Earlier this week, ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt delivered the 2024 State of Hate address at the “Never Is Now” Conference in New York.

In just over 31 fiery, unapologetic minutes, Greenblatt chronicled the difficult truth of life for Jews in, what columnist Bret Stephens has called, “the October 8^th world.”

Greenblatt pointed out the vile hatred and shameless amorality of the supporters of Hamas who denounce and demonize Israel. He pointed out the dishonesty of the so-called neutral men and women who enable the demonizers of Israel through their feigned neutrality or transparent biases.

Greenblatt pointed out how the tactics of the supporters of Hamas have changed. Until now their approach was “one of isolation or “anti-normalization,” as they call it — focused on boycotts, divestment, and urging progressive groups and all Americans to shun and ostracize their Jewish neighbors.”

Since October 8 however, Hamas supporters have spelled out new strategy of “confrontation to, in their words, “dismantle Zionism.” The hallmarks of the new strategy are intimidation, bullying, massive thuggery, the threat of violence and in some cases, actual violence.

“Facing these threats,” Greenblatt wrote, “it seems that the Jewish community in the United States has two choices: flight or fight.”

Some of our co-religionists, understandably, have chosen to flee – to hide their identity – to wear a baseball cap instead of a kippah, to remove the mezuzah on their doorpost. But others, Greenblatt noted, have chosen to fight back, to assert their identities, to speak truth to the haters of Jews and to the world about who they (we) are: members of a people and a faith that have been part of the very backbone of western civilization and its ongoing advancement.

Greenblatt spoke about the rising of a new, Jewish grassroots…in community after community…that gives him hope. For, like GAJE, the grassroots of which Greenblatt spoke so proudly, upholds Jewish dignity even as it defends Jewish peoplehood and aspires to secure the Jewish future. These Greenblatt’s words:

“It shows me and it shows all of us that the time for complacency is over. We can’t assume American Jewish life will continue to be a comfortable life – unless we do something now…unless we transform ourselves from observers to activists, from onlookers to advocates.

Our community has accomplished so much in this country – and contributed so much. No one can take that away from us – and it’s time we stopped letting them think that they can do so.

“The Jewish community has been an indispensable part of this country since its earliest days.

We have overcome discrimination, broken barriers and exceeded expectations. We started companies, founded labor unions and cured diseases. We built schools, funded universities, and started hospitals. We created theatres, launched studios, and started charities. We changed norms, passed laws, and secured judgements that made this country better for its Jewish people and ultimately better for all of its people.

“You see, the bottom line – there is not a part of American life that the Jewish community has not touched and impacted for good. And so, the time has come to say: The harassment and the attacks must stop. Explaining away your antisemitism will no longer be tolerated. Refusing to prosecute the laws or to enforce the policies of your institution when the perpetrators are targeting Jews, must cease.

“The twisting of language…the moral cowardice…the blind eye toward antisemitism must end now. If not, you will hear our voices. You will see us outside your doors. And we will see you in court. Our donations that you relied on – gone. Our votes that you seek – forget about it.

Our friendship or alliances – no more.

“At this moment…in this October 8^th world, we will not be silent. We will not let our country be lost to the antisemites and bigots.

“We will not flee. We will fight. And we will win. Am Yisrael Chai.”

Greenblatt’s words apply equally in Canada as they do in the United States. The situations are entirely similar. In both cases, we must fight back by knowing who we are as Jews, and then, by “doing Jewish”. And that requires that our children have the benefit of a Jewish education.

Greenblatt’s remarks can be read at:

https://www.adl.org/resources/press-release/adl-ceo-jonathan-greenblatt-delivers-2024-state-hate-never-now

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If you wish to contribute to GAJE’s lawsuit for fairness in educational funding, 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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Shabbat shalom. Am Yisrael Chai.

Grassroots for Affordable Jewish Education (GAJE)

March 8, 2024

This week’s update brings the same message as that of last week: deeply rooted Jewish education helps Jewish youth withstand and even push back through the maelstrom of anti-Israel and anti-Jewish hatred on campus. This week, however, the message emanates from a professor of Jewish history based upon his actual experience two weeks ago at a university in California.

