The return this week to school by GTA-area children was accompanied by the earnest hopes and deeply felt prayers of their parents that this coming year be a “normal” one. Parental hopes and prayers are but one side of a golden coin. The other side of the coin is an unending reservoir of appreciation, gratitude and thanks to the teachers and the administrators.

The educators’ dedication to their charges – our children and grandchildren – has not gone unnoticed. It must never go unappreciated.

Judith Talesnick, managing director of professional learning and growth at The Jewish Education Project in New York recently wrote an essay for eJewishPhilanthropy entitled Teacher wellness: Relaxation and recovery, in which she conveys appreciation for the herculean efforts by educators to teach through Covid as well as concern for teachers’ health for the upcoming year should the virus disrupt the classrooms as it did a year ago.

“With the rise of the Delta variant, the giddiness of the post-vaccination summer is now replaced by the dread of illness and return of stricter COVID restrictions. Elementary school teachers may have to return to concurrent, hybrid and Zoom teaching. No one can predict how students or teachers will respond to the reality that 2021-22 may look like last year and feel even worse because of the anticipation of “being done with COVID.”

“Yet, regardless of the circumstances and challenges, parents and students continue to rely on day school teachers and administrators to provide quality educational experiences, strong community relationships and a safe place to grow.”

Talesnick offers a detailed prescription for quick intervention to support and bolster teachers should the need arise due to the unhappy, oppressive re-intrusion of the virus into our communities.

It is a worthy article for indeed, our teachers are also our heroes.

The full article is available at:

Teacher wellness: Relaxation and recovery

•••

Readers of this weekly report know, GAJE will soon be asking the court to reassess the correctness of the Supreme Court’s decision in 1996 (Adler) in light of the circumstances of Ontario in 2021. As readers know it is this decision which ruled Ontario could legally fund the educational system of only one religion. The Court did not prevent Ontario from extending funding to other, independent, denominational schools. Nor, does Ontario suggest that its policy is fair to non-Catholics. Rather, Ontario simply believes it is immune from being legally compelled to change its policy. 

We thank everyone who has contributed to help fund the lawsuit. We are deeply appreciative of your joining our cause. We are nearly half way to the amount needed.

This is our generation’s opportunity to try to end the funding discrimination that has existed in Ontario for more than 25 years. If we do not try, who will?  Please help us make this happen! And please tell your friends to join in our effort.

It is our fervent hope that together, from strength to strength, we will be able to end the discrimination in Ontario’s educational funding.

To donate to this important cause, 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.

 •••

Be safe. Be well.

Shabbat shalom. And…Gmar Chatimah Tovah.

Grassroots for Affordable Jewish Education (GAJE)  

September 10, 2021

Next week brings two beginnings: Rosh Hashana 5782 and the return to school for most of our children. It will indeed be a meaningful week.

At least for a few moments next week we will likely think about the significance and the frailty of our lives even as we pray that our children – all children – will be blessed with a year of normal, in-class, person-to-person, healthy schooling.

It is no exaggeration to write that our defining hopes and aspirations as caring, committed and giving individuals – connected to our people’s past and to its future – are captured in the images of the youngsters back at school.

Two years ago, on the eve of Rosh Hashana, we referred to a statement by Prof. Irving Abella. We do so again for it elegantly and movingly gives expression to those hopes and aspirations.

“It seemed self-evident that the major challenge to our Jewish leadership in the next generation should be building a Jewish community that is not simply concerned with survival, but one that is creative and attractive to our children – a community with substance and content, a community that stresses not only memory but other important values of our traditions – primarily social justice, equity, compassion and spirituality. We pride in its activities and achievements. We will have to find ways to convert alienation to action and passivity to pride, the pride of being possessors of a great legacy, a legacy which has meaning for today and beyond.”

Prof. Abella wrote those words some 25 years ago. They appeared in a collection of essays entitled Creating the Jewish Future. They were deeply relevant then. They remain so today, as they surely will be in every generation. Bless him for having done so.

Most of us understand, however, that creating a “legacy which has meaning for today and beyond” requires excellent, immersive, meaningful, accessible Jewish education in all its diverse, effective manifestations. But to be accessible, the education must be affordable.

