It is – or should be – incontrovertible that Jewish education is one of the essential tools for creating Jews who will be knowledgeable about their heritage, proud to belong to their ancient/modern people, secure and joyful in expressing their belonging, and unwavering in standing with the Jewish people.

Such Jews – allied with all peoples who care for and are willing to protect democracy and law-based freedoms – are required to take up the fight against the forces that are intent on negating Jews and the State of Israel. This is the true light in which the current, hateful campaign against Israel being waged by the hard-core anti-Semites and their unwitting, uninformed confederates must be seen. The pro-Hamas crowd has a multiple overlapping target: The State of Israel, Jews, America and democratic rule.                                    

It is in this context that a report in JNS on August 13 of an interim decision by a judge in California adjudicating upon a lawsuit by three aggrieved Jewish students against UCLA, is like a bolt of electricity restoring the recent power outages in moral behaviour by established figures and institutions throughout the western world. GAJE publishes excerpts from the report because of its exceptional and very important nature.

The facts of the UCLA case will sound familiar.

Pro-Hamas demonstrators sent up an encampment on the campus and prevented Jews and other supporters of Israel from having access to parts of the campus which should have been accessible to all students. The university sought an injunction to prevent the lawsuit from proceeding.

Judge Mark Scarsi, of the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, rejected the university’s argument. He began his judgment with the following statement of moral astonishment.

“In the year 2024, in the United States of America, in the State of California, in the City of Los Angeles, Jewish students were excluded from portions of the UCLA campus because they refused to denounce their faith.”

“This fact is so unimaginable and so abhorrent to our constitutional guarantee of religious freedom that it bears repeating, Jewish students were excluded from portions of the UCLA campus because they refused to denounce their faith,” Scarsi continued. “UCLA does not dispute this. Instead, UCLA claims that it has no responsibility to protect the religious freedom of its Jewish students because the exclusion was engineered by third-party protesters.”

Under principles of the Constitution, the University of California, Los Angeles — a public school — “may not allow services to some students when UCLA knows that other students are excluded on religious grounds, regardless of who engineered the exclusion,” the judge continued.

Judge Scarsi issued a preliminary injunction that requires UCLA to stop providing “ordinarily available programs, activities and campus areas” to the entire student body if they become unavailable to certain Jewish students. “How best to make any unavailable programs, activities and campus areas available again is left to UCLA’s discretion,” he wrote.

The judge wrote that because of the encampments, Jewish students—including the three plaintiffs—felt that they had to “disavow” their religious beliefs to move freely on campus and that they “were excluded based of their genuinely held religious beliefs,” in support of the Jewish state, per the judge’s order. (Our emphasis)

The comparison begs to be made with the decision in the U of T encampment case.

The judge decided that the encampment had to be dismantled on the basis of the narrow principles of property law and trespass. In a lengthy, troubling aside however, relying upon questionable authorities, he determined that the slogans, phrases and language of intimidation emanating from the encampment participants aimed primarily at supporters of Israel and other passersby were not necessarily antisemitic. He wrote: “I do not have to determine how these phrases and symbols are being used. I review this history and analysis merely to point out that the automatic conclusion that those phrases are antisemitic is not justified; especially not on an interlocutory injunction.” (Our emphasis)

This statement by the judge in the U of T case is simply unreconcilable with reality and truth.

What we felt then about the encampments and feel still today was succinctly summarized by Mark Rienzi, a lawyer representing the Jewish students in the UCLA case. “Shame on UCLA for letting antisemitic thugs terrorize Jews on campus. Today’s ruling says that UCLA’s policy of helping antisemitic activists target Jews is not just morally wrong but a gross constitutional violation. UCLA should stop fighting the Constitution and start protecting Jews on campus.”

With university resuming in two weeks, it is incumbent upon the community to prepare for what will surely be a resumption of vile anti-Israel and anti-Jewish activities. In age-appropriate ways, schools must prepare their students. Parents must prepare their children, to know and to celebrate their Jewishness.

•••

The appeal by the Government of Ontario of Judge Eugenia Papageorgiou’s refusal last summer to throw out GAJE’s application for fairness in educational funding, was heard in early June by a panel of three judges. The court reserved its decision.

GAJE will publish the court’s decision as soon as it is known to us.

•••

If you wish to contribute to GAJE’s lawsuit for fairness in educational funding, please click here.

