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

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Shabbat shalom. Am Yisrael Chai

Grassroots for Affordable Jewish Education (GAJE)

March 28, 2025

Dear Minister Calandra:

We congratulate and commend you on your appointment this week as Ontario’s new Minister of Education. The ministry has been entrusted to your stewardship because you understand the utmost importance of its mission in protecting, enhancing and securing the values that underpin our remarkable society and by which it advances while championing, each day, the sanctity of human life and the inherent dignity and worth of every human being.

It is our fervent hope that you carry well and loftily, with visible noble purpose, the weighty responsibilities that now rest on your shoulders. Your success will redound to the benefit of all Ontarians and Canada itself. Overseeing and facilitating the delivery of excellent education of the province’s children from their early years and kindergarten through Grade 12 will call upon all your abilities as well as call forth the wisdom that vexing problems of injustice that conscience and good policy always demand.

One such problem that has persisted in Ontario for nearly five decades, that the Ministry of Education has assiduously avoided trying to solve, yet publicly acknowledges, is blatant discrimination in educational funding. As you know, children who attend independent, denominational schools that are not Catholic, or who attend other independent schools, receive no funding from the province to help their families defray the cost of their education.

We plead with you to end this discrimination for the sake of enhancing excellence in education for all Ontario’s children while truly affirming their human rights in the process.

The following is a brief summary of the factors you might consider in ending the discrimination in educational funding.

• In 1996, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that such discrimination was lawful, primarily due to the constitutional bargain in 1867 between Ontario and Quebec – ensuring the mutual protection of minority rights in those provinces – that brought the provinces into newly confederated Canada.

• The plaintiffs in the above-referenced case did not ask Ontario to end public funding for the education of the children in Catholic schools. Rather, they asked for equal treatment for all children in other denominational schools. However, in ruling that Ontario’s educational funding policy was legal, the Supreme Court stated that Ontario was not prevented from extending public funds to the independent schools.

• Grassroots for Affordable Jewish Education (GAJE) contends that in the ensuing nearly three decades since the 1996 Supreme Court decision, societal circumstances have sufficiently changed, as has the relevant law, to warrant allowing the courts to reassess the decision. Should that decision still be binding in the conditions of life in Ontario in 2025? GAJE believes the 1996 decision should be reconsidered. Yet, Ontario refuses to agree that the courts should reconsider whether the 1996 decision should still apply today. Thus, as long as Ontario maintains the discrimination in its educational funding policies, GAJE has decided to launch an application asking of the courts to consider reassessing the correctness of the 1996 decision for 2025.

• Renowned independent think tanks and research facilities such as Cardus, the Aristotle Foundation, the Fraser Institute and others, have written about the anomalous nature of Ontario’s educational policies. It is the outlier in Canada. The western provinces and Quebec contribute public funds to their independent schools.

• The arguments against extending public funding to independent schools are essentially two. To do so is too costly for the public purse, and/or, extending public funding to independent schools would wreak havoc upon the public school system. Both arguments have been resoundingly proven to be false. (See research by Cardus and by the Fraser Instituter, for example. That research has been referenced in GAJE’s updates in the past.)

Thus, Minister Calandra, we plead with you. At least begin the discussion with your staff and officials about ending the discrimination in educational funding. Please bring Ontario in line with the other provinces of Canada, not to mention with the countries in the OECD western world.

All Ontario’s children are worthy. All Ontario’s children ask that you extend to them too, the sheltering canopy of equality under the law. The ongoing discrimination debases Ontario society. It makes a lie of our vaunted loyalty to the governing truths of rights and freedoms, even as it harms so many of the families striving merely to send their children to the school they deem most suited for them. Minister Calandra, please bring justice and fairness to all Ontarians.

Yours truly,

GAJE

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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)

March 21, 2025

It would be too blatant, and even too inexcusable, an omission, were this update not to refer to the holiday of Purim which, this year, we actually celebrate today, March 14.

As with all Jews who yearn and strive for the wellbeing and betterment of our people and of the world at large, there are indeed substantive connections between GAJE’s work and any of the multitude of important meanings mined by our Sages from the deep vein of history and homily called the Scroll of Esther.