We point out the irony that flashes at us like a neon sign at midnight. Prof. Abella wrote those words the same year that the Supreme Court decided the Adler case, in which the Court ruled Ontario could legally fund the educational system of only one religion. The decision did not prevent Ontario from extending funding to other, independent, denominational schools. Nor, does Ontario suggest that its policy is fair to non-Catholics. Rather, Ontario simply believes it is immune from being legally compelled to change its policy. 

Readers of this weekly report know, one of the key ways to making Jewish education affordable is by asking the court to reassess the correctness and applicability of the 1996 Adler to the circumstances of Ontario in 2021. And as readers also know, that is what GAJE is doing.

The total cost for proceeding with the case, from the trial all the way to the Supreme Court, is approximately $250,000. To date, we have raised some 40 percent of that amount. As we have done each week for the past many weeks, we turn to you for help to raise the balance.

This is our generation’s opportunity to try to end the funding discrimination that has existed in Ontario for more than 25 years. If we do not try, who will?  Please help us make this happen! And please tell your friends to join in our effort.

To donate to this important cause, 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.

We thank everyone who has contributed to the funding of the lawsuit. We are deeply appreciative of your joining our cause. It is our fervent hope that together, from strength to strength, we will be able to end the discrimination in Ontario’s educational funding.

 •••

Be safe. Be well.

Shabbat shalom. And, Shana tovah umetukah.

Grassroots for Affordable Jewish Education (GAJE)  

September 3, 2021

The editorial in The Canadian Jewish News on November 28, 1996 was a reaction to the Supreme Court’s release of its decision in the Adler case.

It is this case, as readers of this weekly update know, that provides the government of Ontario its legal “cover” for discriminating in educational funding against Ontario children in independent schools. It is to ask the courts to reassess the Adler case, in light of changing circumstances since 1996, that GAJE has retained the services of renowned counsel David Matas.

The following is excerpted from that 1996 editorial.

“The majority of the court determined that Ontario’s full funding of Roman Catholic separate schools was a result of the “historical compromise” crucial to Confederation. Because of this, the Ontario government’s funding practice toward the Catholic schools could not be impugned. But this reasoning misses, almost entirely, the main thrust of the community’s argument. The nub of the grievance against the government is not in the 12-year-old decision to extend full funding to the Catholic schools, but rather, in its constant refusal to extend any funding to other religious schools. The “historic compromise” was never the object of attack but rather the basis of comparison. The argument by the non-Catholic communities rests on fairness not on history.

“If individual Ontarians were to behave as their provincial government does, namely, discriminating on the basis of religion, they would be brought to account; they would meet the full justice of the law, and rightly so, for “[E]very person has a right to equal treatment with respect to services…without discrimination because of…creed…”  This is not simply a noble sentiment; it is the very first provision of the Human Rights Code of Ontario. But the conduct of the government towards the non-Catholic schools seems not even to contradict the Human Rights Code.

“There is however, one argument in particular for continuing the unfair treatment, which we feel compelled to answer. Simply put, the argument holds that education in religious schools is somehow an impediment to fostering a common Canadian identity. The argument is fallacious and, in a sense, offensive.

“It is fallacious because it ignores the fact that five other provinces already provide some public funding to private, religious schools without any fear whatsoever that the graduates will turn out, somehow, less Canadian. It ignores the fact that the general studies curriculum is established by ministry officials and follows provincial (Canadian) guidelines. But worse, the underlying premise of the argument, namely, that the religious component of the education will likely lead to exclusionist behavior by the graduates from those schools, panders to the most unforgiving stereotypes. 

“Jewish Canadians are as proud of their Canadianism as is any other identifiable group in this country. Our commitment to Canada’s well-being is not less than that of any Canadians. And our contribution to Canada’s development, prosperity and social justice since our arrival to her shores have been of equal vigor to that of any other group that dwells here. Is our attachment to this country diminished in any way by our millennial attachment to the values, traditions, customs, and religious practices of the Jewish faith or by our desire to transmit that faith to our children?

“Does anyone question the attachment of Catholics to Canada on account of their attachment to their faith? Are Catholic children less Canadian for having graduated from Catholic schools? The very notion is absurd.

“Is the definition of “Canadian” so meagre in Ontario that it cannot also include the desire and the equal opportunity to perpetuate one’s faith? What the religious communities understand, including the Catholic community, is that the definition of Canada is sufficiently expansive and sufficiently exhilarating to embrace the diverse faiths of all who live here and who strive with all their might to build and to benefit this great, bounteous land.”