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

Charitable receipts for donations for income tax purposes will be issued by Mizrachi Canada. Your donations will be used for the sole purpose of underwriting the costs of the lawsuit.

•••

Shabbat shalom

Am Yisrael Chai

Grassroots for Affordable Jewish Education (GAJE)

August 16, 2024

The disbelief, shock and anger felt by Jews, as a result of the very public and very brazen manifestations of anti-Jewish, anti-Israel hatred, have generated consultations and group discussions in Jewish homes, synagogues, schools and office boardrooms at home and abroad. What is the best way to deal with the outrageous affronts to Jewish life?

Within the wide swath of opinions among professionals and “ordinary” folk regarding the path ahead, there is wide consensus on one preferred course of action as a rebuke to the anti-Semites. Lisa Popik Coll and Gail Norry, Prizmah Board Chair and Vice Chair, respectively, expressed it succinctly.  “The best way to fight antisemitism is with Jewish pride and Jewish joy.”

Coll and Norry wrote this prescription in an article entitled, “The next billion-dollar gift” – discussed in this space two weeks ago – that urged philanthropists to try to make Jewish education entirely affordable, if not free, for families that seek it for their children. Their bold suggestion has attracted positive attention. 

Rabbi Moshe Hauer, Executive Vice President of the Orthodox Union, agreed that Jewish education can indeed benefit by the boost that such “transformative philanthropy” would provide. (See “Transformational gifts for our schools and homes”, eJP, July 22)

In an essay that appeared on the eJP website last week,Rachel Mohl Abrahams, senior advisor for education grants and programs at the Mayberg Foundation, also placed her imprimatur of support upon the Coll, Norry proposal. In “Investing in transformational Jewish day school experiences”. But she went even further pleading for generous philanthropy to ensure access to Jewish schools as well as the best outcomes possible from those schools.

“Philanthropy plays a critical role in ensuring that students enter day schools, and that families can afford for their children to stay there…We need to [also] guarantee that the education provided, impacts students’ lives, and especiallytheir connection to Judaism.”

To be sure, Abrahams wrote about specific programs and approaches at the Mayberg Foundation where she is an advisor, in addition to buttressing the general importance, if not urgency, to bring as many children to Jewish education. She extolled certain dedicated teacher training programs sponsored by the foundation aimed at helping develop the best teachers possible.

“The best educators help students make Judaism applicable to their lives in engaging, contemporary and customizable ways, and advancing excellence in the field of day school education depends upon a vigorous commitment to ongoing professional growth of teachers and school leaders. If we want our classrooms to be places of relevance, acceptance and spiritual nourishment, we must invest in the people who have committed their lives to the holy work of Jewish education”, Abrahams wrote.

“Funders… can convey a clear expectation that Jewish education delivers a package of foundational wisdom, values and relationship building that empowers every student and builds positive Jewish identity, in addition to providing skills training and exposing students to Jewish texts. We need to partner with one another and with professionals.” 

Abrahams reinforces the need to “raise” our children knowledgeable about their Judaism if they are to be able to stand up to the haters of Israel and of Jews. Raising our children Jewishly requires excellent Jewish education. And so, she urges the philanthropic world to invest in local and national Jewish educational infrastructure with educator training to create the best Jewish education possible.

GAJE shares Abrahams’ views. And that is why we call readers’ attention to her article. She has elegantly re-iterated the prescription for contending with the modern Jewish condition. 

The Abrahams article is available at:

Investing in transformational Jewish day school experiences

•••

The appeal by the Government of Ontario of Judge Eugenia Papageorgiou’s refusal last summer to throw out GAJE’s application for fairness in educational funding, was heard in early June by a panel of three judges. The court reserved its decision.

GAJE will publish the court’s decision as soon as it is known to us.

•••

If you wish to contribute to GAJE’s lawsuit for fairness in educational funding, please click here.

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

Charitable receipts for donations for income tax purposes will be issued by Mizrachi Canada. Your donations will be used for the sole purpose of underwriting the costs of the lawsuit.

•••

Shabbat shalom.

Am Yisrael Chai.

Grassroots for Affordable Jewish Education (GAJE)

August 9, 2024

The times weigh heavily upon us. Constant and unabating are our worries for the State of Israel and for our co-religionists wherever their habitations, including here, in our own community.