We briefly point to one, as an example.

In an essay written for eJewish Philanthropy, Rabba Yaffa Epstein, senior scholar and educator in residence at The Jewish Education Project, confirmed what most of us feel as a result of the events of October 7 and their hate-filled aftermath: “[S]omehow this year it seems like the Megillah was truly written for our time! Diaspora Jews can certainly relate to the portrayal of the Jewish nation as being at the mercy of antisemitism and the desire of our young people to hide away their Jewishness to save themselves and to avoid conflict.”

But she did not confine her observation to the shared negative feelings awoken by both the ancient and the modern Diaspora predicaments. Rather, Rabbi Epstein urged us to find instruction in the positive outcome from ancient times that we might apply today. “Yet, if the story of Purim can lay out our challenges, it can also be a source of inspiration, strength, purpose and pride.”

This ringing conclusion warrants restatement and emphasis.

No-one will deny the extent of the shock, outrage and even vulnerability that Jewish communities felt and continue to feel by the unabating manifestations at home and abroad of hatred for Jews and for Israel. But Rabba Epstein urges us to find a path whose guideposts are – inspiration, strength, purpose and pride – to help us find our way despite and through the fears and the rage.

Rabba Epstein further states that Purim “is a holiday about the power of human beings. The power of the individual, and of the communal to transform. It is the holiday of stepping up and taking responsibility.” And vital to her message, she also notes that our strength multiplies when we act as a people united in purpose, not necessarily though, in politics or opinion.

The central point Rabba Epstein makes is this: “[W]hat should this unity be based on in order to truly become am echad (one united people)?It is through the Torah, our shared inheritance of Jewish text, Jewish values and Jewish life. Our central identity as a people is the Torah we have inherited, ready and waiting for every Jew to step up, take responsibility and add their unique voice.

In other words, it is through education. Rigorous Jewish education, irrespective of the denominational stream, increases the chances that Jews will feel a sense of belonging and responsibility to each other.

This is also the keystone holding intact and joining GAJE’s work to the drama of the Scroll of Esther. GAJE’s purpose is to try to help make Jewish education truly affordable to every family that seeks it for their children. And in so doing, also help foster, within the Jewish people at home and abroad, feelings of true am echad, which, when called upon in days to come, will be the font of lifelong inspiration, strength, purpose and pride.

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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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Chag Purim samayach. Shabbat shalom. Am Yisrael Chai

Grassroots for Affordable Jewish Education (GAJE)

March 14, 2025

Last Friday, our legal team advised GAJE that our application before the Court of Appeal was successful. The endorsement on the Court’s file was succinct:

“The motion for leave to appeal is granted.”

As is usual in such applications for leave to appeal, the court gave no reasons for its decision.

Let there be no misconception, however, regarding the meaning of the decision. We must be clear.

The Court of Appeal has allowed GAJE to appeal the September 2024 decision of the Divisional Court. The Divisional Court had concluded that Judge Eugenia Papageorgiou was wrong to allow GAJE’s application to proceed to a full hearing in court.

The Court of Appeal made no decision, nor offered any opinion, regarding the merits of our case. Nor should we wishfully infer a positive view of our case from the positive outcome of our motion for leave to appeal

It is reasonable, however, to conclude that the Court of Appeal was of the view that the Divisional Court either applied the wrong legal rules that govern dismissing an application at the early stage of the process, or alternatively, the Divisional Court applied the correct rules but in an incorrect manner. We can climb no higher than this on the ladder of hope.

And it is also reasonable to state, unequivocally, that the Court of Appeal decision was very good news. We hope to build on it. From strength to strength and from success and to ultimate success.

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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)

March 7, 2025

As of this writing, Ontarians are voting for a new government. When this Update is read by GAJE supporters, the results of the voting will be known. Premier Ford premised his call of the election on the basis of needing a reinvigorated, strong majority government to deal with the economic threats facing Ontario as a result of the policies of U.S. President Trump.