•••

The Supreme Court’s decision did not prevent Ontario from extending funding to independent schools. Nor does Ontario suggest that its policy is fair to non-Catholics.  Rather, Ontario simply believes it is immune from being legally compelled to change its policy. 

Ontario’s indifference to the dangerous COVID-19 health risks for children attending independent schools proves that the courts are our only option for ending Ontario’s discrimination. Ontario was not moved by conscience to do the right thing for the children attending independent schools. We hope the courts will align the law with conscience.

The total cost for proceeding with the case, from the trial all the way to the Supreme Court, is approximately $250,000. To date, we have raised some 40 percent of that amount. As we have done each week for the past many, we turn to you for help to raise the balance.

This is our generation’s opportunity to try to end the funding discrimination that has existed in Ontario for more than 25 years. If we do not try, who will?  Please help us make this happen! And please tell your friends to join in our effort.

To donate to this important cause, 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.

 •••

We recommend an important article written by Daniel Held, Executive Director of UJA Federation of Greater Toronto’s Koschitzky Centre for Jewish Education. In the article, entitled Shifting Cultures for a More Attainable Judaism, Held writes “It’s expensive to be Jewish: Jewish education and Jewish food, Jewish neighborhoods and Jewish experiences are all expensive. But we cannot afford for the cost of Jewish living to drive people away from our community.”

And so, Held proposes a new conceptual community-wide approach for trying to ensure that Jews – of all ages and financial capabilities – feel that they belong to and participate in the life of the Jewish community.

Held’s article is available at: https://www.wexnerfoundation.org/shifting-cultures-for-a-more-attainable-judaism/

•••

Be safe. Be well.

Thank you.

Shabbat shalom.

Grassroots for Affordable Jewish Education (GAJE)  

August 27, 2021

It was not the main or even a minor reason for the Supreme Court’s decision some 25 years ago in the famous Adler case. However, Madame Justice McLachlin’s singularly devastating comment has survived in popular legal folklore and outlasted the majority opinion like a shining suit made of very loud, iridescent blue fabric that hangs in the closet and that we occasionally look at but never wear again.

She ruled that Ontario’s educational funding of only one religion had indeed violated the Adlers’ and other applicants’ charter rights. But she also ruled that the violation was legally justified as a way of protecting the public school system because, she implied, only public schools foster “a more tolerant, harmonious multicultural society.”

Thus, in this one essentially, throw-away comment, Justice McLachlin encouraged an image of independent schools and of the children who graduate from them, that was as unfortunate as it was inaccurate. It is this “off-register” image that independent schools and their respective parent bodies have strived to correct ever since. But to no avail with the Ontario government.

The independent think tank Cardus, whose academic research and popular writings GAJE has occasionally referenced in this space, has recently published a paper called Good Schools, Good Citizens: Do Independent Schools Contribute to Civic Formation? that attempts directly to correct the incorrect impression that independent schools and their graduates are somehow stumbling blocks to the creation of a tolerant, harmonious, multicultural society.

The 34-page study, written by Ashley Berner, is required reading. We reproduce only a few paragraphs from its Executive Summary.

“The vast majority of democracies have pluralist education systems: where the state, individuals, and civil society play equally important roles in democratic education. The goal of such educational pluralism is to maximize the freedom of schools to create their own organic communities with a common ethos and distinctive practices, while assuring the public of academic and civic quality with respect to outcomes.

“Is there evidence that this balance leads to success? Individually and collectively, the preponderance of findings on independent-school attendance after controlling for family background illustrate that the fear of independent schools’ negative impact on civic life remains misplaced. For example, a recent analysis of thirty-four quantitative studies on the effects of independent and state schools on civic outcomes yielded eighty-six separate statistically significant findings; fifty showed a clear independent-school advantage, thirty-three found neutral effects, and only three showed a state-school advantage.

“Independent schools can offer substantial benefits to civic formation. They do not inherently harm social cohesion as some critics fear; indeed, on almost every measure, independent-school attendance enhances civic outcomes. Thus, democratic policy-makers can have confidence that expanding access to independent schools while ensuring their quality is likely to enhance the civic capabilities of young people and lead, eventually, to a more civically integrated and politically engaged public.

“…Independent schools, in particular, play a positive role in inculcating the knowledge, skills, and habits that animate lifelong democratic participation. The key is honouring religious, philosophical, and pedagogical beliefs of families and students while ensuring robust knowledge-building for all.”