As these words were written, the bloodlusting cries from the theocratic regime in Iran and from their confederate purveyors of hate, far and wide, increase in shrill crescendo. Two of their appointed masterminds of murder met justice this week. And the mullahs demand vengeance.

So too do haters of Jews and of Israel around the globe. They, and their exploited, uninformed fellow travellers, shout their false slogans, deface public and private property and try to intimidate those who oppose them.

That the displacement of historical truth by lies and of fundamental, human morality by brazen, immorality has been so enthusiastically embraced is infuriating, and as we have noted, worrying.

Rabbi Marc D. Angel, founder of the New York based “study hall”, The Institute for Jewish Ideas and Ideals, offers the following insights on overcoming anti-Jewish demagogues and bullies trying to take over our institutions and our streets:

“When societies allow hatred to flourish, they are sowing the seeds of their own destruction. When universities, media and political forums condone blatantly anti-Jewish intimidation and violence, the infection spreads well beyond Jews. Civil discourse is threatened. Respectful dialogue is quashed.

“All who stand for a civil society must not be intimidated by the haters, bullies and supporters of terrorism. The syndrome of hate eats away at the foundations of society. It must not be allowed to prevail.”

“To combat this ideology of hatred, we need more than Holocaust education. We need a powerful, positive presentation of Jewish history, Jewish connection to the land of Israel, Jewish idealism, and Jewish striving for peace and mutual understanding.

“We combat anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism by acting with pride, courage…and success. The stronger we are as a community, the more we overcome the hatred and violence of our enemies.”

In other words, to follow Rabbi Angel’s advice, we best oppose the haters by affirming our values and our identity as committed Jews, who cherish and care for our free, democratic, law-based way of life. And to do that we must raise our children to know who they are and what role they might play in the constantly unfolding line of their Jewish peoplehood.

To equip his readers with the facts concerning the history of modern Israel, Rabbi Angel posted a Conversation Guide: Building Support for Israel and Combating Antisemitism with Non-Jewish Friends, Neighbors and Colleagues.

We point out with great pride that the guide was written by Jeffrey Stutz, one of the founding members of GAJE. It is an excellent source of material that can inform a discussion with Jews and non-Jews alike.

The guide can be accessed and downloaded at: https://www.jewishideas.org/node/3230

•••

The appeal by the Government of Ontario of Judge Eugenia Papageorgiou’s refusal last summer to throw out GAJE’s application for fairness in educational funding, was heard in early June by a panel of three judges. The court reserved its decision.

GAJE will publish the court’s decision as soon as it is known to us.

•••

If you wish to contribute to GAJE’s lawsuit for fairness in educational funding in Ontario, please click here.

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

Charitable receipts for donations for income tax purposes will be issued by Mizrachi Canada. Your donations will be used for the sole purpose of underwriting the costs of the lawsuit.

•••

Shabbat shalom.

Am Yisrael Chai.

Grassroots for Affordable Jewish Education (GAJE)

August 2, 2024

Earlier this month, Lisa Popik Coll and Gail Norry, board chair and vice chair, respectively, of Prizmah: Center for Jewish Day Schools cast a challenge to the wide Jewish community of North America of high Richter scale magnitude and potential benefit.

Citing the recent previously unimaginable philanthropy by Ruth Gottesman who donated $1 billion to cover medical school tuition for students at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, and by Michael Bloomberg in the same amount to cover medical school tuition for students at Johns Hopkins Medical School, Coll and Norry askied the very bold question: “What if the next billion-dollar gift went to Jewish day school tuition?”   

In an article published by eJP, entitled The next billion-dollar gift, the authors noted that Gottesman justified her remarkable act of generosity as a way to make medical school education available for students “whose economic status is such that they wouldn’t even think about going to medical school.”  

Why not adopt that very same approach to enable families who couldn’t even think about being able to send their children to Jewish school, the authors urged.

It is not surprising that Coll and Norry have put this formerly out-of-the-box question on the Jewish communal agenda. They were inspired by the eye-catching generosity of Gottesman and Bloomberg, and compelled by the imperative to act urgently in the face of the current context of rising threats to Jewish life, at home and abroad.

They explain their thinking plainly and honestly.