There is no denying that President Trump’s various threats to Ontario and to Canada are indeed alarming. Every government within the Canadian federation – including Ontario – must respond to the American Administration with wisdom and resolve. Except for the emanations of potential danger toward Canada suggested by President Trump’s first term in the White House, who would have thought that the country with whom Canada shares the longest undefended border on earth, alongside which its servicemen have fought and died during a number of campaigns against tyranny since the turn of the last century, and with which it has long enjoyed mutually beneficial trading relations – is now a clear and present danger to Canadians?

As one of its chief priorities, if not the chief priority, the newly elected government at Queen’s Park will be charged with protecting and defending Ontario’s many-faceted interests. But still, even acknowledging that the election campaign that ended yesterday was truncated, it was deeply disappointing that no party, no candidate, spoke about – let alone offered to remedy – the discrimination in Ontario’s education funding.

To be sure, there were the usual, but truly “throw-away” statements by all three parties about educational funding. As reported by Dave McGinn in the Globe and Mail, “[Premier] Ford’s government promised $1.3-billion to build 30 new schools and expand 15 already existing schools across the province.” Not surprisingly, both Opposition parties decried the government’s proposal as being wholly inadequate to meet the documented growing needs within the educational system.

“NDP Leader Marit Stiles has promised to spend an additional $830-million per year to clear the school repair backlog within 10 years.”

The Ontario Liberal Party said that schools are overcrowded. More schools must be built more quickly. Taylor Deasley, a spokesperson for Bonnie Crombie said that “every single kid in Ontario needs and deserves to learn in a safe, functioning school environment. This has not been the case in Doug Ford’s Ontario.”

Sadly, ironically, regrettably, when Deasley said “every single kid in Ontario needs and deserves to learn in a safe, functioning school environment”, she meant it in the narrowest physical sense alone. She certainly was not referring to the well-documented current environments in some public schools, of aggressively hostile antisemitism, that have rendered those places quite unsafe for Jewish students.

The subject of unsafe learning environments for Jewish students in public schools was not part of any discussion about education during the just concluded election campaign. Nor, alas, was the ongoing, deeply hurtful, no longer justifiable, discrimination in Ontario’s educational funding.

McGinn’s article is available at:

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-ontario-election-education-ford-ndp-liberals/

To remind people how Ontario’s unceasing discrimination the amounts to an affront to justice, conscience and especially best educational policies, we point to the authoritative educational study published by three scholar-researchers of Cardus on September 15, 2021, entitled Funding All Students: A Comparative Economic Analysis of the Fiscal Cost to Support Students in Ontario Independent Schools. (GAJE reported on the study at the time of its publication.)

We reproduce some key findings from the study. For reasons too well known since October 7, 2023, those findings are more relevant today to the Jewish community of Ontario, than they were three and a half years ago when they were first published.

“[Public] funding [for independent schools] is the norm around the world, as well as in Canada. Globally, 73 percent of countries at least partially fund independent schools—only one OECD country does not. In Canada outside Ontario, 75 percent of independent schools and 84 percent of independent-school students are partially publicly funded. Put differently, Ontario’s lack of funding is anomalous in both a global and Canadian context. We discuss the four main objections to funding and conclude that Ontario’s lack of financial support for independent-school students is an unjust and inequitable policy—uncharacteristic of a democratically elected government, especially in an advanced economy—that further disadvantages the already disadvantaged.”

“Applying…three scenarios to each of the seven provincial funding schemes (already existing in Canada), results in twenty-one cost estimations, ranging between $535.2 million and $1.539 billion in net annual cost to Ontario taxpayers. For context, within the scope of Ontario’s $186 billion annual budget (for fiscal 2020-2021) this is around 1/3 to 4/5 of 1 percent (0.3% to 0.8%) of the budget. In other words, any of these funding options is a relatively minimal cost to substantially benefit the families who need it most.”

Fairness in educational funding in Ontario is manifestly achievable. The Cardus study demonstrates this beyond any doubt. It remains the bedrock upon which sound, just, educationally and ethically appropriate decisions for all of Ontario’s school children can be based. But, there is no political will to achieve fairness and finally cast aside discrimination.