The full report is available at:

Good Schools, Good Citizens

•••

As readers of this weekly update know, GAJE has hired a team of lawyers lead by the distinguished human rights, constitutional law advocate David Matas, to end the educational funding discrimination in Ontario that has persisted since the Adler case was decided in 1996.

The Supreme Court’s decision did not prevent Ontario from extending funding to independent schools. Nor does Ontario suggest that its policy is fair to non-Catholics.  Rather, Ontario simply believes it is immune from being legally compelled to change its policy because the Adler decision upheld its policy based largely on what many now consider to be an antiquated view of the relationship between our Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the 1867 Constitution. 

The cost for proceeding with the case, from the trial all the way to the Supreme Court, is approximately $250,000. To date, we have raised a third of the required funds. As we have done each week for the past many, we turn to you for help to raise the balance.

Ontario’s indifference to the dangerous COVID-19 health risks for children attending independent schools should prove, finally, that behind-the-scenes lobbying or private/public attempts at moral suasion to bring about an end to the discrimination in Ontario’s educational funding have not worked and will not work. The courts now are our only option. Ontario was not moved by conscience to do the right thing for the children attending independent. We hope the courts will align the law with conscience.

This is our generation’s opportunity to try to end the funding discrimination that has existed in Ontario for more than 25 years. If we do not try, who will? It is an imperative that calls upon our consciences

Please help us make this happen! And please tell your friends to join in our effort.

To donate to this important cause, 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.

 •••

Be safe. Be well.

Thank you.

Shabbat shalom.

Grassroots for Affordable Jewish Education (GAJE)  

August 20, 2021

As readers of the GAJE weekly update know, the federal government gave Ontario $763 million, part of a Safe Return to Class Fund, specifically earmarked to protect the health and safety of children in Ontario’s education sector. Queen’s Park however distributed not one penny of the fund for the benefit of the 150,000 children in independent schools even though the figure of $763 million itself was based on the number of children ages 4-18 attending all schools in Ontario.

This week Toronto Cheder, Metropolitan Preparatory Academy in Toronto, and Woodland Christian High School in Kitchener appeared in court to try to compel the Government of Ontario to distribute some portion at least of the $763 million for the health and safety of children attending independent schools. The court reserved its decision in the case and hopes to bring it forth by the return to school in September.

By denying independent schools any part of the funds intended to assist schools in enacting safety measures to cope with and stave off the dangerous effects of the pandemic, the Government of Ontario has shown an inexplicable, inexcusable indifference to the health and safety of children in independent schools. Why?

In explaining the government’s decision, its lawyers told the court that the law (i.e., Ontario educational funding policy) allows the government to distribute funds to public schools alone. Indeed, they deliberately and misleadingly referred to independent schools as businesses. They seemed unmoved by the fact that the Covid-19 pandemic created a public health crisis that affected the children in Ontario’s independent schools. There was no legal obligation upon the Minister of Education, the lawyers argued, to pay any heed to the impact of the ubiquitous Corona virus on children in non-public schools. 

As readers of this weekly update also know, GAJE will also be going to court to try to bring an end to Ontario’s educational funding that discriminates against independent religious and other non-religious independent schools in favour of Catholic schools.

Once again, as we have done each week for the past many, we turn to you for help.

The cost for prosecuting the case, from the trial all the way to the Supreme Court is approximately $250,000. To date, we have raised nearly a third of the required funds. Please help us raise the balance.

Ontario’s indifference to the dangerous COVID-19 health ramifications for children attending independent schools should proves, finally, that behind-the-scenes lobbying or private/public attempts at moral suasion in bringing about an end to the discrimination in Ontario’s educational funding simply do not work. The courts now are our only option.

This is our generation’s opportunity to try to end the funding discrimination that has existed in Ontario for more than 25 years. If we do not try, who will? It is an imperative that calls upon our consciences

Please help us make this happen! And please tell your friends to join in our effort.

To donate to this important cause, 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 only and exclusively to underwrite the costs of the lawsuit.

 •••

Be safe. Be well.

Thank you.

Shabbat shalom.

