Paul Bernstein, the Chief Executive Officer, Prizmah: Center for Jewish Day Schools, published an article last week entitled “Jewish Day Schools Dare to Dream” in which he reported upon the recent Prizmah Conference in Atlanta. The conference encouraged attendees to “dare to dream about what might be possible for day schools today.”

Of course, as we know, what is possible for Jewish schools is exactly also what is necessary for them, namely, “resources for growth and affordability, educational innovation, and powerful networks that enable day schools to learn and grow together.”

The most intriguing aspect of Bernstein’s essay however was his reflection on what it means for families to “sacrifice” when they send their children to Jewish school. He urges readers to reject the notion of sacrifice as something negative. “Making a sacrifice, in the truest sense of the word, is not negative. Sacrifice is an inherently positive, optimistic act.

Bernstein asks: “What role do Jewish day schools play that makes them such a hub of so much sacrifice?”

And then he answers his own question. His answer is pivotal for understanding the everlasting importance of Jewish education. And that is why we point it out. “They [Jewish day schools] enable us…to feel closer to God, to connect to our children, and to build the kind of communities that will sustain us over generations. In a world where love-as-sacrifice is being forgotten, the sacrifice to provide a deep Jewish education is more important than ever. Sacrifice for Jewish day schools brings priceless returns.”

Bernstein’s article is available at:

https://ejewishphilanthropy.com/jewish-day-schools-dare-to-dream/

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GAJE is pleased to bring to the public’s attention that ADRABA (visit site), Toronto’s only full-time Jewish blended-learning high school, invites the community to attend an informational Open House at Congregation Beth Torah, 47 Glenbrook Avenue, on March 27 at 7:30 pm. It will be an opportunity to ask questions about full and part time credits in Jewish learning toward an Ontario Secondary School Diploma.

ADRABA offers full- and part-time Jewish learning, blending traditional teaching with cutting-edge tech, towards an Ontario Secondary School Diploma. 

Anyone interested in attending the Open House is asked RSVP to:  www.adraba.ca/rsvp27mar 

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Shabbat Shalom.

GAJE

Hannah Elkin, a fourth-year Rabbinic and Education student at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Los Angeles, is attempting to help Jewish teens find meaning in Jewish theology, rituals, values and stories as a means to finding meaning in Jewish relationships. To that end, she is focusing on Jewish education as the keystone that will support the architecture of Jewish meaning and belonging.

She recently published an article on the eJewishPhilanthropy site entitled; The Purpose of Jewish Education is to Log In to the Jewish hNetwork.

Her message is an important one for its eloquence, substance and unique perspective. “As a Jewish millennial, I too am searching for deep and authentic spiritual fulfillment,” Elkin writes. “While I certainly find it at times through Buddhist teachings or nature panoramas, my spiritual home is Judaism. I find the greatest joy in the Jewish practices and wisdom that I have found along the way and then incorporated into my life through my own exploration and agency.” 

Her words will resonate with many of her contemporaries.

But her “elders” should also take her words to heart. For in addition to addressing her peers, she is also addressing her parents and grandparents.

“The challenge of Jewish leaders today is to help Jewish learners find the Judaism that is personally meaningful to them, creates opportunities to develop as an individual, and connects them with a community of other engaged and caring Jews.”

In one particular line of argument, she deftly illustrates the indispensability of education as the deep connective tissue to our Judaism.

“What is hateful to you, do not do to another … the rest is commentary.” One of the most commonly quoted sources in Judaism, this verse from Bavli Shabbat 31a describes the piece of wisdom that Hillel supposedly gave to a potential convert to Judaism who requested that Hillel teach him all of the Torah “standing on one foot.” However this pithy expression often leaves out the conclusion of the full saying: “What is hateful to you, do not do to another … the rest is commentary, now go and learn.” The full line clarifies the deeper role of education and learning in Judaism: one might take a piece of wisdom, but do not forget to keep searching for the whole.”

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Elkin’s full article can be found here.

https://ejewishphilanthropy.com/the-purpose-of-jewish-education-is-to-log-in-to-the-jewish-network/

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Shabbat Shalom. GAJE

Posted by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks | Feb 26, 2019 |

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks published an article last month about faith schools in The Times that was subsequently republished on the site of Jeducation.com.

Entitled If Faith Schools are so Bad, Why do Parents Love Them? the article makes key statements about the nature of the education offered in faith schools. Though he bases his observations on the experience in England, Rabbi Sacks, mines for us essential broader truths about life from the narrower vein of faith education.

Why are more and more parents – even those not particularly faith-oriented – seeking faith-based education for their children? Rabbi Sacks asks.