“A year ago, few of us could also have imagined the wave of unbridled antisemitism that has hit since Oct. 7 and its effects on every aspect of our lives, especially education. We believe the best way to fight antisemitism is with Jewish pride and Jewish joy. We need to raise a generation of strong, proud, knowledgeable, literate and unapologetic Jews, and there is no better way to do this than Jewish day school.

“But antisemitism should not be the only reason that families enroll in Jewish day schools. All Jewish families, from every denomination and at every level of observance, should understand that they can find a community and educational home at Jewish day schools.”

And so, the authors, ask with a pleading and hopeful heart, for the next billion-dollar gift by a civic-minded, Jewish philanthropist intent on improving the world, to be made to embed Jewish education permanently into the deep infrastructure of Jewish communal life.

GAJE agrees with the authors. Now more than ever.

Perhaps a continent-wide communal summit is warranted on the subject of making Jewish education truly affordable for all?

•••

The Coll/Norry article is available at:

The next billion-dollar gift

•••

The appeal by the Government of Ontario of Judge Eugenia Papageorgiou’s refusal last summer to throw out GAJE’s application for fairness in educational funding, was heard in early June by a panel of three judges. The court reserved its decision.

GAJE will publish the court’s decision as soon as it is known to us.

•••

If you wish to contribute to GAJE’s lawsuit for fairness in educational funding in Ontario, please click here.

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

Charitable receipts for donations for income tax purposes will be issued by Mizrachi Canada. Your donations will be used for the sole purpose of underwriting the costs of the lawsuit.

•••

Shabbat shalom.

Am Yisrael Chai.

Grassroots for Affordable Jewish Education (GAJE)

July 26, 2024

GAJE champions Jewish education because Jewish education provides the best odds of raising young Jewish children to become strongly identifying, committed Jews as adults. Thus, GAJE’s singular mission is to try to help such education be truly affordable for young families.

Jewish education in Jewish schools is profoundly important for its own unique, precious sake. Since October 7, however, because of the radically disgusting and disorienting appearance here, of thuggish, even intimidating, anti-Jewish behaviour, some families are actively seeking a supportive community of co-religionists in Jewish schools.

It is not overstatement that in a profound sense, some public schools and boards have betrayed Jewish parents and Jewish children. There are documented cases since October 7, of some public schools and boards, devolving into hostile environments for conscientiously identifying Jews who no longer feel welcomed there.

As an example, last week we brought readers’ attention to the heartbreaking revelation by Hannah Schwartz, a high school student in Toronto of the anti-Jewish bullying with which she had to contend last year.

Hannah wrote that wound of the bullying penetrated deeper because of the lack of response from peers and especially from leaders in positions of responsibility. “Yes, we need to be safe from hate and violence,” Hannah wrote. “But there’s something we need just as much, now more than ever. We need allies, not bystanders.”

In addition to the bullying Hannah described within schools, a recent curriculum-altering initiative by the Toronto District School Board, if adopted, will likely make the situation for Jews much worse.

On June 20, Toronto District School Board (TDSB) trustees voted 15-7 to add the term “anti-Palestinian racism” (APR) to its anti-racism strategy. A working group will be established to create a stand-alone strategy to address anti-Palestinian racism and discrimination in schools. The board will introduce a “professional learning series” on the topic.

Much has been written about this endeavour, most of it in increasing tones of warning and alarm. Expert and lay observers alike fear that the APR strategy is intended and will undoubtedly be used as a sword, not as a shield, to strike at as well as down, the fundamental elements of Jewish life, history, folkways and tradition. If the non-democratic, railroading method by which the initiative was presented and adopted at the TDSB is indicative, then the fears of the measure’s opponents are well-founded.

Casey Babb, a senior fellow with the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, an international fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv, and an advisor to Secure Canada recently published, in the Globe and Mail, his own warning regarding the APR proposal. His conclusion is harrowing.

“Going forward, senior decision makers – particularly those responsible for educating and protecting our children – need to start having more realistic and difficult discussions before moving toward knee-jerk initiatives that could threaten certain groups of people. Indeed, there are reasons why hundreds of concerned parents, educators and community leaders protested outside the building where the vote took place. They’re worried about the future of their children in Canada’s public-school system, and many are left feeling more vulnerable than they ever have before. One Jewish community leader recently told me that despite all of the things he has seen since Oct. 7, the situation in the schools is what has him the most worried.”