Grassroots for Affordable Jewish Education (GAJE)  

August 13, 2021

One of GAJE’s longstanding supporters brought to our attention the following instruction to the Jews of America from the late Rabbi Adin Even Israel Steinsaltz. It was a timely missive to GAJE for only recently, on the 17^th day of Av (July 26), the Jewish world commemorated the revolutionary scholar, visionary, teacher, rabbi’s first yahrzeit.

“Jews in the Diaspora have only two choices. Either they can give up, close shop, and say “We are defeated,” or they can create a new way, a new hope.  If people want to go on, if they have a feeling that there is something in it, if the memory of the half-obliterated document still possesses some compelling power, then the Jewish life in this place must be rebuilt. Let me say something full of chutzpah: there is a need for, a use for, and even a possibility of making this place something like Galut Bavel, the ancient Jewish place of exile in Babylonia. 

It is possible to create a second center, comparable to, possibly better than, the main center in Israel. But to accomplish this, one has to do much more than survive. If you cannot do it right, if you cannot create something that will be worthwhile spiritually and intellectually, it is not worth doing at all.

Such an effort would require massive change, not just in priorities, but also in the way people want to do things. It means both a different plan and a different way of planning. It means making big changes in what people are interested in and what they invest in.” 

You see, Jewish education is not just for children, but also for the parents and grandparents of those children, so as to ensure that every grandchild of every Jew remains a Jew.”

Rabbi Steinsaltz speaks to us from the past. But his words are always alive.

As our followers know, GAJE is committed to helping make more affordable the considerable investment in Jewish education expended by each family that wishes it for their children.

And as our followers also know, GAJE will be challenging in court Ontario’s unfair educational funding in court that discriminates against independent religious and other non-religious independent schools in favour of Catholic schools.

Our lawyers are donating much of their time and expertise. The cost for prosecuting the case, from the trial all the way to the Supreme Court is approximately $250,000. Thus far we have raised about a quarter of the funds. We need your help to raise the balance.

Ontario has resisted all efforts of moral and other suasion to change its policies. The courts now are our only option. This is our generation’s opportunity to try to end the funding discrimination that has existed in Ontario for more than 25 years. If we do not try, who will? It is an imperative that calls upon our consciences

Please help us make this happen! And please tell your friends to join in our effort.

Hearing Rabbi Steinsaltz’ voice brings us to the line. Heeding it is where we start.

To donate to this important cause, 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.

 •••

Be safe. Be well.

Thank you.

Shabbat shalom.

Grassroots for Affordable Jewish Education (GAJE)  

August 6, 2021

The collective, society-wide, national campaign against the Covid pandemic shone an unflattering but illuminating light on Ontario’s relentless discrimination against the families who send their children to independent schools.

Without remorse or any public explanation, Queen’s Park refused to distribute to independent schools their portion of the $763 million federal Covid Safe Return to Class Fund specifically earmarked to help schools protect all Ontario schoolchildren ages 4-18.

The discrimination is simply too much for some independent schools. They can no longer ignore the injustice.  Thus, Toronto Cheder, Metropolitan Preparatory Academy in Toronto, and Woodland Christian High School in Kitchener are suing the Government of Ontario to distribute to independent schools the share of the federal funds owing to them by virtue of the federal government’s funding formula. A court hearing is scheduled for August 9.

The issue at stake in the lawsuit was deftly explained this week by Allan Kaufman and Ira Walfish in an op-ed in the National Post. Kaufman and Walfish are both long-time advocates for fairness in Ontario’s education funding policies. Indeed, Walfish is a director of TeachOn, an advocacy organization for school choice. He submitted an affidavit in this lawsuit.

Kaufman and Walfish wrote: “Ontario received $763 million from the fund, which is proportional to its total population of school-age children, 150,000 of whom are enrolled in independent schools. Since about 25 per cent of Ontario’s schools are independent, that means that one in four Ontario schools were denied the benefit of funds set aside by the federal government for their protection from COVID-19.

“The Trudeau government had paid Ontario its portion of the Safe Return to Class Fund calculated on the inclusion of those 150,000 independent-school students. The Ontario government took the money and then proceeded to exclude those same students, and their schools and staff, from receiving any portion of those funds.

“Why, then, did Ontario count those 150,000 children in the first place, to determine its share of the money from the fund? Was it solely to qualify for a larger share?

“The government had no problem ordering both public and private schools to close during parts of the pandemic, but failed to provide independent schools with the necessary funds to reopen safely when the time came.”

