The festival of Shavuot begins on Sunday night.

Like all our holidays, it has its own ethno/culinary flare. But it is, truly, about more than cheesecake and blintzes. It is and has always been about Jewish education.

It is only through education that we can fulfill the obligation – the promise – from that epochal moment some three and a half thousand years ago, to begin to teach the laws, traditions, customs, history, ethics, and their underlying values – to our children.

It was on that first Shavuot ever that the imperative to teach our children to be lifelong learners was enshrined in the theology of the Jewish people. We thus understood from the very beginning of our existence as a distinct, law-and-learning-based people, that the forward sharing of our people’s story and traditions was the deeply engrained mechanism that will ensure our permanence from one generation to the next.

In language intended to penetrate the soul, the Torah tells us that all Jews were present at Mount Sinai for the Giving of the Torah (the origin of Shavuot). Unlocking the memory of that history-changing moment is, essentially, the purpose of Jewish education. With memory restored, just as we did some 3,500 years ago, we stand each day, at the foot of that small desert mountain in common purpose and shared peoplehood with other Jews.

That is why, irrespective of century or community, establishing schools for the education of our children was the first and highest priority for community elders. Teaching has been always sanctified. Teachers have been always revered for their indispensable role in helping perpetuate the permanence of who we are.

That only Catholic education is fully funded by the government of Ontario, in the year 2025, to the exclusion of all other religious groups, should be unacceptable. It should affront the consciences of the Premier and his cabinet. How can Ontario promote such discrimination in modern, civil society? Of course, it cannot. And that is why, as readers of this weekly update know, GAJE is asking the courts to declare unconstitutional this overt discrimination in educational funding.

In the post-October 7 world, we believe this objective is more vital than ever.

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GAJE expects to be before the Court of Appeal in the Fall, arguing for the right to a hearing on the merits of our application for fair educational funding in Ontario. When we learn the date of the hearing, we will share it with our readers.

If you wish to contribute to GAJE’s lawsuit, please click here. Charitable receipts for donations for income tax purposes will be issued by Mizrachi Canada. Your donations will be used for the sole purpose of helping to underwrite the costs of the lawsuit. For further information, please contact Israel Mida at: imida1818@gmail.com

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Shabbat shalom. Chag Shavuot Samayach. Am Yisrael Chai

Grassroots for Affordable Jewish Education (GAJE)

May 30, 2025

According to an article that appeared in The CJN last week, Jewish students comprise three and a half percent of the population at the Toronto District School Board (TDSB), with 8,359 Jewish students enrolled out of a student population of 238,000. Since “October 7”, however, there are increasing reports the learning environment at TDSB schools has not been very welcoming to their Jewish students.

In that same article, Jewish parents were reportedly outraged at the TDSB for adopting a census survey about ethnic and cultural affiliation that excludes Jewish identity from any of the named categories. The survey was sent to families in accordance with the Ministry of Education directive that compels schools every two years “to assess bullying, harassment, safety, well-being and belonging” for students in K – 12.

In addition, Jewish parents were especially angered by the fact that the only example of bullying that was listed in the survey related to a potential incident of harassment aimed at a Muslim student for wearing a hijab or for praying. The possibility of a Jewish child being harassed for publicly identifying as a Jew did not appear on the survey, even though statistics indicate that the highest number of incidents of racism based upon creed or belief in the general population and at the TDSB are aimed at Jews.

Some Jewish parents have made their disappointment and anger known to the TDSB through an automated letter campaign directed to several TDSB trustees.

“Jewish students deserve to be acknowledged, protected, and heard—not erased,” parents wrote in the letter. “This survey was meant to foster belonging. Instead, it sends a devastating message: that Jewish identity and Jewish pain do not count.”

Aaron Kucharczuk, a Jewish father of three TDSB students, told The CJN that the exclusion aligns with what he described as the TDSB’s broader failure to address antisemitism meaningfully. He pointed to persistent misunderstandings of Jewish identity within the board. “They fail to recognize Judaism as an ethno-religion, alienating many who identify culturally rather than religiously,” he explained. “The board’s inability to capture this nuance reinforces exclusion. They don’t seem to understand or even attempt to understand the complexity of Jewish identity.”

As reported by The CJN, the letter sent to the trustees calls for explicit reforms to the language and content of the census survey: inclusion of “Jewish” in both religious and ethnic identity categories, examples reflecting Jewish experiences in questions about religious bullying, and ensuring the option to complete the survey anonymously. “A tool intended to address bullying and bias cannot itself marginalize a vulnerable community,” concludes the community letter. “Excluding a minority that experiences more hate crimes than any other religious group in Canada is not equity—it’s abandonment.”