We should take notice. We should oppose this latest effort unfolding within some of Ontario’s publicly funded schools, to demonize, distort and delegitimize the biblical, modern, Jewish story. 

•••

Babb’s article is available at:

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-school-boards-shouldnt-rush-into-adopting-anti-palestinian-racism/?login=true

•••

The appeal by the Government of Ontario of Judge Eugenia Papageorgiou’s refusal last summer to throw out GAJE’s application for fairness in educational funding, was heard in early June by a panel of three judges. The court reserved its decision.

GAJE will publish the court’s decision as soon as it is known to us.

•••

If you wish to contribute to GAJE’s lawsuit for fairness in educational funding in Ontario, please click here.

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

Charitable receipts for donations for income tax purposes will be issued by Mizrachi Canada. Your donations will be used for the sole purpose of underwriting the costs of the lawsuit.

•••

Shabbat shalom.

Am Yisrael Chai.

Grassroots for Affordable Jewish Education (GAJE)

July 19, 2024

Blatant discrimination is entrenched in Ontario’s educational system. For, as we all know, only one religious group in the province receives funding for the education of its children. That this differentiation continues and persists in the year 2024 is an expanding wound to the moral integrity of the society that represents itself as one that respects and protects human rights for all its citizens.

Now we discover that blatant student bullying is also becoming increasingly entrenched in Ontario’s public schools. This is the heartbreaking revelation by Hannah Schwartz, a high school student in Toronto.

In a searing, cri de coeur published in the Toronto Star last month, Hannah wrote “what many people may not know is that right now it’s hard to be a Jewish kid at just about any school in Canada.”

Hannah has the credibility to comment on the state of bullying in schools and in other social venues. She is the founder of the online, anti-bullying and anti-hate awareness program Voice and Action. She writes with clarity, directly, with the unembellished language of a true heart, striving to do the right thing. We reproduce some of the key passages from her op-ed so that as wide an audience as possible will learn of the anxiety incrementally gripping our children simply on account of their identities as Jews.

“In school assembly after school assembly, in class after class, teachers and motivational speakers told my peers and me repeatedly: don’t be bystanders to bullying. If you see something say something. And above all, try your best to spread “small acts of kindness” wherever you go.

The sad thing is, it’s become clear that this lesson did not sink in, especially when it comes to antisemitism. (Our emphasis)

“Unfortunately, it isn’t small acts of kindness I see in my school community. It’s acts of hate — in all sizes.

“Before the Israel-Hamas war broke out, I didn’t fully realize what antisemitism was. I knew it as an abstract thing, but I had never come face to face with it myself. Then Oct. 7 arrived and everything changed. I began to notice small hurtful comments from my peers about my religion and culture, and then bigger more painful comments. One of my peers started calling me “Jew” instead of my name. They thought it would be funny to scream it at me in the hallways. And then another told me: “I wish Hitler was back,” and “I wish your whole family had died in a gas chamber.” 

“On social media it has been just as bad. My peers, even some whose hearts are in the right place, share antisemitic memes and videos. The bullying and Jew hatred is hard enough but what is almost just as hard to see is the impact this experience has had on my friends. I notice that some of my Jewish classmates who were once proud of their identity now feel uncomfortable with it. They are scared to be “too” Jewish in public. And for those of us who are proud to be Jewish and show it, many of our peers shun us.

“Meanwhile, the response from school leaders and politicians feels quiet, like the whole country is a bystander to this bullying. This feels so wrong, like a betrayal of the lessons we were raised on.

“Yes, we need to be safe from hate and violence. But there’s something we need just as much, now more than ever. We need allies, not bystanders.”

•••

Hannah’s lament is dire and urgent. We repeat her words. The response [to the active, bold, bullying of Jewish children] from school leaders and politicians feels quiet, like the whole country is a bystander to this bullying. This feels so wrong, like a betrayal of the lessons we were raised on.”

Adding to the funding unfairness we now add anti-Jewish bullying that characterize the public educational system of Ontario. As long as discrimination and bullying are endemic to it, the public school system is unworthy of the society in whose name it purports to educate its children. Moreover, the failure of public school leaders to eradicate bullying of Jewish students within their schools, may have significant implications for future enrollment in Jewish schools.