B’nai Brith Canada is an intervenor in the case.

As our followers know, GAJE too will be challenging the ongoing unfair educational funding of the Government of Ontario in court. But our effort will be aimed at remedying Ontario’s broader educational funding policies that relentlessly discriminate against independent religious and other non-religious independent schools other than Catholic schools.

Our lawyers are donating much of their time and expertise. The cost for prosecuting the case, from the trial all the way to the Supreme Court is approximately $250,000. Thus far we have raised about a quarter of the funds. We need your help in raising the balance.

This is our generation’s opportunity to correct the funding discrimination that has existed in Ontario for more than 25 years. If we do not try to end the injustice, who will? It is an imperative that calls upon our consciences. Ontario has shown itself immune to all efforts and moral and other suasion to ask it to change its policies. The courts now are our only viable option.

Please join us in making this happen! Please tell your friends to join in our effort.

Charitable receipts for donations for income tax purposes will be issued by Mizrachi Canada.

To donate to this important cause, please click here.

(For further information, please contact Israel Mida at imida1818@gmail.com)

 •••

Be safe. Be well.

Thank you.

Shabbat shalom.

Grassroots for Affordable Jewish Education (GAJE)  

July 30, 2021

The National Post article can be found at:

https://nationalpost.com/opinion/opinion-ontario-shamelessly-withholding-covid-funding-from-private-schools

The impact of the news story felt more like a knife into the heart than a shudder of concern. The JTA last week published the results of a survey of Jewish voters in the United States. The survey was commissioned by the Jewish Electorate Institute, a “group led by prominent Jewish Democrats”. It was conducted after the recent fighting between Israel and Hamas. Images of the conflict still sat heavy in the online chat rooms and brazen expressions of hatred against Israel and Jews saturated countless social media platforms.

The following were some of the key findings of the survey:

• 34% of respondents agreed that “Israel’s treatment of Palestinians is similar to racism in the United States;

• 25% agreed that “Israel is an apartheid state”,

• 22% agreed that “Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinians”, and

• 9% of voters agreed that “Israel doesn’t have a right to exist.”

Younger voters who took part in the survey apparently agreed with the above statements in even higher proportions.  

To care about the future of the second largest Jewish community on earth and its seemingly diminishing sense of shared peoplehood with the rest of the world’s Jews is to be profoundly shocked at the results of the above survey results entail. It portends only bad.

Even if we explain the survey results as stemming from disdain for policies of Israel’s former right-wing government, as well as acknowledged short-term spiking effects from unceasing media bombardment of overwhelmingly negative images, headlines, reporting and commentary, how can we explain the embrace by so many of our fellow Jews of palpably observable falsehoods and lies about State of Israel?

The answer is: most of these primarily young Jews simply don’t know the truth about Israel, about Israel’s many spurned attempts to reach an agreement with Palestinian leaders, about the justice of its cause or about the long historical cause of its justice. They do not know enough to recognize and reject the lies. They do not know how to befriend, let alone defend the tiny, sole Jewish State on the planet.

Jewish education does not guarantee that our young Jewish adults will indeed acquire the ability or the inclination to reject calumny and falsehoods against Israel and Jews. But it is the best bet.

To help bring Jewish education to all of the families that seek it for their children, that education must be affordable. To help make it affordable we need your help to bring an end to Ontario’s discrimination in educational funding. 

GAJE will be challenging Ontario’s policies in court. Our lawyers are donating much of their time and expertise. The cost for prosecuting the case, from the trial phase to the end of an appeal in the Supreme Court is in the range of $250,000. Thus far we have raised about a quarter of the funds needed. We need your help to raise the rest. Ours is a one-time request to cover legal costs through to the outcome at the Supreme Court of Canada.

Please join us in making this happen! Please tell your friends to join in our effort.

This is our generation’s opportunity to correct the funding discrimination that has existed in Ontario for more than 25 years. If we do not try to end the injustice, who will? It is an imperative that calls upon our consciences for the sake of our people and now too, alas, for the sake of preserving the truth.

Charitable receipts for donations for income tax purposes will be issued by Mizrachi Canada.

To donate to this important cause, please click here.

(For further information, please contact Israel Mida at imida1818@gmail.com)

 •••

Be safe. Be well.

Thank you.

Shabbat shalom.