The parents of the Jewish children who responded to the TDSB’s continued ambivalence towards its Jewish students are to be commended. We must unyieldingly point to the blind eye being turned to manifestations of antisemitism aimed at Jews. We must hold to account the individuals, elected to positions of responsibility, who prefer not to see and not to act, when they are called upon to protect Jewish children too from racism, harassment, bullying or hatred.

The CJN story can be reached at: https://thecjn.ca/news/toronto-school-board-census-angers-parents-for-erasing-jewish-identity/

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GAJE expects to be before the Court of Appeal in the Fall, arguing for the right to a hearing on the merits of our application for fair educational funding in Ontario. When we learn the date of the hearing, we will share it with our readers.

If you wish to contribute to GAJE’s lawsuit, please click here. Charitable receipts for donations for income tax purposes will be issued by Mizrachi Canada. Your donations will be used for the sole purpose of helping to underwrite the costs of the lawsuit. For further information, please contact Israel Mida at: imida1818@gmail.com

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Shabbat shalom. Am Yisrael Chai

Grassroots for Affordable Jewish Education (GAJE)

May 23, 2025

Many readers of this weekly update are familiar with Dan Senor, the American scholar, author and host of the podcast, Call Me Back. It originated after “October 7” and has developed into what, arguably, is one of the most important podcasts on Jewish life.

Senor delivered remarks this week at the 92^nd Street Y in New York on the State of Israeli and American Jewry. He narrowed the focus of his address from the State of World Jewry, the subject for which he had been invited to speak. His presentation was immensely instructive, inspiring and even, important.

Senor artfully painted a comprehensive landscape of the present condition of the two largest Jewish communities in the world, i.e., Israel and the USA. With both broad and precise brush strokes, Senor combines Jewish history and current Jewish events to accurately and often movingly depict the valleys and the peaks of Jewish life in the U.S. (North America, really) and in Israel.

Senor’s essential message to American Jewry (One can also read this as North American Jewry), is that the community must evolve from being a “prominent but weak one, into a Jewish and strong one.” Of course, he defines his terms fully in the text of his remarks. And most important for his audience and for others who will subsequently read or view his remarks, after he meticulously describes the state of current Jewish life, he equally as meticulously provides prescriptions for the future.

Space permits reproducing merely a few of Senor’s key observations and conclusions. Not surprisingly, in light of GAJE’s mission, we excerpt some of the pieces that touch upon Jewish education and its place for the future thriving of North American Jewry.

The podcast is available at: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/dan-senors-state-of-world-jewry-address-92ny/id1539292794?i=1000708538635&r=1428

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“My fear is that without something more lasting, a shift at the core of our approach to American Jewish life, we may drift back into that false sense of normal we were living on October 6th.

“The author Sarah Hurwitz put it this way when addressing a group of Hillel’s student leaders. ‘Jews don’t control anti-Semitism’, Sarah said, and I quote here. ‘We can fight it, and I think that’s great, but I think instead of trying to bail out a tsunami with buckets, we should also build an ark. Put differently, there’s one thing that is entirely within our control, and it’s the one thing that the anti-Semites want to disrupt.

“The one thing we can control is whether we choose to lead Jewish lives.”

“Not only is it within our control, but Jonathan Sacks said it best, Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, non-Jews respect Jews who respect their Judaism. And it is exactly what has sustained Jewish life and Jewish lives in every century. And I want to talk tonight about some of the ways that could happen.

“How do we invest in Judaism, in Jewish peoplehood, in Jewish communal life, and in connection to Israel? There is really only one way. Immersion in Jewish tradition, rituals, ruach, and learning with other Jews.”

“Day school alumni are more than twice as likely to feel deeply connected to their Jewish identity compared to their peers. They are four times as likely to feel a strong connection to Israel.

“Rabbi Sachs again once said, to defend a country, you need an army. But to defend an identity, you need a school. Day schools strive to be living, breathing communities where students learn not just Jewish ideas, but how to think, how to debate respectfully across difference, and how to build community.

“They learn Hebrew and how to pray. They learn how to be a mensch. At Jewish day schools, practicing Judaism is normative.

“Studying Jewish texts, caring about Israel. It’s all the norm. It’s not weird.”