•••

Hanna’s opinion letter can be read at:

https://www.thestar.com/opinion/contributors/i-wish-hitler-was-back-one-student-told-me-heres-what-its-like-to-be/article_fff3e16c-2f1b-11ef-b1e7-5bd251694455.html

•••

The appeal by the Government of Ontario of Judge Eugenia Papageorgiou’s refusal last summer to throw out GAJE’s application for fairness in educational funding, was heard in early June by a panel of three judges. The court reserved its decision.

GAJE will publish the court’s decision as soon as it is known to us.

•••

If you wish to contribute to GAJE’s lawsuit for fairness in educational funding in Ontario, please click here.

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

Charitable receipts for donations for income tax purposes will be issued by Mizrachi Canada. Your donations will be used for the sole purpose of underwriting the costs of the lawsuit.

•••

Shabbat shalom.

Am Yisrael Chai.

Grassroots for Affordable Jewish Education (GAJE)

July 12, 2024

Last week in this space, we noted that one of the ways we protect civil, decent democratic society in Ontario/Canada is by protecting and enhancing Jewish community life.

That means, of course, we must raise our children to know who they are, why and how to connect with and feel part of Jewish history and Jewish peoplehood. In addition to raising children to be knowledgeable, caring and engaged Jews wherever they choose to live, we must also stand up for ourselves and for our remarkable faith and heritage. We must stand up to the haters who propagate their hatred of our Judaism and of the Jewish State on the very streets of our cities and communities.

Amy Spitalnick, the CEO of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs (JCPA), recently published an article on the site of eJewishPhilanthropy whose thesis confirmed the link that pushing back against anti-Semites in and of itself, holds up and strengthens democratic society. JCPA publicly asserts that “Jewish safety is inextricably linked with the safety of other communities and a strong, pluralistic democracy.”

The Jewish Council for Public Affairs (JCPA) has the history and the credibility to be in the vanguard of the fight to protect the pillars of American democracy. Throughout its 80-year history, JCPA has been at the forefront of the fight for civil rights, justice, and equality in the United States. It has served in the U.S. as a convener of Jewish groups and organizations in the cause of safekeeping democracy and democratic life.

In the article, entitled “We must work across communities to fight antisemitism and defend democracy”, Spitalnick advises of wrote: “Recent research from the University of Chicago, the Anti-Defamation League and others underscores the deep connection between antisemitism and broader threats to democracy and diverse communities.”

“…The research shows that messaging connecting Jewish safety with our democracy, democratic norms and values, and the safety of others isn’t just accurate — it resonates strongly with the communities who must be engaged in this fight. Research conducted in the fall of 2023, detailed in our report, found that such messages tested very well across race, generation and party. As the report notes, recent follow-up research, focused on 18- to 34-year-olds, found that the most resonant messaging highlighted antisemitism’s threats to our democracy and freedom and how antisemitic hate spreads to target other groups. This tells us that there is a clear path forward: one that recognizes the deep interconnection of Jewish safety with the safety of others and brings together communities under threat in pursuit of an inclusive democracy in which all Americans’ rights and freedoms are protected.”

Although the research referenced in the article is based upon the current American experience, it clearly applies in broad terms to circumstances unfolding in Canada. Spitalnick’s conclusions comprise important reading for our community as well.

But the key to enabling us to step resolutely on the “clear path forward”, as Spitalnick refers to it, is first, to stand up as Jews and for our Judaism, to stand up to the anti-Semites knowledgeably and confidently as Jews.

That, of course, requires that we educate our children – and indeed, ourselves – in and about our heritage. If only the Government of Ontario understood the incontrovertible nexus between standing up to the anti-Semitic bully and standing up for Ontario’s civil, democratic society. Perhaps then, it would end its unjust, discriminatory, single-denominational funding of education in Ontario.

Spitalnick’s article can be read at: https://jewishpublicaffairs.org/news/ejewishphilanthropy-we-must-work-across-communities-to-fight-antisemitism-and-defend-democracy/

•••

The appeal by the Government of Ontario of Judge Eugenia Papageorgiou’s refusal last summer to throw out GAJE’s application for fairness in educational funding, was heard in early June by a panel of three judges. The court reserved its decision.

GAJE will publish the court’s decision as soon as it is known to us.

•••

If you wish to contribute to GAJE’s lawsuit for fairness in educational funding in Ontario, please click here.

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

Charitable receipts for donations for income tax purposes will be issued by Mizrachi Canada. Your donations will be used for the sole purpose of underwriting the costs of the lawsuit.