Grassroots for Affordable Jewish Education (GAJE)  

July 23, 2021

The JTA article can be found at:

Survey: A quarter of US Jews agree that Israel ‘is an apartheid state’

Ontario’s anachronistic, unfair, discriminatory educational funding policies are not only an abiding concern for GAJE and for the parents of children attending Jewish day schools or indeed all independent schools in the province. They have now also caught the wider attention of scholars and students at home and abroad.

For example, Prof. David S. Koffman of York University, has recently edited an anthology of essays under the deliberately provocative title No Better Home: Jews, Canada, and the Sense of Belonging, (University of Toronto Press, 2021). He has assembled an impressive array of scholars to provide singular aspects to the many-aspected question: ‘has there ever been a better home for the Jews than Canada?’

One of those scholars is Prof. Randal F. Schnoor of the Koschitzky Centre for Jewish Studies at York University. Prof. Schnoor specializes in the qualitative study of contemporary Canadian Jewish life. In the essay, Jewish Education in Canada and the United Kingdom, he insightfully examines primarily the strength of Jewish day school education in Canada by comparing it with that in the United Kingdom. The essay is instructive and rich in detail regarding the historic and current approach to the funding of Jewish education throughout Canada. Prof. Schnoor pays particular attention to the day school situation in Greater Toronto. When he does, of course, he focuses with laser clarity on the crisis of affordability. He even cites and footnotes data provided GAJE.

“Many Jews in Ontario feel that their rights of equal citizenship are being violated,” Prof. Schnoor notes in reference to Ontario’s discriminatory educational funding policies. However, in answer to the question, “No better home for Jews than Canada?” Prof. Schnoor responds rather bitingly: “For those who are convinced that Jewish day schools are essential for perpetuating Jewish culture into future generations – and there are many who are so convinced – there are better homes for Jews than Canada. There are other countries that have structural conditions in place that make these schools much more affordable and thus allow for a more widespread immersion of Jewish culture into the lives of young Jews.” (Our emphasis)

In another example of the head-shaking wrought by Ontario’s unfair policies, an M.A. student in the Department of Political Science at Tel Aviv University recently contacted GAJE to assist her with research for the thesis she is writing on “government funding of religious education in the liberal state.”  Her thesis focuses on the difference in educational funding for the Jewish communities in Toronto and in Montreal.

The writer stated that she is “eager to show that the Jewish community is doing its utmost to maintain and develop its education system, and therefore is ready to fight the [Ontario’s funding] policy.” As a result, she contacted GAJE to ascertain:

• if our legal initiative is the most recent one;

• whether there were other initiatives of this nature in the past, and

• whether there are/were other grassroot, non-profit organizations involved in the campaign to change Ontario’s education policies.

GAJE answered the questions she posed. The writer wished us good luck in our legal campaign to bring fairness to a patently unfair funding system.

There is no doubt that it is becoming more widely known that Ontario is the only province in Canada that fully funds the education of the adherents of one faith alone (Roman Catholics) within its public education system; and that it is the only province outside the Maritimes that does not contribute any funding whatsoever to the general studies portion of its independent schools.

We therefore seek your help…

…in ending Ontario’s discrimination in educational funding by helping bringing the case to the courts.

Our lawyers are donating much of their time and expertise. The cost for prosecuting the case, from the trial phase to the end of an appeal in the Supreme Court is in the range of $250,000. Thus far we have raised about a quarter of the funds needed. We need your help to raise the rest. Ours is a one-time request to cover legal costs through to the outcome at the Supreme Court of Canada.

Please join us in making this happen! Please tell your friends to join in our effort.

This is our generation’s opportunity to fight for equal citizenship, to correct the funding discrimination that has existed in Ontario for more than 25 years.  If we do not try to end the injustice, who will?

Charitable receipts for donations for income tax purposes will be issued by Mizrachi Canada.

To donate to this important cause, please click here.

For further information, please contact Israel Mida at imida1818@gmail.com

 •••

Be safe. Be well.

Thank you.

Shabbat shalom.

Grassroots for Affordable Jewish Education (GAJE)  

July 16, 2021

David Matas was featured in an article last week in Canadian Lawyer Magazine. Under the headline, Human Rights Lawyer David Matas Continues to Fight for The Dispossessed, the author of the article, Zena Olijnky, briefly traces Matas’ family history as the inspiration, the incubating source, for his lifelong dedication to the betterment of humanity.