“There’s no baggage, no connotations, and no apologizing for it. Day schools build Jewish confidence and pride. They develop what I could only describe as Jewish muscle memory.”

“The beginning of a renaissance in Jewish education is already happening. So our question isn’t whether day Schools matter. The question is: what will it take to make them accessible, affordable, and even competitive with the best secular, independent private schools..?”

Senor also emphasizes the successful record of Jewish summer camps in building Jewish identity. “There’s only one environment in America that’s even more immersive than day schools, Jewish camps.”

We reiterate that the entire presentation – the entire podcast – is worthy and remarkably so.

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GAJE expects to be before the Court of Appeal in the Fall, arguing for the right to a hearing on the merits of our application for fair educational funding in Ontario. When we learn the date of the hearing, we will share it with our readers.

If you wish to contribute to GAJE’s lawsuit, please click here. Charitable receipts for donations for income tax purposes will be issued by Mizrachi Canada. Your donations will be used for the sole purpose of helping to underwrite the costs of the lawsuit. For further information, please contact Israel Mida at: imida1818@gmail.com

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Shabbat shalom. Am Yisrael Chai

Grassroots for Affordable Jewish Education (GAJE)

May 16, 2025

Last week in this space, we reported that renowned Israeli scholar and author, Yossi Klein Halevi, counseled a large gathering in Toronto that however vulnerable we feel as a result of the events and the aftermath of “October 7”, Jews must not see ourselves as victims.

He urged us, rather, to tell the “unabashedly proud story” of the Jewish recovery from the open wound of the Shoah. “If we say our truth,” Klein Halevi predicted, “we will find our allies.”

An example of an individual who responded as an ally to the truth Jews – around the world – have been telling about “October 7” is Pastor David Larmour, primary teaching pastor and lead pastor at King Street Community Church in Oshawa. Pastor Larmour last month published an article in Substack entitled, Turning Up the Light, in which he unequivocally stated that the social climate of antisemitism was becoming so professionally and personally intolerable that he decided to advocate for his Jewish friends “and push back against hate and antisemitism.”

“This is not the Canada I grew up in, nor is it the Canada that I want for my children and future grandchildren. Watching the Pro-Hamas and anti-Zionist / antisemitic demonstrations and hearing their hate-filled rhetoric has been very unsettling. To see these hateful expressions go unaddressed by the Mayor of Toronto, and culturally affirmed, is nauseating to me. Looking away is what gives me some measure of peace, but joining the community of the indifferent is not acceptable to me!”

Pastor Larmour decided to take action. He established with rabbis in the community and has undertaken inter-communal programs with fellow Jewish and non-Jewish clergy to actually demonstrate his abhorrence for the anti-Jewish hatred that has newly found a way into Canada.

In the article, Pastor Larmour also announced “an inspiring initiative planned for June 2025, where 50 Rabbis and 50 Christian Clergy have made plans to meet for 36 hours in Toronto to seek mutual understanding and learn from one another”.

Pastor Larmour concluded his article with a strong statement of empathy and support for the Jewish community, entirely buoying to the Jewish sensibilities that have been battered for the past 18 months and more.  But it is also deeply supportive and protective of the Canadian values that we deeply cherish.

“We shouldn’t have to walk alone when faced with a dangerous path! Words of consolation, expressions of solidarity, and acknowledgment of pain are all important gestures that are offered by friends who care, but being present, walking together and speaking up on behalf of others demonstrates another level of advocacy and solidarity.”

Pastor Larmour is undoubtedly the sort of ally that Klein Halevi had in mind when Jews are unafraid to say the truth of who we are and what we have achieved. His article is available at: https://catchjcp.substack.com/p/turning-up-the-light?utm_campaign=email-half-post&r=rvbar&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

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GAJE expects to be before the Court of Appeal in the Fall, arguing for the right to a hearing on the merits of our application for fair educational funding in Ontario. When we learn the date of the hearing, we will share it with our readers.

If you wish to contribute to GAJE’s lawsuit, please click here. Charitable receipts for donations for income tax purposes will be issued by Mizrachi Canada. Your donations will be used for the sole purpose of helping to underwrite the costs of the lawsuit. For further information, please contact Israel Mida at: imida1818@gmail.com

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Shabbat shalom. Am Yisrael Chai

Grassroots for Affordable Jewish Education (GAJE)

May 9, 2025

Earlier this week in Toronto, renowned Israeli scholar, teacher, thinker, author, Yossi Klein Halevi, was in Toronto at the invitation of the Toronto Holocaust Museum to share his thoughts on the difficult subject of “how to navigate the post-Holocaust era.”