Prof. Jeffrey Blutinger, the Barbara and Ray Alpert Endowed Chair in Jewish studies and a professor of history at California State University, Long Beach, wrote of his attempt to deliver a lecture at San Jose State University on the subject of a two-state solution to Israel’s conflict with the Palestinians. “I tried to speak….the police had to evacuate me,” Prof. Blutinger titled his report of the experience.

Blutinger has been teaching the subject of Israel and the Middle East for 22 years. “I have never seen campuses as threatening to Jewish students and faculty as today,” he writes. Police were need to evacuate him from a building because anti-Israel protesters had poured into the hallway adjacent to the lecture room and created what university security deemed to be an “imminent danger” for the professor and everyone else attending the lecture.

Blutinger had been invited by SJSU’s director of Jewish studies to speak to a class about the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. His plan was to discuss with students how the two sides were achingly close to a solution, between Oslo in 1993 and Taba in 2001.

About 20 minutes into his talk, the campus police and the San Jose Police Department interrupted the lecture to tell Prof. Blutinger they had to evacuate him immediately. The mob in the hallway was bordering on violence. He did not want to leave but he had no choice. 

Most of Prof. Blutinger’s op-ed is a lament for the future of American colleges in general and for “the future of Jewish scholars and scholarship in American higher education”, in particular.

He confirms the importance of “safe spaces” for Jewish students on campuses because of the proliferation of virulent anti-Israel, anti-Jewish protests. But Prof. Blutinger adds the following broad instruction for the parents of prospective campus-age children. Within the broad instruction, Prof. Blutinger, includes a narrower, more pointed statement about Jewish education.” It is this latter statement, of course, that GAJE wishes our readers to know.

“Parents want to shelter their children, but today’s antisemitism on campus shows us that these students will not benefit at college if they are thrust into it from a cloistered background. It is crucial for Jewish students to understand what it means to be Jewish and all the nuances of events in the Middle East, so they have the confidence to advocate for themselves.  (Our emphasis) It is equally crucial that well before arriving at college, parents ensure their children are exposed to myriad opinions on all sorts of issues, not just Israel and Judaism. If students aren’t raised to hear opinions that may make them uncomfortable, they will never be prepared for higher education and certainly the wider world. They must have the basis of resilience and self-confidence when they graduate high school so they can further develop those qualities at college.”

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To help our children on campus have the resilience and self-confidence that flow from understanding what it means to be Jewish and all the nuances of events in the Middle East, they must have access to Jewish education. And that is why GAJE is trying to help make Jewish education affordable to all Jewish families in Ontario that seek it for their children.

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Prof. Blutinger’s article can be found at:

I tried to speak about a two-state solution at a university. The police had to evacuate me. 

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If you wish to contribute to GAJE’s lawsuit for fairness in educational funding, 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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Shabbat shalom. Am Yisrael Chai.

Grassroots for Affordable Jewish Education (GAJE)

March 1, 2024

Anyone who tries to help bring Jewish education to Jewish children is actually helping to try to secure a Jewish future. This is a “large” proposition and has the ring of overstatement. But it is true at every level of examination, starting with its elemental core that a Jewish future requires Jewish education.

The nature and extent of one’s embrace of Judaism, of course, will determine the nature and extent of the life that is lived Jewishly – meaningfully Jewishly. And so, to live and to lead a meaningfully Jewish life, one must choose the Jewish education that fits best.

The perpetually rewarding truth of Jewish education is that – when it works and clicks in for the individual – it begins a journey of lifelong learning. One never arrives at the destination, for the destination has no final stop. One is always searching, stopping, digging, and then moving forward on the never-ending path of discovery, faith, history, peoplehood and connection.