As noted above, it was deeply disappointing that no party, no candidate, spoke about – let alone offered to remedy – the discrimination in Ontario’s education funding.

For shame.

The Cardus study: https://www.cardus.ca/research/education/reports/the-cost-to-fund-students-in-ontario-independent-schools/

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We wish to remind our supporters: GAJE still awaits the decision of the Court of Appeal on our motion seeking leave to appeal the September 2024 decision by the Divisional Court that dismissed our application to bring about fairness in educational funding in Ontario.

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)

February 28, 2025

There are moments when the clock should stop – as if in sympathy with the skipping of one’s heartbeat – so significant are they in assessing What is Man?

Yesterday was such a moment. For the State of Israel, for the People of Israel. Indeed, for the world.

The corpses of Oded Lifshitz, 83-years-old, Shiri Bibas and her two sons, 4-year-old Ariel and 9 months-old Kfir, were returned to Israel. Except Hamas did not return Shiri’s body. The IDF said that no match was found for the purported body of Shiri Bibas. “It is an anonymous body without identification”, they said.

The Jerusalem Post reported that “available intelligence and forensic evidence from the identification process have led officials to determine that the two children were brutally murdered in captivity by terrorists in November 2023, just a month after their abduction. Kfir was murdered at 10 months old. Ariel was murdered at four years old.

The moral grotesquery of February 20, 2025 was of the same twisted, evil piece with that of October 7, 2023.

Merely hours after the four bodies crossed into Israeli territory, a number of booby-trapped buses exploded in the centre of Israel. Thankfully, the buses had been parked for the night and were empty of passengers. Had they exploded during rush of the business day, hundreds of Israeli civilians would have been slaughtered.

Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad teach a perverse theology that finds delight and fulfillment in the killing Jews.

But today, Jews fight back. The State of Israel fights back with its security services and the Israel Defence Forces. The People of Israel fight back by standing tall and together, by raising high the banner of our Judaism.

And the world fights back by…..

Because the clocks did not stop yesterday, we will pause this week from providing a specifically oriented GAJE update. In lieu, we offer a heart-rending eulogy for the Bibas family written by Adam Hummel. It is emotionally riveting. It is important. (He wrote it before he knew that Shiri had not been returned to Israel.)

Hummel’s article is available at: https://catchjcp.substack.com/p/a-eulogy

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We wish to remind our supporters: GAJE still awaits the decision of the Court of Appeal on our motion seeking leave to appeal the September 2024 decision by the Divisional Court that dismissed our application to bring about fairness in educational funding in Ontario.

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)

February 21, 2025

Paul Bernstein, CEO of Prizmah: Center for Jewish Day Schools, whom we quoted in last week’s update, has written a thoughtful article – Having the courage to meet our moment

 – in which he reflected upon the ubiquity of manifestations of courage throughout modern Jewish life.

The trigger for his mini-meditation was the closing keynote address by Susan David at the Prizmah Conference last week in Boston. Ms David suggested that “courage is not the absence of fear; courage is fear walking.”

Ms David focused on the prevalence of courage of course, as the response to the uniquely challenging and anxious times in which we, the Jewish people, find ourselves these days.

Bernstein provided a more precise context for the need to summon up courage. “Globally and throughout the Jewish world,” Bernstein wrote, “this is a moment when fear abounds. The scars of a worldwide pandemic are still healing; threats of antisemitism loom large; the State of Israel is under attack; and we live in a dangerously polarized political and social climate. Like all the generations before us, we must do what we can to ensure a better future for the world and for our people — to hold those fears and keep moving forward.”

Bernstein’s statement about ensuring a better future called to mind the axiomatic and profoundly insightful prescription by the late Lord Rabbi Jonathan Sacks who believed and wrote: “If you want to save the Jewish future, you have to build Jewish day schools – there is no other way.”

Rabbi Sacks was unambiguous. The Jewish future depends upon the proliferation of Jewish education. “You have to build Jewish day schools,” he said emphatically.