Klein Halevi, a senior fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem, spoke to the large gathering barely a week after Yom Hashoah v’Hagvurah, and on the “eve” of Yom Hazicaron and Yom Ha’aztma’ut.

The calendar-related emotional “weightiness” of the week, along with, no doubt, Klein Halevi’s reputation for thoughtful, insightful discourse, combined to create an atmosphere among the many who had assembled to hear the speaker from Israel, of anticipatory excitement.

As it unfolded, the event met the anticipation. And the sense of excitement at the possibility of learning, of actually being enlightened, was rewarded.

The following is an excerpted precis of only some of Klein Halevi’s remarks.

Klein Halevi stated pointedly, without equivocation, that the post-Holocaust era ended on October 7, 2023. He explained why. “October 7 upended the two main points that provided a security and comfort in the Jewish world.”

For Israel, it was the return of the worry over the existential threat to the country’s existence to a front-and-centre place by way of Iran’s open quest for offensive nuclear capability and its control and manipulation of the various hateful proxies determined to perpetrate their unique evil upon Israelis and upon Jews.

For Jews in the Diasporah, it was the betrayal by former friends and allies, and the resulting sense of vulnerability, if not also isolation, that erupted brazenly and publicly immediately after Israel was attacked by Hamas. In many quarters the feelings of isolation persist amid a worrisome hostility and openly-expressed antisemitism.

Klein Halevi noted that “the other side is trying to steal the Holocaust from the Jews.” The anti-Israel groups accuse Israel of behaviours that are reminiscent of or replicate Nazi behaviours. They use language in relation to Israel’s actions that is aimed at creating Holocaust-specific images as depictions of the IDF’s behaviour.

The favourite perversion of language aimed at Israel, of course, is the use of “genocide”. The haters of Israel have even cleverly appropriated the suffix, “cide”, from the term genocide, attached it other nouns to hurl new false accusations against Israel. For example, “domicide” for destroying Palestinians’ homes; “educationicide” for destroying schools that are empty or worse, schools that are in session.

“The Holocaust itself”, Klein Halevi said, “has become a principal weapon against Israel and the Jewish people.” He astutely explained that this tactic by Israel’s enemies “is a form of supercessionism – [i.e., the notion that Christianity had superceded Judaism] – being transformed from the realm of theology into the realm of politics. It is very much in the tradition of some 2,000 years of (theologically-based) western thought that had been used against the Jews.”

Despite this malign development unfolding on the streets, in the academies and institutions of Western life, Klein Halevi warned that we must not see ourselves as victims. Rather, he urged us to tell the story of the post-Holocaust return by Jews to active history, stepping out of and away from thousands of years of powerlessness as a people to a condition of “hard”, sovereign power through the creation of the State of Israel and to that of “soft” democratic power through the manifold energetic involvements by Jews in Western societies.

How the Jews of the world recovered from the open wound of the Shoah, Klein Halevi said, is a story that needs to be told. It is the story of “our Exodus from the Shoah.” “And”, he added, “it must be an unabashedly proud story of the reclamation of power.”

Klein Halevi further added that we must not worry in the telling of our story, about alienating those who are already unfriendly to Israel’s cause and/or to Jewish life outside of Israel. “All through history, Jews have always been counter-culture,” Klein Halevi pointed out. This will simply be a new form of the position we have assumed throughout our long past.

But this is the key “take-away” that Klein Halevi imparted: “If we say our truth…we will find our allies.”

This is the vital thought that brings us to the doorstep of Jewish education and into our schools. To teach our children the truth of the Jewish story – from ancient through modern times and especially, following Klein Halevi’s prescription, into the post-Holocaust days – we must ensure that our families have meaningful access for their children to intensive, excellent Jewish education. As we wrote last week, adapted to help convey Klein Halevi’s message, it is the role of our system of formal and informal Jewish education to reinforce and enhance the truth of the full Jewish story that our children may learn at home. It is GAJE’s role to do our utmost to try to help make formal Jewish education affordable for all the families that seek it for their children. That is our promise.

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GAJE expects to be before the Court of Appeal in the Fall, arguing for the right to a hearing on the merits of our application for fair educational funding in Ontario. When we learn the date of the hearing, we will share it with our readers.