When the education works and clicks in, it also fortifies. Knowledge, understanding and awareness help foster the inner strength required of all individuals to help them withstand life’s inevitable buffeting and jostling from adversaries and foes. And as we all know, when our children leave the more sheltering environment of their homes for the wider demographic mix of university or college, the buffeting begins in earnest. And it takes a great deal of inner strength and self-assurance, especially these days to stand against the shameless bullying of the anti-Israel zealot.

Since October 7, to our ongoing disbelief and anger, we have seen manifestations of hatred toward Israel and toward Jews that we had never thought to see again, except perhaps in historical documentaries and film newsreels of last century’s wars. Campuses have become the epicentre of the struggle to save law-abiding, democratic society from the thugs who undermine it from the ramparts of their battle to bring down Israel.

The Abraham Global Peace Initiative (AGPI) recently published a report on the state of antisemitism at Canadian universities. Entitled, The Canadian Universities Antisemitism Report 2024, it was co-authored by Neil Orlowsky, PhD, Director of Education, The Abraham Global Peace Initiative; Danielle Legerman, Education Consultant, York University and Karen Cheung, Education Consultant, York University.

The report “delves into the alarming rise of antisemitism on Canadian university campuses, shedding light on multifaceted challenges faced by Jewish students and faculty. The surge is particularly notable in the context of debates surrounding anti-Zionism, free speech protections for professors, student union activities, the role of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) departments, and the pervasive sense of insecurity experienced by Jewish members of the campus community.”

The authors provide a grade to Canadian universities based upon a uniformly applied set of criteria. The three universities assessed as the worst from the point of view of the pervasiveness of an atmosphere of antisemitism on campus and for not providing safe learning space for all of the students were: Concordia University, University of Toronto, and York University. The report is available at:

https://img1.wsimg.com/blobby/go/fbc9d4fc-0bc8-4e11-acb8-d9ddd12b9bc0/AGPI Campus Report 2024.pdf 

The AGPI report appeared merely days before Hillel International CEO Adam Lehman told an Knesset committee at a meeting in Jerusalem between Israeli parliamentarians and the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, that the 44 physical antisemitic attacks on campuses to date since Oct. 7 are more than in the past 10 years combined. Lehman described the situation “as truly a catastrophe” and noted that the total number of antisemitic incidents on campuses since Oct. 7 has surpassed 1,000.

According to a new survey by Benenson Strategy Group on behalf of Hillel International, 56% of the 300 Jewish college students who were polled said they have been directly affected by antisemitism on campus since Oct. 7, with roughly a third — 32% — saying they have experienced antisemitic violence or acts of hate. In addition, 37% have said they felt the need to hide their Jewish identity on campus and 7% said they have considered transferring or leaving their school because of the climate for Jewish students. The survey has a 5% margin of error.

This recently compiled empirical data confirms what we have seen on the news, what we read in our various news sources and what we know in our hearts. Alarm is an appropriate emotional reaction to the situation our children face on university campuses today. The aggression, name-calling, accusations, confrontations and protests aimed at them will hit hard. But summoning upon their inner strengths, deeply rooted by their respective Jewish educations, will help them withstand and even push back through the maelstrom of anti-Israel and anti-Jewish hatred.

And that is why GAJE is trying to help make Jewish education affordable to all Jewish families in Ontario that seek it for their children: to help families plant deep Jewish roots in our children.

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If you wish to contribute to GAJE’s lawsuit for fairness in educational funding, 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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Shabbat shalom

Am Yisrael Chai

Grassroots for Affordable Jewish Education (GAJE)

February 23, 2024

In the ongoing, continuing-to-be-appalling aftermath of October 7, Israeli media carried a small news item last week concerning the country’s women’s national basketball team playing an International Basketball Federation (FIBA) 2025 EuroBasket qualifiers’ game. No Canadian media outlets appeared to report the story. It was a small story with a very large message.

For security reasons due to the war, the Israeli team played the game in Latvia as the home team. Israeli’s opponent was the women’s team from Ireland. At first, the Irish team refused to play the Israelis, preferring instead, to withdraw from the qualifying game. To its credit, FIBA warned the Irish squad that it would face severe monetary and other penalties if they did not proceed with the match. So, the team changed its stance. The game was played as scheduled.