•••

Shabbat shalom.

Am Yisrael Chai.

Grassroots for Affordable Jewish Education (GAJE)

July 5, 2024

In three days, we celebrate Canada Day, the 157^th anniversary of the establishment of the (then) Dominion of Canada. True north, strong and free.

We cherish our country and the bedrock values that anchor the foundation of the freedoms and the responsibilities that comprise our democratic life. Since nearly the mid-point of the last century, those values have welcomed to Canadian shores a global array of cultures and communities and, over time, nurtured the building of the country, through loyal if also difficult labours, for the wide benefit of everyone lucky enough to call Canada their home.

But of late, the Jewish community is justified in asking – as much with worry as with anger and even sorrow – is the foundation of our democratic life here still stable? Are the values that support our society less than bedrock? It is well documented since October 7, that Jews and Jewish community structures have been assaulted literally and figuratively. Neither public space nor place of worship has been spared the aggression and the threats of loud-mouthed, but face-masked bullies. Many core institutions and professions of our society – have been infiltrated by haters intent on falsifying and erasing Jewish history if not also erasing Jews. Do not the haters understand if they erase Jewish history, they also erase Christian and Western history?

Moreover, this is Canada.

Such anti-democratic behaviour violates all the norms of our society. Why do so many of our elected officials appear to be unresponsive to our cries and indifferent to the zealous, unpunished chipping away at our bedrock values? Do they not see the danger such unchecked behaviour portends for everyone in the future?

The Preamble of Ontario’s Human Rights Code contains the following:

“…Whereas it is public policy in Ontario to recognize the dignity and worth of every person and to provide for equal rights and opportunities without discrimination that is contrary to law, and having as its aim the creation of a climate of understanding and mutual respect for the dignity and worth of each person so that each person feels a part of the community and able to contribute fully to the development and well-being of the community and the Province;”.

It is unlikely, however, that most members of the Jewish community would agree that these words accurately describe Ontario society today. Thus, we plead with society’s leaders to hold the haters to account for their egregious behaviours. This is the essential, core way society protects the rule of law and the underpinning values.

Another way we protect Ontario/Canada is by protecting and enhancing Jewish community life. Of this there is no doubt. As we have written often in this space, the best way to do so is through the Jewish education of our children. We must raise them to know who they are and how and why to connect with and feel part of our history and our peoplehood.

GAJE’s lawsuit against the Province of Ontario rests on the belief that the discrimination in Ontario’s educational funding is no longer appropriate 157 years after the Confederation compromise that established the system of single denominational funding in Ontario. The courts should consider whether the needs and imperatives for single denominational educational funding at the time of Confederation still make sense today.

GAJE argues there are a number of reasons that they do not. One of the key reasons is that the Confederation compromise was abandoned by Quebec in 1997. It no longer applies in Quebec. Only Ontario hues to the system that was created in 1867.

Another reason is simply this: Ontario’s refusal to end publicly acknowledged religiously-based discrimination, actually diminishes Ontario. It thus also further loosens the values – already being scraped from the foundational bedrock by masked and other haters of Israel and of Jews – on which we had always assumed life in Ontario/Canada would stand and flourish.

Thus, our celebration of Canada Day this year will be hopeful, but wary. Alas.

•••

The appeal by the Government of Ontario of Judge Eugenia Papageorgiou’s refusal last summer to throw out GAJE’s application for fairness in educational funding, was heard earlier this week by a panel of three judges. The court reserved its decision.

GAJE will publish the court’s decision as soon as it is known to us.

•••

If you wish to contribute to GAJE’s lawsuit for fairness in educational funding in Ontario, please click here.

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

Charitable receipts for donations for income tax purposes will be issued by Mizrachi Canada. Your donations will be used for the sole purpose of underwriting the costs of the lawsuit.

•••

Shabbat shalom.

Am Yisrael Chai.

Grassroots for Affordable Jewish Education (GAJE)

June 28, 2024

Embedded into the infrastructure of Jewish values is the deep decency of acknowledging the good that others do for you. In Hebrew, this mentschlichkeit is known as hakarat hatov – literally, recognizing the goodness.