And he provides an answer: “The simple answer is that faith schools tend to have academic success above the average…My tentative suggestion is that faith schools tend to have a strong ethos that emphasizes respect for authority, the virtues of hard work, discipline and a sense of duty, a commitment to high ideals, a willingness to learn, a sense of social responsibility, a preference for earned self-respect rather than unearned self-esteem, and the idea of an objective moral order that transcends subjective personal preference.”

But he stretches his answer even further. He extends it farther meaning to touch the notion that was observed in 2015 by the Supreme Court of Canada in relation to a case involving the exercise of an individual’s religious rights and freedoms and educational instruction. The Court stated that the exercise of an individual’s religious rights could only truly be fulfilled through his or her community since the education about that religion is itself a communal activity.

“But just as – in the words of the African saying – it takes a village to raise a child, so it takes a community to sustain a school, and communities are hard to find these days,” Rabbi Sacks writes. “A community is held together by shared beliefs, traditions, rituals, stories, conventions and codes: the regular enactments of a sense of shared belonging. Communities last longer than any individual, so they preserve a respect for the past and responsibility toward the future. Nowadays it’s hard to find a genuine community outside the world of faith. Lifestyle enclaves, fanclubs, and virtual networks linked by Twitter and Facebook, yes; face-to-face communitas no.

“So it may not be the faith in faith schools that makes them different, so much as the communities that build, support and sustain them. But this fact too should give us pause for thought. For is this not one of the great functions of faith, that it preserves values and institutions that would otherwise be swept away by the tide of time?”

Rabbi Sacks has thus articulated the heart of the argument for ensuring that Jewish education is affordable for all families that seek it for their children.

And may it soon be for the children of our community.

Shabbat Shalom.

GAJE

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Last month (Feb. 8) GAJE wrote about the upcoming ORT Toronto Gala 2019 for Jewish Education. It is a unique endeavour for our community that replicates a successful approach in Montreal to fundraising for formal and informal Jewish educational institutions in community. In addition, the fundraiser also is also aimed at benefiting ORT’s youth village in Kfar Silver, Israel.

The Gala takes place on Tuesday March 26 at 7:00 pm at the Mattamy Centre, formerly Maple Leaf Gardens. The event features a musical celebration of The Beatles’ music led by The Classical Mystery Tour and a 26-member U of T symphony orchestra.

Participants can choose the educational institutions they wish to benefit. The entire proceeds of the cost of admission flow to the institution the participant chooses.

For more information about the event and about the way in which local educational programs benefit from the Gala, call the ORT Toronto Office at 416.787. 0339.

Tickets can be purchased through the ORT website at: https://ort-toronto.org/gala-2019/ or directly through the online form:
https://interland3.donorperfect.net/weblink/WebLink.aspx?name=E920166QE&id=36&formid=362&Preview=true

In addition to featuring the music of The Beatles, the Gala organizers are honouring Toronto-born, renowned educator, scholar, writer, journalist Dr. Seymour Epstein. Affectionately known as Epi, Dr. Epstein has dedicated nearly 50 years to Jewish education – in every sense of the term–in Canada, Morocco, Western Europe and Israel.

His first book, From Couscous to Kasha: Reporting From the Field of Jewish Community Work, was published in 2009. His second book, The Esther Scroll: The Author’s Tale, is being launched on March 13 at 7:30 pm at the Beth Tzedec Congregation, 1700 Bathurst Street.

We urge readers to attend the Gala if possible.

•••

Shabbat Shalom.

GAJE

With the first official day of Spring less than one month away, we take heart if not also hope that we have perhaps passed Winter’s harshest blast. In barely less than one month we will celebrate Purim. One month later, we will be sitting at the Seder table.

But as we are still in Winter’s grasp, and as our children contend with the challenges of the winter along with the challenges of their respective schools, let us find some warmth concerning our children and their future, from Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis, the Chief Rabbi of the U.K who reflected upon the close connection between the very language we use and the essence of trans-generational instruction.

Rabbi Mirvis, some weeks ago stated quite categorically that successful Jewish communities are the ones that establish successful institutes for Jewish education.

Rabbi Mirvis pointed out that the term ‘lehorot’, which our forebear Yaakov spoke to Yehuda as the entire family prepared to move to Egypt, not only means “to show the way”, it also means ‘to teach’. Rabbi Mirvis further noted that ‘Hora’ah’ means ‘to study’, ‘Moreh’ means ‘teacher; ‘Horeh’ means parent. And of course, ‘Torah’ means The Teaching.

Learning, teaching, study are and have been the unshakable foundation supports of our survival as a people. Indeed, the very words we use to communicate learning, teaching and study convey this importance in the deep structure of our ancient-modern language. They are imprinted on our souls as well as on our tongues.