If you wish to contribute to GAJE’s lawsuit, please click here. Charitable receipts for donations for income tax purposes will be issued by Mizrachi Canada. Your donations will be used for the sole purpose of helping to underwrite the costs of the lawsuit. For further information, please contact Israel Mida at: imida1818@gmail.com

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Shabbat shalom. Am Yisrael Chai

Grassroots for Affordable Jewish Education (GAJE)

May 2, 2025

It makes sense that the festival of Pesach falls in the month of Nisan, the first month of the Jewish calendar. Which month could be more substantively appropriate, other than the first, to celebrate liberation from slavery leading to the ultimate forging, at Mt. Sinai, of the galvanized majesty of everlasting Jewish peoplehood?

During the last century, modern Jewish history evolved through blood, thunder and smoke to inscribe – for all time – four epochal experiences into the Jewish commemorative calendar. These experiences are added, as it were, to the anvil of Jewish history on which the fullness of Jewish life emerges.

On 27 Nisan, we commemorate Yom Hashoah v’Hagvurah (the solemn recall of Holocaust and Heroism).

On 4 Iyar, we commemorate Yom HaZikaron (Remembrance Day for the fallen of Israel).

On 5 Iyar, we celebrate Yom Ha’Atzma’ut (Israel’s Independence Day).

On 28 Iyar, we celebrate Yom Yerushalayim (The reunification of Jerusalem [in 1967 after the Jordanian army had cleaved the Old City from the new city in 1948, expelled all Jews from the Jewish quarter of the Old City and destroyed every vestige of Jewish life there.]).

The feeling of being part of Jewish peoplehood derives from our shared theology and traditions, our shared memory of distant historic events and the shared transcendent registry of modern events, culture and experiences with whose entries we are all familiar and understand if not always quite imagine.

Each of us, in every generation, are trustees for the Jewish wellbeing of our young children and guardians of the wider Jewish future. We accept and honour these responsibilities because it is right and important to do so and because our forebears did so for us. Even as we hope our children and their children will do so for the descendants that will follow them.

It is the role of our system of formal and informal Jewish education to reinforce what our children learn at home and help foster the marvellous feeling of Jewish belonging and peoplehood into rock solid permanence through time immemorial. It is GAJE’s role to do our utmost to try to help make formal Jewish education affordable for all the families that seek it for their children. That is our promise.

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CORRECTION

In last week’s update, we wrote that the GAJE was founded 15 years ago. In fact, GAJE was

founded 10 years ago on Pesach. It just seems like it’s been 15 years.

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GAJE expects to be before the Court of Appeal in the Fall, arguing for the right to a hearing on the merits of our application for fair educational funding in Ontario. When we learn the date of the hearing, we will share it with our readers.

If you wish to contribute to GAJE’s lawsuit, please click here. Charitable receipts for donations for income tax purposes will be issued by Mizrachi Canada. Your donations will be used for the sole purpose of helping to underwrite the costs of the lawsuit. For further information, please contact Israel Mida at: imida1818@gmail.com

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Shabbat shalom. Chag samayach. Am Yisrael Chai

Grassroots for Affordable Jewish Education (GAJE)

April 25, 2025

Helping families “raise Jews” through Jewish education is one of the chief priorities of our organized Jewish community. Helping the community try to ensure that such education is truly affordable is GAJE’s chief priority and has been, since the volunteer group was founded some 15 years ago.

We have all to adjust and react sharply with strength and resolve to the abhorrent rise in anti-Jewish, anti-Israel hatred after “October 7”. It has become, alas, a grotesque, unsettling but recurring aspect of life in many communities in the West.

Since the first hateful, anti-Jewish manifestations appeared on our streets and in our institutions, GAJE has counseled that “being and doing Jewish” is the best way to fight the anti-Semites. In this week’s update we bring readers’ attention to an iteration of that same counsel offered by Rabbi Steven Burg.

In an article published two months ago in the Jerusalem Post, Rabbi Steven Burg, CEO of Aish, suggested that the truest way to strengthen Jewish communities is to focus on identity, education, and unity. We cannot change the antisemite. But we can – and must – teach and enable our children to live meaningfully in the world as Jews.

Rabbi Burg wrote: “While we must certainly continue defending against the surge of antisemitism we have been witnessing globally since the Hamas mega-atrocity in Israel on October 7, 2023, we cannot allow this defensive posture to become our primary focus. The Jewish future demands more than just survival – it requires revival.”

He then described “three foundational principles” that we ought to embrace “to ensure our people’s future in an increasingly complex world: responsibility, wisdom, and love.”