But the Irish took umbrage at a statement by one of the Israeli players, Dor Sa’ar, that the Irish team was antisemitic. The Irish basketball authorities filed an official complaint with the organizers of FIBA Europe. “Basketball Ireland is extremely disappointed by these accusations, which are both inflammatory and wholly inaccurate,” the complaint said.

Cheryl Levi, an Israeli writer, shared her views of the Irish complaint and their feigned offence. “So, the game was on. The Irish team refused to exchange gifts and shake hands with the Israeli team (a decision that was fully supported by Basketball Ireland). They also sat on the bench instead of standing center-court during the playing of Israel’s national anthem. It was a show of supreme unsportsmanlike behavior. In fact, let’s just call it what it was: antisemitism.”

The Israeli team defeated the Irish team 87-57.

Levi further noted what most of us know also to be true. “The refusal of the Irish women’s basketball team to play against Israel is indicative of an even bigger problem. It’s a sign of the antisemitic rot that has been eating away at countries like Ireland for decades.”

She asked the important question: “So how do we stand up to countries – [we can add individuals, groups and organizations] – that have become synonymous with antisemitism?”

Levi’s question is, essentially, the very same one most of us have been asking ourselves these past four months.

One answer came from Dor Sa’ar, the Israeli player who commented on the Irish team’s prior disposition towards their Israeli counterpart. The day before the match she explained her motivation and that of her teammates. “Since October 7th, our lives have all changed, so since then it’s important to represent our country with dignity, fight on the field, and show that we are good and capable, and I believe that we can do it.”

Sa’ar’s example is one of plain courage. We should follow it. We should heed her words and take them to heart.

Of course, we do not “represent” the State of Israel – except in the eyes of the antisemites who draw no distinction between Israelis and Jews. But we can and we must “represent” and act in defense of our people, our faith and our history.

And how do we “fight”? We “fight” by being demonstrably Jewish. In the process, we “show that we are good and capable.” We are proud, grateful members of our Canadian Jewish community.

And just as Sa’ar promised, we “can do it” too. And we shall.

To ensure that our children and grandchildren will be able to join the battle, in their turn, we must try to help make affordable the education they will need to immerse themselves in the exceptional depth, beauty and sustaining strength of their faith and their history.

Kol hakavod to the Women’s National Basketball team of Israel.

Levi’s article can be found at:

https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/bringing-the-battlefield-to-the-basketball-court/?_gl=1*1rawxty*_ga*OTgzMzg3MTA2LjE3MDc5NTAzMTQ.*_ga_RJR2XWQR34*MTcwNzk2NTAxMC4yLjEuMTcwNzk2Nzc0MS4wLjAuMA..

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If you wish to contribute to GAJE’s lawsuit for fairness in educational funding, 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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Shabbat shalom

Am Yisrael Chai

Grassroots for Affordable Jewish Education (GAJE)

February 16, 2024

Four months after Hamas’ ghoulish celebration of its barbaric slaughter of some 1,200 Israelis and other nationals, Israel is still at war.

Israelis and Jews around the world have witnessed the battlefield expand from the rock, sand, alleyways and dense urban clusters of Gaza to include the streets and commercial centres of large and small cities around the world, college campuses and professional associations throughout the West, non-governmental international fora, and even the wood-panelled chambers of international courts of so-called justice.

Israel and Israelis were assaulted in the vilest manner possible on October 7. Since then, Jews – wherever we live – have felt under assault as well. And it has been shocking as well as enraging.

Many observers have written about the phenomenon of Israel losing the public support it has enjoyed for most of its 75 years since its birth as a fellow democratic country. Indeed, already one month after the October 7 Hamas onslaught, veteran CBC reporter Evan Dayer wrote a story under the headline: A generation gap in attitudes could be undermining support for Israel in the West.