Olijnky writes “with such a family legacy, it’s easy to see why…Matas would be such a passionate advocate of campaigns to stop human rights abuses around the world. He has been involved in numerous national and international human rights groups and was named to the Order of Canada in 2008 for his contributions to human rights legislation and immigration and refugee law.

“In 2010, Mr. Matas and former Edmonton MP David Kilgour were nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for four years of investigative work into allegations that Falun Gong followers in China were being killed for the harvesting of their organs.

“In January, Matas was awarded the first-ever Global Humanitarian Leader of the Year award by the human rights group Canadians in Support of Refugees in Dire Need (CSRDN). The award recognizes outstanding individuals, organizations and programs that “uphold the principles of peace, justice and mercy, irrespective of race, colour or religion.”

“Matas has also been a long-time senior legal counsel for B’nai Brith Canada. Recently, the organization has launched a new law society, named in his honour. It will operate as a subcommittee of B’nai Brith Canada’s League for Human Rights.”

Matas is also a Senior Fellow with the Montreal-based Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights, whose website describes him, in part, as “a voice of conscience in Canada and beyond, he has been a leader in the most important international human rights struggles of the era.

We call readers’ attention to David Matas’ expertise and wide local and international renown because he is the leader of the legal team that will try to bring an end to Ontario’s discriminatory educational funding policy. We want readers of this update and supporters of this cause to understand that the values that inform the teachings, traditions and morality of the Judaism that Jewish education can transmit to our children, are the very same values that underpin advocacy “to stop human rights abuses around the world” that has been the life’s work of David Matas.

Seeking to end Ontario’s unfair, unjust, discriminatory educational funding is part of the same human rights fabric that strives to “uphold the principles of peace, justice and mercy, irrespective of race, colour or religion.”

Ontario is the only province that fully funds the education of the adherents of one faith alone (Roman Catholics) within its public education system. Moreover, it is the only province outside the Maritimes that does not contribute any funding whatsoever to the general studies portion of its independent schools.

This discrimination must finally end. Years of waiting and lobbying and hoping for various Ontario governments to change this policy have been in vain. We are now turning to the courts for a remedy.

Ontario does not suggest that its policy is fair to non-Catholics.  Rather, it believes it is immune from being legally compelled to change its policy because a 1996 Supreme Court decision upheld its legislation, based largely on what many now consider to be an antiquated view of the relationship between our Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the 1867 Constitution.  It has been more than 25 years.  The world, and the law, have changed.  The Supreme Court now recognizes that conditions evolve and change is possible and sometimes even necessary. In fact, it has reversed itself in several major cases in the last few years.  Old decisions are not written in stone.

Since 1996, the situation in Ontario has changed. Polls suggest a majority of Ontarians are in favor of more choice in their children’s schooling. In addition, there have been changes in the development of the law. The legal team believes that our case is compelling, in step with changes since 1996 in the delivery of education here and in other provinces, and resonant with majority attitudes to eliminate blatant discrimination in favour of a fair and just policy.  Success in the courts would result in permanent financial benefits for Jewish schools, and would have far-reaching positive effects on the community as a whole.

But to bring this case and our cause before the courts…

We need your assistance

Our lawyers are donating much of their time and expertise. The cost for prosecuting the case, from the trial phase to the end of an appeal in the Supreme Court is in the range of $250,000. Thus far we have raised about a quarter of the funds needed. We need your help to raise the rest. Our request is foundational aimed at ensuring the permanence of all the schools and thereby improving the lives of families in our community for all time. Moreover, it is a one-time request to cover legal costs, as we have stated, through to the outcome at the Supreme Court of Canada.

Please join us in making this happen! Please tell your friends to join in our effort.

This is our generation’s opportunity to correct the educational funding injustice that has wounded so many families in Ontario for more than 25 years.  If we do not try to end the injustice, who will? Charitable receipts for donations for income tax purposes will be issued by Mizrachi Canada.

To donate to this important cause, please click here.

For further information, please contact Israel Mida at imida1818@gmail.com

Olijnky’s story is available at: https://www.canadianlawyermag.com/practice-areas/personal-injury/human-rights-lawyer-david-matas-continues-to-fight-for-the-dispossessed/357790

•••

Be safe. Be well.

Thank you.

Shabbat shalom.

Grassroots for Affordable Jewish Education (GAJE)

July 9, 2021