Rabbi Burg elaborated.

“The Jewish concept of responsibility extends far beyond individual accountability. It’s about recognizing that every Jew bears responsibility for the welfare and continuity of the entire Jewish people.”

Jewish wisdom, accumulated over millennia provides the intellectual and spiritual foundation for Jewish identity… It’s about deep engagement with Jewish texts, thoughts, and traditions that help us understand not just what it means to be Jewish, but why being Jewish matters…We must make Jewish wisdom and learning accessible and relevant while maintaining its depth and authenticity. This means investing in education at all levels: from early childhood through adulthood, in person and online, and utilizing modern technology and teaching methods to reach Jews wherever they are and whatever their level of Jewish knowledge.” 

Love…both for fellow Jews and for Judaism itself. This isn’t about agreeing with everyone or overlooking genuine differences. Rather, it’s about maintaining connection and care despite disagreements…[and that] extends beyond times of crisis…”

The triad of Rabbi Burg’s principles stands firmly on a structure of Jewish education.

“We need to invest in Jewish education at all levels. We must create more opportunities for meaningful Jewish experiences that go beyond surface-level engagement. We need to build bridges between different Jewish communities and denominations while respecting our differences…”.

Rabbi Burg concludes: “The future of the Jewish people depends not just on fighting antisemitism, as important as that is, but on building a positive, meaningful Jewish identity that makes our heritage worth preserving and passing on. We need to embrace responsibility, wisdom, and love. That way we can ensure that future generations of Jews won’t just know what they’re fighting against, but what they’re living for.”

Rabbi Burg’s prescription for Jewish survival is a worthy one.

His article is available at:

https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-842723?utm_source=jpost.app.apple&utm_medium=share

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GAJE expects to be before the Court of Appeal in the Fall, arguing for the right to a hearing on the merits of our application for fair educational funding in Ontario. When we learn the date of the hearing, we will share it with our readers.

If you wish to contribute to GAJE’s lawsuit, please click here. Charitable receipts for donations for income tax purposes will be issued by Mizrachi Canada. Your donations will be used for the sole purpose of helping to underwrite the costs of the lawsuit. For further information, please contact Israel Mida at: imida1818@gmail.com

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Shabbat shalom. Chag samayach. Am Yisrael Chai

Grassroots for Affordable Jewish Education (GAJE)

April 18, 2025

If Moses lived around 1,400 BC, more than 135 generations of Jews since then, have told and re-told the story of the Exodus from Egypt. To be sure, it wasn’t until some 1,600 years after he lived, that the method of retelling the story became enshrined – more or less – in the overall form of the Haggadah that has been the literary basis, since Mishnaic times, for the Passover Seder. With or without the structure of the Haggadah, however, it is a remarkable testament to the sheer power of that story, that Jews have encoded it in our personal and collective memories for more than 3,400 years.

As all parents and educators of Jewish lore know and have known since time immemorial, the key instrument of articulating, preserving and transmitting the memories of our Jewish stories – the stories that have shaped our soul and steered our history – is and always will be, the family.

At every Yom Tov holiday, but especially at Passover, the family gathers – young and old, two, three or more generations, shaved heads and hoary heads – to live through a moment of sanctified calendar significance, together.

Together, families talk, discuss, explain, argue(?), and enfold one another, at least metaphorically, in each other’s arms and in the arms of those we no longer see but will always remember. To feel this embrace is to feel the belonging and the sense of strength in the Eternal canopy we call peoplehood.

Ten years ago, Pesach 2015, GAJE began its efforts to try to help make Jewish education truly affordable for as many families as possible. In the ensuing years, the UJA Federation leadership, philanthropists and schools have undertaken major initiatives to reduce the cost of Jewish education. They are all to be praised.

Day school education, however, is still expensive, and for many families, onerously so or impossibly so. Thus, GAJE continues with its mission. As readers of this weekly update know, GAJE is in court to compel the provincial government to bring fairness to its educational funding policies.

As we wrote two years ago at this time, we take heart from the messages of hope that are written deeply – some overtly, some more nuanced – into the Haggadah. Each generation understood those messages according to the circumstances of their respective time. Never ever lose hope. This has been the sustaining affirmation of a people that has struggled throughout the years against greater numbers and against the odds.

That affirmation inspires GAJE as well. Even though it has been more than a decade, GAJE will not give up. Until all legal recourse has been exhausted.