Dyer noted that “Canadians under age 30 tend to hold views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that are dramatically different from those of Canadians aged 55 or over.” What he meant of course, is that many, if not most, young Canadians harbour downright hostile opinions of Israel. We have seen for ourselves, in every sphere of modern Canadian life, the stunning evidence of Dyer’s observation. We are shocked – and then angered – by the extent and the nature of the support we are witnessing here for Hamas.

It is shocking because support for Hamas’ cause means support for the elimination of Israel and of Jews wherever we reside. Hamas’ worldview and chief purpose hold no place for a sovereign Jewish State. Indeed, they hold no place for Jews. Period. How, we ask ourselves, can supporters of Hamas not know this? And if they do know this and yet still support Hamas, who and what are they some of them our neighbours; many of them our children’s and grandchildren’s classmates in the universities and schools they attend.

It is precisely for this reason that shock yields to anger and anger to concerted, pointed action.

Yaakov Katz,a senior fellow at the Jewish People Policy Institute (JPPI) and the immediate past editor-in-chief of The Jerusalem Post commented on this very aspect of the world’s reaction to Israel’s war with Hamas.

In an article for the Jerusalem Post, he wrote that the war has shown “that no matter where a Jew lives, their identity and feeling of safety is connected to the State of Israel.” To be sure, the war is being fought by Israel to secure its right to live, sovereign, in the land of its ancestors. But Katz also makes the point that as Israel fights, it also holds tight to the steel hard tie of peoplehood that binds all Jews around the world to it, the only Jewish country on earth.

“All Israelis have been moved to see how Jews from around the world have stood up to assist Israel during this difficult time….They [Jews around the world] have done so despite the explosion of antisemitism and the risk that it now poses to the future of American, British, and European Jewry. While Jews in Israel are obviously most at risk of physical harm, the killing of Paul Kessler at a pro-Israel rally in Los Angeles, and the death chants against Jews in Dagestan, as well as on the streets of London, indicate how antisemitism shows, to some extent, how all Jews are in a similar situation.”

“What we have to keep in mind is the objective of the protesters against Israel and the threat it poses to Jews. They want people to be afraid to speak up, to appear in public in support of Israel and to proudly identify as Jews. They want Jews to be afraid.”

Of course, in some situations, it makes sense to be afraid. But what sort of life is lived in or by fear? No. We must react and respond to champion Israel’s right to exist as a sovereign Jewish state and our own individual and collective right to live meaningfully as Jews and as a Jewish community, without fear, here in Canada. 

To be such champions we must feel deeply Jewish in our souls and in our bones. That means we – our children and our grandchildren – must have access to affordable Jewish education. They must know that they are Jews. And they must know what it means to be Jews.

Katz’ article is available at:

Israel-Hamas war isn’t just about security, it’s about Jewish peoplehood

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If you wish to contribute to GAJE’s lawsuit for fairness in educational funding, 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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Shabbat shalom, Am Yisrael Chai

Grassroots for Affordable Jewish Education (GAJE)

February 9, 2024

Last week the Divisional Court allowed the Attorney General’s motion for leave to appeal the 46-page decision of Justice Eugenia Papageorgiou that prevented GAJE’s application for fair educational funding from being thrown out of court. 

The Divisional Court attached no reasons to its decision. The endorsement on the record reads: “The motion for leave to appeal the order of Papageorgiou J. dated August 21, 2023 (2023 ONSC 3722) is allowed. Pursuant to the agreement between the parties, no costs are ordered.”

Of course, GAJE is disappointed. Moreover, without an explanation of the court’s reasoning, we are also puzzled.

Justice Papageorgiou’s 46-page decision is a landmark. Granting leave to appeal it does not mean that the Divisional Court judges considered it to be wrong, only that it raised significant, issues for further argument. We do not believe the ruling by the Divisional Court should be read as a rejection of Justice Papageorgiou’s decision. Her decision dealt with important constitutional issues that the Court obviously felt required further consideration.

It is important to remember that the decision being appealed is the one that allows GAJE’s application to proceed through the courts. Justice Papageorgiou’s decision made no ruling on the merits of our application for fairness in educational funding.

