

“Affordability remains a significant barrier.…At the same time, sustaining growth depends on educational excellence. Too many schools still lack the resources to invest sufficiently in outstanding teaching and leadership. The late Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks reminded us that “teachers are the unacknowledged builders of the future,” and lasting change depends on attracting, training and mentoring, as well as retaining exceptional educators.

“A Jewish day school education delivers strong academic outcomes but is ultimately about far more than academic achievement. Our schools build the Jewish and general foundations for a lifetime’s success, based on this promise: “If you know who you are, you can be anything.”

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There is more detail in the full article regarding the evolution, since 2021, within the day school sector. Readers of this weekly update will not be surprised by the generally positive news reported about day schools. Indeed, in our own community, as reported here, we have witnessed the meaningful, generous responses by “visionary philanthropists” (See, for example, Kaelen Sherman) to the increased manifestations of antisemitism. Indeed, the demand for places in Jewish day school here now exceeds the supply. That is a new challenge that the community must and will, undoubtedly, solve.

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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

Grassroots for Affordable Jewish Education

July 24, 2026

Last week, in this space, GAJE featured the uplifting remarks and the even more uplifting, quite remarkable, act of generosity by Kaelen Sherman. At the end of May, Ms. Sherman pledged a gift of $25 million to TanenbaumCHAT in Toronto that will provide tuition assistance, in perpetuity, to students at the high school.

This week, we find further inspiration. In this case it is in the example of principle and courage demonstrated by our students, attending university.

As vice president of the World Union of Jewish Students, Jonah Feiglin spent the past year travelling, meeting and talking with his peers from campuses throughout the world.

Feiglin wrote honestly about his experiences. It is his honesty that propels the inspiration that affects the reader. The following are but a few excerpts from his article.

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(Feiglin defined the situation that he encountered.)

“I have spoken to students in London who hesitate before wearing a Magen David necklace in public. I have met students in Paris who still feel anxious walking onto campus. I have sat with Australian students who enter tutorials already preparing themselves to defend not simply their views, but their identity. What struck me most was not the fear, but the refusal to disappear.”

“Students describe constantly calculating risk. Should they wear a Jewish symbol today? Is it worth speaking up in this discussion? Questions which should never have been considered normal have become part of daily life for many Jewish students.

“A 2025 survey conducted by the World Union of Jewish Students and the Anti-Defamation League found that 78% of Jewish students reported hiding or concealing some aspect of their Jewish identity. Nearly four out of every five Jewish students surveyed felt pressure to make themselves smaller.

(Feiglin described some specific examples of students’ responses. Then he summarized, in general terms, the wider import of the students’ responses.)

“Jewish students are not defined by the hatred directed towards them. They are defined by the communities they build, the responsibility they take for one another and the future they are determined to shape.

“That is what leaves me profoundly hopeful. What I have witnessed is not a generation retreating from Jewish life, but a generation fighting for it. In almost every country, I see students searching for the same thing: community, belonging and the ability to live openly as themselves.”

(Feiglin also suggested another “important lesson” from the students’ actions.)

“Strong communities do not emerge by accident. They exist because previous generations invested in them, and because leaders understood that identity must be nurtured before it is tested. (Our emphasis. Read: He commends community decision makers who took steps to ensure a sustained and sustainable infrastructure of affordable Jewish education.)

“[A]fter meeting Jewish students from around the world, one thing has become clear to me: The future of Jewish life will be secured by young Jews who choose to remain proudly, visibly and unapologetically Jewish, and by communities willing to stand beside them when they do.”

(One of Feiglin’s observations was particularly poignant. He attested that Jewish peoplehood is an actual, palpable state of experience and feeling. It is not a mere “abstract concept.”)

“In Spain, complete strangers invited me into their homes simply because I was Jewish, allowing me to share Shabbat meals with families I had never met before. After the events of Oct. 7, 2023, those experiences carried an even deeper meaning. They reminded me that Jewish peoplehood is not an abstract concept discussed in speeches or in strategy documents, but it is truly real and it is personal. It is the feeling of arriving in a foreign city and knowing somebody will leave a seat open at their table for you, even though they have never met you.”

(Kudos to Jonah Feiglin. Kudos as well to all the students and the various projects and activities that Feiglin described in his moving op-ed.)

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Feiglin’s article can be found at:

Jewish students are choosing pride. It’s time to invest in them.

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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

Grassroots for Affordable Jewish Education

July 17, 2026