Pesach starts on Saturday night. Make it count. Tell the story and enfold one another as Jewish families have done for more than 3,400 years sheltered under the canopy of belonging and peoplehood.

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If you wish to contribute to GAJE’s lawsuit, please click here. Charitable receipts for donations for income tax purposes will be issued by Mizrachi Canada. Your donations will be used for the sole purpose of helping to underwrite the costs of the lawsuit. For further information, please contact Israel Mida at: imida1818@gmail.com

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Shabbat shalom. Chag Pesach samayach. Am Yisrael Chai

Grassroots for Affordable Jewish Education (GAJE)

April 11, 2025

GAJE has noted that there has been an observable rise in enrollment this year in Jewish day schools in the GTA. In a news report published in The CJN last month, Mitchell Consky filled in the picture more robustly.

“Jewish day schools across Canada are seeing enrolment numbers reaching levels not seen in years, particularly in the aftermath of the Hamas attacks on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, the ensuing war in Gaza and escalating antisemitism,” Consky wrote.

Consky reported on the enrollments of two Day Schools in Toronto, one in London, Winnipeg and Vancouver. The observation common to all is that “more students are transferring from public boards over concerns about antisemitism.”

The following is excerpted or paraphrased from Consky’s report. The entire article is worthy of reading. It is available at: https://thecjn.ca/news/day-school-boom/

“Bialik Hebrew Day School, which operates two branches in the Greater Toronto Area for junior kindergarten to Grade 8, has seen an unprecedented retention rate and a growing number of applications, particularly after October 2023, says Benjy Cohen, head of school at Bialik.

“There’s definitely an uptick, and it’s something that most (Hebrew) schools are dealing with,” Cohen told The Canadian Jewish News. “…[O]ur enrolment has surpassed 1,000 students at (one branch) for the first time.”

“Cohen attributed this upward trend to a few factors, a major one being a growing distrust towards public schools amidst Toronto’s Jewish community.

Toronto’s Associated Hebrew Schools, director of operations Becky Friedman noted “that a significant number of new students have been transferring from public schools, some citing experiences with antisemitism, while others are drawn to the sense of community and Jewish identity that day schools provide.”

London Community Hebrew Day School, one of the smaller Jewish schools in Canada—and the only full-time institution of its kind in London has also seen growth. “Our school had dwindled to just 20 students, but after a concerted effort, we’ve rebounded to 33,” said past chair and current treasurer and director Ryan Gertzbein. “We’ve seen an increase from public school families, and we expect that trend to continue.”

At King David High School (Grades 9-12), in Vancouver, new students are transferring from other schools because of Jewish-targeted hate. “What is noticeable is that many cite the reason for their transfer as having experienced subtle antisemitism and also that they no longer feel 100 percent safe at their current school,” said head of school Seth Goldsweig, in an email statement.

Gray Academy of Jewish Education in Winnipeg experienced an enrolment surge in international students following Oct. 7, 2023. In the 2023-2024 school year, Gray Academy took in 16 temporary students from Israel, many of whom later returned home, while some chose to stay.

The school offered them free tuition, seeing it as a way to support the Jewish community during a time of crisis. “These families were leaving behind their homes and needed a safe space,” Lori Binder, head of school and CEO, told The Canadian Jewish News.

Binder also said other new arrivals are from local Jewish families pulling their children from public schools. “We’re seeing families that maybe hadn’t considered Jewish day school before now making the switch,” Binder said. “It’s not always because of a direct incident, but for some, something changed.”

The administrators of the larger community schools point out that the increase in enrollment means that they must somehow stretch their facilities and their resources to accommodate the larger numbers. Friedman described the situation as “a good problem to have,” but one that requires urgent attention. She added that “we’re exploring new options to expand space because we don’t want to turn anyone away.”  

This point warrants emphasizing. The central challenge accompanying the influx of students is not to turn anyone away. Daniel Held, chief program officer at UJA Federation of Greater Toronto, eloquently explains why it is so important to find space for each child whose parents want him or her to have a Jewish education. The value of Hebrew day schools, he knows, is in inculcating a strong Jewish identity. “When you know who you are, you can do anything, right? …When our community is strong and we give kids a Jewish identity, it gives them the pride, the knowledge, the attitude, and the aptitude to live a full Jewish life.”

Aviva Spiro, a concerned grandmother of day school children, wants more families to be given the opportunity to benefit from Jewish education. She succinctly summarized the urgency of the moment.