Our disappointment, however, does not deter us. Nor will it ever. GAJE is guided by our belief in the importance and in the correctness of our cause. It is we – all of us – who must try to bring about the future we wish for our children and for all generations thereafter. We will not be passive to events unfolding around us. 

We paraphrase Rabbi Tarfon’s wise counsel so very long ago: “The time is short. There is so much work ahead of us. We may not be able to finish it. But we are not permitted to stop trying.” And as Hillel would have likely added: “If not now” – especially during these difficult times for the Jewish people worldwide – “then, when?” 

We now await a hearing date for the province’s appeal. We will not stop.

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If you wish to contribute to GAJE’s lawsuit for fairness in educational funding, 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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Shabbat shalom

Grassroots for Affordable Jewish Education (GAJE)

February 2, 2024

Am Yisrael Chai

The manifestations, after October 7, of hatred toward Israel and Jews around the world, but also on the streets of Canada, have unnerved us. But they have not immobilized us. Nor will they ever.

They have also provided an illuminating insight into one of the key administrative/management differences between public and independent schools. Joanna DeJong VanHof, a researcher at think-tank Cardus, and a PhD student at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, was quite exorcised when she read that the administrators or educators of a TDSB school refused to tell the parents of students of the school that swastika graffiti had been scrawled in a washroom in the school in November.

The Toronto Star reported that the TDSB has “moved away from telling parents about these incidents” in order to reduce the likelihood of “copycat acts.”  VanHof correctly concluded that the TDSB’s policy appears to be based on the belief that to de-escalate a situation, silence is best. And parents are not needed.

“What absurdity!,” VanHof proclaimed. “As a parent, and as a student of education, this approach baffles me. Does the TDSB actually think parents don’t need to know? That they wouldn’t share the goals of the school in de-escalation? Or worse, which is clearly implied, that they wouldn’t be capable of parenting appropriately? That involving them really would increase the likelihood of “copycat acts,” not reduce it?”

VanHof uses the “silent” approach of the TDSB to the dreadful appearance of the swastika in the school washroom as a jumping off point to compare the approach to solving such problems in most independent schools where “parents are real, actual partners in education”.

Parents of children in the Jewish school system in the GTA and in other locations will likely be able to confirm this latter observation by VanHof about parental involvement in independent schools.

VanHof points out that “independent school communities are growing. They’ve grown by more than 20 per cent over the last decade in Ontario, and most schools I know have wait lists. Parents want change. TDSB enrolment, by contrast, has declined by seven per cent in the last five years alone. Much of that may be due to high costs of living for families and, recently, decisions to move out of the city. But a lot may also be parents exercising their right to a different choice for their child. Most parents just want a safe learning environment that meets their children’s needs.”

GAJE agrees with VanHof’s observations concerning what most parents want for their children’s education. We would also add, of course, that we want fairness in the educational funding of our children in the schools that best meet their needs as Jews of Canada.

As we have often pointed out, the best way to stand against those individuals who attempt to foist their anti-Israel and anti-Jewish hatreds upon the rest of us trying to build a law-abiding, freedom-loving, truly democratic and Jewish way of life here is by “doing Jewish”, by boosting Jewish life, by affirming the values of our traditions that provide us focus, strength and purpose.

VanHof’s article can be found at:

Independent Schools Help Parents Who Feel Left Out by Public Boards

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Reminder: GAJE awaits the decision of the Divisional Court on the motion by Ontario for leave to appeal the 46-page ruling by Judge Eugenia Papageorgiou allowing GAJE’s application to proceed to a hearing in court. We will share the decision as soon as we receive it.

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If you wish to contribute to GAJE’s lawsuit for fairness in educational funding, 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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Shabbat shalom

Grassroots for Affordable Jewish Education (GAJE)

January 26, 2024

Am Yisrael Chai

Traditionally, when the completion of the reading of the Torah portion on Shabbat marks the end of one of the Five Books of Moses, the congregation chants “Chazak. Chazak. V’nitchazek”. Loosely translated the words mean, “Be strong. Be strong. And we will strengthen each other.” Or some people might say: “Strength. Strength. And we will become strong.”