In today’s context, i.e., the context depicted by Bernstein, Rabbi Sacks’ instruction means building day schools despite the fear and the anxiety of our times.

Again, Bernstein provides some detail and some nuance to what such courage might look like.

“When I think about what it means to have courage and Jewish day schools, I am reminded of the relationship that is at the core of learning between teachers and learners. Educators in our schools show up every day, no matter the news headlines or their own fears, in order to continue the task of building a better future. Their courage is worthy of our highest respect. Teachers and school leaders have been and will continue to be the heroes and the role models our students need to eventually replace them as the teachers, leaders and thinkers of tomorrow, seeding generation after generation of Jewish connection, continuity and remarkable contribution both to our community and wider society.   

To Bernstein’s list of “heroic” figures, GAJE adds the young families who enroll their children in Jewish education, despite (and because of) the current anxieties, and despite the heavy cost.

•••

Bernstein’s article is available at:

Having the courage to meet our moment

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We wish to remind our supporters: GAJE still awaits the decision of the Court of Appeal on our motion seeking leave to appeal the September 2024 decision by the Divisional Court that dismissed our application to bring about fairness in educational funding in Ontario.

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)

February 14, 2025

(This update is dedicated to the memory of Michael Mostyn. He was, truly, a young Lion of Judah, a guardian and champion of Jews – at home and abroad – all of his adult life. He fought from the ramparts of justice on behalf of the inherent dignity and human rights of all peoples, He was a “Shield of David” who brought honour to his people and thus, to his God. Mostyn – the CEO of B’nai Brith Canada – passed away this week after a typically courageous, year-long battle against a mortal disease. His memory will always be for blessing and inspiration.)

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As GAJE has noted in previous weekly updates, it is no coincidence that the brazen manifestations of antisemitism and Israel-hatred on the streets of North American cities since “October 7”, have given rise to increased efforts by Jewish families to find ways to affiliate more directly with other Jewish families. The documented uptick in enrolment in Jewish day schools in various cities has been one example of this new striving for communal affiliation.

Last month Nira Dayanim reported in eJewishPhilanthropy, (eJP), that the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Foundation awarded a $90 million matching grant aimed at strengthening the Jewish day school system in Cleveland. This is an important philanthropic initiative that may potentially infuse $180 million in support of five Day Schools there.

It is neither exaggeration nor overstatement to write that community leaders, especially in the U.S., are experiencing something of an awakening or re-awakening regarding the importance of Jewish education in securing a Jewish future. Some of the official statements that accompanied the announcement of the Mandel initiative are illustrative.

“According to Jehuda Reinharz, president and CEO of the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Foundation, the decision to make this contribution was rooted in research that highlighted the role the Jewish day schools play in creating a long-lasting Jewish identity. “Today’s day school graduates are tomorrow’s Jewish community leaders,” Reinharz said in a statement. 

Paul Bernstein, CEO of Prizmah: Center for Jewish Day Schools, hailed the foundation’s investment, saying it reflects a growing interest in Jewish day schools nationwide. “We think that these kinds of investments will have major impacts on excellence, on affordability and ultimately in growing enrollment in the schools.”

GAJE agrees with the above statements. And so do the professionals and philanthropists of the Jewish Federation of Greater Toronto, as overtly implied by Jewish community officials in Cleveland.

As reported in the story, Rachel Lappen, the Jewish Federation of Cleveland’s chief development officer, said that the Mandel Foundation initiative “was inspired by other community-wide fundraising initiatives, such as the Toronto Federation’s Generations Trust scholarship.” 

Lappen’s publicly-expressed accolade for Toronto’s approach to getting more children enrolled in Jewish day school is deserved and worthy. But, as Federation officials here also acknowledge, more needs to be done to abate even further the cost of tuition.

These days, members of Jewish communities everywhere are connecting the dots of Jewish connection with greater clarity and urgency. Jewish day schools – Jewish education – plays a critically important role in creating a long-lasting Jewish identity.

Dayanim’s article is available at:

Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Supporting Foundation donates $90 million to strengthen Cleveland’s day schools

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

February 7, 2025

A story appeared last month that slipped under the radar. It deserves to be “flown” above the radar.