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Shabbat Shalom.

GAJE

It is now beyond doubt that the future of Jewish education is one of the most frequently discussed subjects around the community’s proverbial “water cooler.” The epicentre of the discussion usually focuses on the tuition costs of such education.

Affordability is the key issue of the discussion on Jewish education. Tributaries of related subjects, however, flow from it. For example, many educators, educational administrators and educational policy planners are currently directing their minds to rethinking the delivery of education as a way to make schools more affordable to the large swath of middle income families without compromising the provision of an excellent education.

Hillel David Rapp, Director of Education at Bnei Akiva Schools of Toronto, has recently joined the discussion with an essay entitled “Will we support the day school of tomorrow?”

Rapp combines educational and business expertise and background to challenge us into re-imagining the Jewish day school system of the future. “Instead of working to sustain this system, we should be thinking about redesigning a better system. Along these lines, the edifice of our broader education system may be beginning to show cracks,” he boldly writes.

But rather than simply point to the “cracks” in the current system, Rapp commendably offers a prescription for the possibilities of tomorrow. To his credit, he does not retreat from making suggestions that some might find controversial. He advocates a full embrace of Artificial-Intelligence-Supported Online Learning. Many others do as well in this day and age. Others are more cautious with the integration of on-line learning. Perhaps most provocative is his reference to our current educational system as “yesterday’s school”. The reference is out of regret not out of derision.

Rapp’s essay is a worthwhile read.

•••

Shabbat Shalom.

GAJE

Generosity, caring, giving, helping — tzedakah in the full and profoundly moving meaning of the word –- are embedded into the deep DNA structure of the Jewish people.

From the modest “pushka” into which regular attendees at synagogue drop their coins each morning, to the large capital projects in almost all communities where Jews live that arise due to the philanthropy of civic-minded individuals, or to the unheralded, off-the-record, “quiet” assistance that one person extends to a needy individual, family or a cause, Jews – in the main – have always strived to make things better for the next person, for the community.

Responding affirmatively to the call for help stems from the values that are part of the remarkable legacy bequeathed to each one of us by our ancestors.

In his commentary on this week’s Torah portion, Trumah, Rabbi Marc D. Angel observes “the money we spend is a reflection of our values. The way we allocate our funds… tells us much about the meaning of our prayers and aspirations, and about who we really are.”

Of course, the very entire enterprise of making Jewish education more affordable is one of pleading with members of the wide Jewish community personally to play a role in substantially reducing the tuition costs of Jewish schools and to thus spend money in a manner that also champions the value that sustains Jewish life in perpetuity.

It is therefore in the spirit of Rabbi Angel’s words, that GAJE advises readers of a new fundraising effort in our community — the ORT Toronto Gala 2019 for Jewish Education — a project aimed at benefiting Toronto area Jewish schools, camps, after school programs and ORT’s youth village in Kfar Silver, Israel.

The ORT Gala for Jewish Education is a fixture on the annual communal calendar of Montreal Jewry. Proceeds from the gala are shared there each year with the participating educational institutions and provide invaluable assistance to the schools. ORT Canada is attempting to introduce the Gala in Toronto to benefit formal and informal Jewish education here and to establish the GALA, as in Montreal, as a cherished annual event.

The Toronto GALA takes place on Tuesday March 26 at 7:00 pm at the Mattamy Centre, formerly Maple Leaf Gardens. The event itself is a musical celebration of The Beatles’ music led by The Classical Mystery Tour and a 26-member U of T Symphony Orchestra.

Some readers might be unfamiliar with ORT. It is well credentialed as one of the pre-eminent educational institutions of the Jewish world. Founded in 1880 in Russia to help Jews become economically self-sufficient, ORT today is a renowned educational program –- especially in Israel where it plays a key role in the broader educational system. ORT provides occupational training and vital life skills to hundreds of thousands of students in 59 countries.

For more information about the event and about the unique way in which local educational programs benefit from the GALA, call the ORT Toronto Office at 416.787. 0339.

Tickets can be purchased through the ORT website at: https://ort-toronto.org/gala-2019/ or directly through the online form:
https://interland3.donorperfect.net/weblink/WebLink.aspx?name=E920166QE&id=36&formid=362&Preview=true

We urge readers who are able, to take part in the event.

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Shabbat Shalom.

GAJE

Anna Pava, Chair of the Jewish Federations of North America (JFNA) Office of Education and Engagement published an instructive, important article this past week on the eJewishPhilanthropy website. Entitled Redefining Jewish Education: Federations’ Goals for a New Century, Pava writes that it is through Jewish education that individuals will be able to answer the increasingly asked question “Why be Jewish” and all its various iterations that are increasingly being asked by mostly young North American Jewry.