The classic Alcalay Hebrew-English dictionary defines the term chazak as “to be strong, firm, robust, courageous.” Thus, however one translates the Hebrew, whether as prescriptive or descriptive, its essence is a call to demonstrate courage by taking communal (collective) action.

The reminder to demonstrate courage is – and has always been – at the very core of the recurring, formative instruction to the Jewish people. The communal rallying cry to show courage and to find the strength necessary to do so – however difficult – reverberates within the Jewish soul even if the Jewish mind does not always hear or remember it.

Canadian lawyer, human rights advocate, Adam Hummel, has recently written about the need for all us to show courage during this unsettling, alarming rise of hate post-October 7, directed at Jews. In an article entitled, Courage:It couldn’t come at a better time, published on January 10 in Substack,Hummel urges us to be “brave, bold, and courageous”. But true to the nature of someone who ‘does’ as well as ‘says’, Hummel suggests several ways to do so.

He provides five specific characterizations of behaviours from which individuals might take action and, in the result, also find our courage.

Hummel concludes that “however hard it is to be a Jew at this time, we must know that this is one of the best times in history to be Jewish. We have a voice, we have respect, we are cohesive, we have a country, and we have an army. 

Nothing is stopping us from being brave. Everything is telling us to be strong and of good courage (chazak ve’amatz). Let’s seize the moment and stand for what we know to be true. 

Am Yisrael Chai”

Hummel’s article is important. Substantive. Instructive. And inspiring.

It is available at: https://catchjcp.substack.com/p/courage

GAJE reminds our readers that we await the decision of the Divisional Court on the motion by Ontario for leave to appeal the 46-page ruling by Judge Eugenia Papageorgiou allowing GAJE’s application to proceed to a hearing in court.

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If you wish to contribute to GAJE’s lawsuit for fairness in educational funding, 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

Grassroots for Affordable Jewish Education (GAJE)

January 19, 2024

The beating-heart core of GAJE’s mission is to try to help make Jewish education affordable for those families who seek it for their children. Our advocacy – our very purpose – focuses on affordability. On occasion, however, we have drawn readers’ attention to what GAJE regards as important aspects or developments relating to Jewish education.

This week’s update is such an occasion.

Sholom Eisenstat – an esteemed GTA educator and co-founder of ADRABA, the innovative approach to reaching and teaching Jewish content to young people who cannot or do not attend conventional Jewish school classrooms – sent GAJE an article by David Bryfman, CEO of The Jewish Education Project. Bryman’s article is worth sharing. He states that “among the new realities that we face as a people” after October 7 and its aftermath, “Jewish educators will need to formulate some of the biggest questions that they have been faced with since 1948.”

Bryman, of course, is correct in his assessment of October 7 and its aftermath as a watershed moment in modern Jewish history. We agree with him based upon our own experiences of these past three months and based upon the experiences of our forebears that we have heard from them directly or read about in the pages of history texts.

As an educator’s educator, Bryfman’s observations about the impact of October 7 upon the modern Jewish classroom, demand our attention. GAJE does not, indeed cannot, judge his conclusions, other than to say they warrant widespread assessment by experts in the field. To us, Bryfman’s suggestions commend themselves as self-evident truths. He posed five questions for immediate discussion. (We have truncated the commentary that he added to each question.)

• What is the relationship between the head (cognitive), heart (affective), and hands (behavioural) of Jewish education? Bryfman notes that “recent weeks have revealed that generations of Jews, even if proud of being Jewish, are largely illiterate regarding some of the very basics of Jewish life, history, and Israel.”

• How, when, and why do we teach antisemitism? “Pogroms, blood libels, and Jewish control of the world are 21st-century memes that have resurfaced in ugly ways that cannot be ignored or relegated to the pages of Jewish history. And yet, Jewish education cannot rely on victimhood to establish either Jewish guilt or pride.”

• How do we love both our family and humanity as a whole? Jewish educators must be able to grapple with questions of Jewish tribalism and universalism, with unequivocal dedication to both.