Few moments are as sweet as “thank you” conveyed from the heart. At the end of the school year such important expressions of gratitude usually flow over the rim of our happiness as we acknowledge the goodness that the schools have conferred upon our children. Teachers, school administrators, volunteers, community professionals and philanthropists are to be thanked individually and collectively for trying to enable our children to learn and to grow toward their respective potentials.

In truth, even as we congratulate and celebrate our children for reaching the next formal educational marker along the path of their lives, we ought also to thank them too for completing the ten-month grind of the school year. For many children, it is not easy. Nor for most, is it generally a great deal of fun.

But the months roll by and by the end of the school calendar, schools and parent associations hold their respective celebrations to publicly acknowledge that something remarkably good and important has been achieved by everyone at school for another year.

After October 7, the combined efforts of the Jewish educational system and its students are more than the completion of an arduous, annual teaching/learning cycle. Indeed, they are a steel-hard, uncompromising response to the aggression against Jewish communities around the world. Families and the Jewish schools their children attend, affirm with the clear-eyed resolve of the ancient Hebrew prophets, the inviolability of our promise to our forebears and to God that we will live Jewish lives.

In helping us fulfill that promise, we rely heavily upon our teachers. We return to a statement by the late Lord Rabbi Jonathan Sacks to explain why that is so. It is a quotation we have cited before in our weekly update.

“For Jews, education is not just what we know. It’s who we are. No people ever cared for education more. Our ancestors were the first to make education a religious command, and the first to create a compulsory universal system of schooling – eighteen centuries before Britain… the Egyptians built pyramids, the Greeks built temples, and the Romans built amphitheaters, Jews built schools. They knew that to defend a country you need an army, but to defend a civilization you need education. So, Jews became the people whose heroes were teachers, whose citadels were schools, and whose passion was study and the life of the mind.”

Rabbi Sacks understood that we will defend the increasingly brazen attempts by haters of Israel and haters of Jews to erase our history, our people and our civilization, through Jewish education. Thus, especially at the end of this school year, to the educators and their students, to the professional and lay community leaders and to the educational philanthropists who are strengthening the Jewish school system, GAJE says: Thank you. Congratulations. Well done. Please continue from strength to strength.

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The appeal by the Government of Ontario of Judge Eugenia Papageorgiou’s refusal last summer to throw out GAJE’s application for fairness in educational funding, was heard earlier this week by a panel of three judges. The court reserved its decision.

GAJE will publish the results of the appeal as soon as it is known to us.

•••

If you wish to contribute to GAJE’s lawsuit for fairness in educational funding in Ontario, please click here.

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

Charitable receipts for donations for income tax purposes will be issued by Mizrachi Canada. Your donations will be used for the sole purpose of underwriting the costs of the lawsuit.

•••

Shabbat shalom.

Am Yisrael Chai.

Grassroots for Affordable Jewish Education (GAJE)

June 21, 2024

The appeal by the Government of Ontario of Judge Eugenia Papageorgiou’s refusal last summer to throw out GAJE’s application for fairness in educational funding, was heard earlier this week by a panel of three judges. The court reserved its decision.

Of course, this is frustrating for GAJE, as it is for all Ontarians interested in achieving a just policy of educational funding in this province. And so we wait, trusting in the wisdom of the court.

It does however, warrant repeating: if the judges find in the province’s favor, GAJE will appeal. If the judges dismiss the province’s appeal, the case moves forward, finally, to the beginning.

The court will deliberate upon the merits of GAJE’s claim that the Adler case of 1996 ought to be re-assessed today. GAJE alleges that in light of changing circumstances since then, and of changes in the application of the law since then, the decision in the Adler case is no longer appropriate in 2024.

GAJE states that in the year 2024, it should be unacceptable in Ontario that only Catholic education is fully funded by the government to the exclusion of all other religious groups. Such discrimination should not form part of the educational infrastructure of Ontario society.

It should also be remembered that the Ontario Federation of Independent Schools has been granted permission to intervene in the case when it actually begins.

GAJE will publish the results of the appeal as soon as it is known to us.

•••

If you wish to contribute to GAJE’s lawsuit for fairness in educational funding in Ontario, please click here.

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

Charitable receipts for donations for income tax purposes will be issued by Mizrachi Canada. Your donations will be used for the sole purpose of underwriting the costs of the lawsuit.

•••

Shabbat shalom.

Am Yisrael Chai.

Grassroots for Affordable Jewish Education (GAJE)

June 14, 2024