It described an initiative by the Israeli government to help strengthen Jewish education in the U.S. The project is the first intervention of its kind by Israel directly trying to buttress Jewish identity and connection of fellow Jews outside of Israel through support of formal Jewish education. And while the initiative is aimed at American Jews, it is noteworthy for our community as well.

Written by Judah Ari Gross, the story was published by eJewishPhilanthropy (eJP) in early December. Gross reports that the Israeli government is investing $4 million in a program called Aleph Bet aimed at boosting Jewish day schools in the United States. The investment was originally meant to be significantly higher – about 10 times bigger – but October 7 and its aftermath intervened to derail the initial plans. Nevertheless, Gross reports, “the individuals involved in delivering the program are saying that it still sends a potent message.”

Those individuals are correct. Israel policy makers have increasingly come to understand that “raising Jews” in the Diaspora is indispensable to establishing and maintaining a strong relationship between Israel and, in particular – young – American Jewry.

Those same Israeli policy makers seem also finally to understand that offering youngsters comprehensive Jewish education is the best way to “raise Jews.”

The investment is being run through the Jewish Federations of North America (JFNA) and Prizmah: Center for Jewish Day Schools, and will go toward seven day school-related projects across the U.S.

All of the parties involved described the $4 million donation as being more symbolic than substantive an investment, though a powerful symbol nevertheless, signifying a seal of approval by the Israeli government and a call for the philanthropic community to follow suit. 

It would also appear that the Aleph Beit initiative is intended to be somewhat of a trip-wire for a large, comprehensive effort across North America, still in the planning stages, to bring more children into Jewish education. If events have brought Jewish life, Jewish history to a watershed, Jews need to be become more knowledgeable, more “capable”, “stronger” and more secure in our own storied identities.

Sarah Eisenman, the outgoing chief community and Jewish life officer at JFNA, said: “We believe that now is that moment to catalyze and launch that much larger initiative to grow enrollment. So, for us, this investment is essential. But the beautiful element of it is what it communicates in terms of importance — that this is really important to invest in, particularly at this moment,” Eisenman told eJP.

For JFNA, Eisenman said, this initiative is “one phase” of the organization’s “larger initiative to double [day school enrollment] over the next 10 years.” Gross reports on the tantalizing possibility of a concerted, continent-wide effort among professional and lay community leaders, educators and philanthropists to help “raise” as many Jews as possible.

“Our priority focus will be on growing enrollment in non-Orthodox Jewish day schools. Because… [with] non-Orthodox families, it’s about 9%, 10% who send their kids to a Jewish day school,” she said. “How do we really leverage this moment and take advantage of this moment and serve those families and help them access Jewish day schools in ways that they’ve not been able to access Jewish day schools previously?” Eisenman said.

She noted that in addition to Project Aleph Bet, JFNA is working to establish a North American fund to make Jewish day schools more affordable and is working with Prizmah, which is developing a national marketing campaign to boost day schools.

Following the JFNA General Assembly in Washington, D.C., earlier this month, the organization held an invite-only, three-hour gathering with 100 funders to discuss this issue, Eisenman said.

“We just had 100 funders coming together in D.C. specifically focused on how we might achieve this very ambitious goal [of doubling enrollment] over the next 10 years,” Eisenman said. “So, we had 100 funders in the room — foundations and individual philanthropists from all across the country and Canada — really digging into this question of how can we do this and why now, why this moment is critical in achieving this.”

Eisenman said that JFNA is pushing to establish a large central fund to help make day schools more affordable. But, as we all know, and as experience has taught, achieving the goal requires time and the integrated efforts of a wide swath of individuals, institutions and foundations.

If the Government of Israel remains involved in a possible, continent-wide, comprehensive campaign, we will be able to say, finally, the acknowledgement of a shared past may lead meaningfully to a shared commitment and a shared future.

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The story can be found at:

Israel invests $4 million in U.S. Jewish day schools, with hopes of jump-starting domestic giving

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

January 31, 2025