• What time do we dedicate to Israel education? In the limited time all of us have with learners we must make difficult choices about what to teach, based in part on what learners need most, right now. …At certain junctures Jewish educators will need to consider whether Jewish education is about preserving the past or about preparing for the realities of today and tomorrow.

• What does it mean to be a proactive Jewish educator? We must be able to respond to what 21st-century Jews need. Especially now, the answers should not and cannot look the same as when most Jewish educational organizations were first developed.

After posing the questions and pointed commentary, Bryfman urges all stakeholders in the enterprise of delivering Jewish education to begin educational reassessment immediately.

“It has become increasingly evident,” Bryfman says, “that reluctance to engage in these discussions would be a failure with massive consequences – namely the disenfranchisement of generations of Jews who right now arguably need us more than ever.” (Our emphasis)

Wherever the Jewish curriculum lands as a result of October 7, GAJE will ever be devoted to trying to help make it truly affordable.

Bryfman’s article is available at: https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-775975

•••

If you wish to contribute to GAJE’s lawsuit for fairness in educational funding, 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

Grassroots for Affordable Jewish Education (GAJE)

January 12, 2024

In three months, at Pesach, we will have completed nine years since the founding of GAJE. Our mission was then, and remains, to help make Jewish education in our community affordable for every family that wishes to send its children to a Jewish day school.

It was our view in the Spring of 2015 that “the affordability of Jewish education is the most important immediate and long-term priority for our community leaders…. By striving to make Jewish education more affordable, we fulfill a moral obligation to our community and a historic obligation to the wider Jewish people.”

That is still our view today.

October 7 and its disheartening aftermath, alas, have added laser-light clarity to that view and has unambiguously, if painfully, affirmed the pre-eminent importance of Jewish education.

The aftermath of October 7 has reminded us, especially outside of Israel, that a strong, resolute, organized and caring community is the chief instrument of our first response to threats to Jewish survival. The shared, concentric nucleic circle of our lives is the Judaism of common history, traditions, values, and purpose. It is the foundation of the remarkable architecture we call “community” that connects us one to the other and helps sustain us through travail and challenge.

History has taught us that the best – though not the only – way to build community and a sense of peoplehood among Jews is through education. There is no mystery to this formula.

Rabbi Marc D. Angel, whom we have often quoted in this weekly update, reminds us that “Children are not born into a historical vacuum. They are heirs to the generations of their family going back through the centuries and millennia….[T]he challenge to the older generations is to transmit to the new generations a feeling of connectedness with the past.”

Wherever Jews have lived throughout our long history – in the Land of Israel and in our wanderings – we have always ensured that feelings of connectedness with the past inspired the building and maintaining of a structure of community.

Taking their cue from the Bible, our Sages referred to this structure as a “holy community” (kehila kedosha). What made the community “holy”, our Sages took great pains to remind us, was how we behaved, especially one toward the other. Very few among us, if any, needs reminding after October 7, that if there were ever a time to demonstrate holiness as a community one toward the other, that time is now.

Holiness – kehila kedosha – begins with education. Education leads to the establishment of true community. Community directs actions and behaviours whose highest aim is to demonstrate care and concern one for the other. And that leads us back to kehila kedosha, which in turn, brings us to the importance of affordable Jewish education.

Ontario’s educational funding supports and prefers one religion to the exclusion of the others in our province. Indeed, to the ongoing perplexity and frustration of most knowledgeable observers, Ontario contributes nothing to enable families to enroll their children in independent schools – unlike the educational funding practices of the next five most populous provinces in the country.

As readers of this weekly update know, GAJE launched an application in court to compel Ontario to change its unfair, anachronistic policies. The government tried to have our application thrown out of court without a hearing on its merits. They then brought a motion for permission to appeal the ruling. We await the outcome of the government’s motion for leave to appeal.

•••

If you wish to contribute to GAJE’s lawsuit for fairness in educational funding, 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

Grassroots for Affordable Jewish Education (GAJE)

January 5, 2024