Writing from the broad “macro” North American perspective, Pava states “Jewish education has transformed to address these questions in a truly diverse and multifaceted landscape of opportunity, for varied ages and stages, happening across settings and around the world.”

She writes with pride about the efforts of Jewish federations across the continent to respond to the urgent double-sided need to bring young Jews to Jewish schools and to make Jewish schools places where young Jews and especially their parents will want to learn.

“As Jews and Jewish life have changed and as Jewish education has transformed, so have Federation priorities. Today, Jewish education and engagement is the cornerstone of federation work,” she writes.

Pava concludes by saying “Jewish education is no longer at the side but at the forefront of what we do. Through experiences and through relationships, through study and through doing, we connect and provide tools for people to raise engaged Jewish families and build Jewish communities of interdependence, warmth and joy.”

GAJE notes Jewish education has always been at the forefront in Greater Toronto community. The Federation of Greater Toronto and its forebears long ago understood the necessary, essential and direct relationship between Jewish education and life-long Jewish engagement. Jewish education has always been a key Federation priority in our community. Indeed, the Federation recently re-emphasized Jewish education’s pre-eminence and announced a reinvigorated effort to make education affordable to all families who seek it for their children.

And as we noted in the weekly update in Dec. 21, Federation deserves kudos – and support from the entire community – for its forward thinking. It has been “at the forefront” for a very long time.

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Shabbat Shalom.

GAJE

As most of the readers of this weekly update know, CIJA–The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs–is a non-partisan, non-profit advocacy agency of the Jewish Federations of Canada. Its broad mandate is to be a voice to government and other high profile decision-making bodies on policy matters that affect the quality of life for the Jewish community of Canada. By advocating on behalf of the welfare of the Jewish community of course, CIJA is also advocating on behalf of the welfare of the general community.

Educational matters are among the many key public policy issues that occupy CIJA’s staff. Some months ago, CIJA launched an initiative – Every Kid Counts – whose aim is to place all Ontario children with learning disabilities on an equal footing in terms of receiving health support services from the Government of Ontario.

Each year, CIJA consults directly from members of the community to hear what we consider to be the most important policy priorities for the Jewish community. That direct consultation in the Greater Toronto Area is taking place from January 27 – January 30. To be part of this consultation, individuals must register online.

The schedule for the CIJA consultations is:

• Toronto North: Sunday, January 27th at 10:00 AM
• Thornhill: Tuesday, January 29th at 7:00 PM
• Toronto Midtown (Young Professionals): Wednesday, January 30th at 7:00 PM
• Toronto Downtown: Sunday, February 3rd at 1:00 PM

However, in addition to participating directly in the consultation, or in case the sessions are already fully subscribed, you can complete an online survey to personally convey your views of the most urgent and most pressing communal priorities.

You can access the online survey/consultation at:
https://cija.ca/grassroots-survey-2019/

We urge you to go online to complete the survey and let CIJA know your views about communal priorities and especially, of course, about the need to make Jewish education affordable. Thank you.

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Shabbat Shalom.

GAJE

Even as we ponder ways to make Jewish education more affordable for middle-income families, it is also worthwhile from time to time to reflect upon aspects of that education from a broader perspective. To that end, we bring readers’ attention to an instructive reflection by Rabbi Shaul Feldman the executive director of Bnei Akiva of the United States and Canada.

Rabbi Feldman recently wrote an article, “Who is Wise? One Who Learns from All”, ostensibly about a summer seminar program in Israel called Generation Now Fellowship. It’s truer purpose, however, was to urge a wider, more patient approach in learning about and developing a sense of belonging to the Jewish people.

 “There is always more to learn about this awe-inspiring and often vexing project of our people,” Rabbi Feldman wrote. Then, as an instruction for the approach to learning about our people, he encapsulated six “critical messages for the world of education.”

1. It is never too late to start learning from all.
2. Good education can – and at times should – be unsettling.
3. One must learn directly from/with those with opposing views and try to see if you can actually understand their viewpoints.
4. As an educator, give youth a full picture. Don’t hide the issues that are uncomfortable and challenging from our teens.
5. Strive for personal encounters, without borders that separate us from “the other.”
6. Learn to truly love humans. After all, they are the designs of the Creator.

He then concluded with counsel that we should take to heart when trying to understand and connect with fellow Jews and fellow human beings who are different than we are.

“I believe that it is incumbent upon us to try to create more and more opportunities… where critical dialogue and (sometimes fraught) conversation among a group of committed educators/community leaders can take place.”

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Shabbat Shalom.

GAJE