“If ever there was a time to open up more spots and accept more Jewish kids, it is now…They should be moving heaven and earth to make sure these kids get into Hebrew day school. Especially after Oct. 7—there has to be a way.”

GAJE agrees with Spiro. Based upon the responses to post “October 7” by community educators and leaders throughout the country, we have no doubt they feel the same way.

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If you wish to contribute to GAJE’s lawsuit, please click here. Charitable receipts for donations for income tax purposes will be issued by Mizrachi Canada. Your donations will be used for the sole purpose of helping to underwrite the costs of the lawsuit. For further information, please contact Israel Mida at: imida1818@gmail.com

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Shabbat shalom. Am Yisrael Chai

Grassroots for Affordable Jewish Education (GAJE)

April 4, 2025

We wish it were otherwise, but we have awoken each day to the same reality for the past 17 months.

Civil and Jewish society leaders were taken by surprise by the hateful aftermath of “October 7”. While anti-Israel polemicists plotted and activists organized their animus for the past three or four decades, the rest of us, were “asleep” in our self-assurance that western life was as it should be: governed by law, civil, widely tolerant and comfortable. We did not see what lay just below the mostly smooth surface of daily life. But we see clearly today. Anti-Israel and anti-Jewish hate are increasingly being normalized in the institutions of western society.

We lament and resent the hostility among non-Jews directed at Israel and even at Jews. But we worry deeply at the vulnerability, intimidation, shrug-of-the-shoulder helplessness, and even turning against their own people by some Jews, especially of college-age. So, we must do our utmost to help our youngsters find their secure and confident way through the new reality. We must do our utmost to prevent any more young Jews from turning against their own. As GAJE has often pointed out, the best way to do this is to equip our youngsters with deep knowledge of their own remarkable, ancient/modern identity.

Last week a report was published on eJewishPhilanthropy of a new initiative called the Ronald S. Lauder Impact Initiative (LII), whose mission is to provide more non-Orthodox Jewish children an opportunity to experience immersive Jewish education, i.e., Jewish day school.

In an article entitled, Redefining the role of Jewish day schools, Hadassa Halpern, executive director of the LII, described the initiative and its underlying justifications. The statistics and figures that Halpern cited in the article relate to the American Jewish experience. But the observations and conclusions she noted in relation to Jewish educaiton apply in Canada as well.

The LII is aimed at encouraging more of the 95% of non-Orthodox Jewish children (over 1.2 of an estimated 1.6 million) who do not attend Jewish day school, many of whom likely receive very little, if any, Jewish education.

Based upon recent research by Prizmah: Center for Jewish Day Schools, Halpern wrote “day schools are our best option to fuel a strong Jewish future.” But then, in tacit acknowledgment of the deficit in Jewish life that arises from the fact that so few American Jewish children benefit from a day school education, she asks: “What if Jewish day schools were seen not as a choice for a select few, but as an indispensable institution for the entire Jewish community — an engine for Jewish continuity, a pipeline for future leadership and a means of ensuring long-term engagement in Jewish life?”

The mission the LII set for itself is to help Jewish communal leaders adopt the view that Jewish day schools are indispensable for long term Jewish life. LII is aimed at “reshaping the landscape of Jewish day school education and redefining its role within the broader Jewish ecosystem.”

Halpern was unequivocal: “What LII is doing is not speculative. It is essential. Jewish day schools must be recognized not as a niche option for the observant but as the cornerstone of Jewish continuity. For this to happen, we must break old assumptions and reimagine Jewish education in a way that resonates with the next generation.”

Moses pleaded with Pharoah to “Let my people go!” Some three and half millennia later, LII essentially pleads with philanthropists, parents and community leaders: “Let my people know!” (GAJE borrows this phrase from the late Rabbi Adin Even-Israel Steinsaltz.)

To help Jewish children discover the life-enhancing richness of their own heritage and in the process, enable them to better withstand the buffeting from the hard-blowing winds of antisemitism, GAJE joins LII in urging us all to recognize Jewish day school as an indispensable institution for the entire Jewish community.

The Halpern article is available at:

Redefining the role of Jewish day schools

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If you wish to contribute to GAJE’s lawsuit, please click here. Charitable receipts for donations for income tax purposes will be issued by Mizrachi Canada. Your donations will be used for the sole purpose of helping to underwrite the costs of the lawsuit. For further information, please contact Israel Mida at: imida1818@gmail.com

•••

Shabbat shalom. Am Yisrael Chai

Grassroots for Affordable Jewish Education (GAJE)

March 28, 2025