A yeshiva education - Whom are we educating?

A question for the board of directors.

After spending time with some of my grandchildren last week, I thought I'd put some feelings down on paper (or, in this case) electrons.

At a yeshiva [a day school for Orthodox Jews] dinner a few years ago, the head of school got up to speak. In addition to the usual welcoming remarks we hear at these types of events, he told us that each year at the first meeting of the board of directors he asks the new members one question that he hoped would get them off on a good start of their volunteer service to the yeshiva.

 The question is: “Whom are we educating in our yeshiva’s classrooms?”

Grandparents Day at Yeshivat Noam
with Hannah

 “Of course,” he told us, “all the new board members answered, ‘the students.’ ‘Wrong,’ he says, ‘the yeshiva is educating THEIR children.’ ”

 And there I was, a late middle age parent who had spent a small fortune giving his kids a Jewish education, who felt as though he had just been hit on the back of the head for not earlier seeing the correctness of the rabbi’s statement.

Sure, my kids are what you would call “frum” [religiously observant] but they knew what life was for my wife and I before they went to yeshiva, and the lack of understanding we displayed at various times while they were in school.  Not the beneficiaries of a yeshiva education, my wife and I thought some of the practices we had followed as young parents were still valid for our college and high school age kids.

Call us idiots if you will, but we encountered many Conservative and some Orthodox Jews who believe that dairy is dairy, whether it’s at home or a diner.  You’ve heard the line, “we keep strictly kosher at home, but we eat fish out.”  A pretty modern approach, don’t you think?  But it was the wrong one.

My kids know far better than I ever did what is acceptable and what is not acceptable.  They actually understand the rules of kashrut [kosher food] and put them and a myriad of customs to use every day.  And here’s my point, the rabbi was right.  By giving my children the tools found in a traditional Jewish education, my grandchildren are the beneficiaries of that education.

As parents dig deeper than ever into their pockets to pay for their child's Jewish education, let me say, it's money well spent.  And you, too, will see it in your grandchildren.

Well, that's my two cents.  Feel free to agree or disagree.  

Stephen M. Flatow

alisafund AT gmail.com

The Alisa Fund for Jewish Education accepts contributions. 

Checks may be mailed to: 

Alisa Flatow Memorial Fund Jewish Community Foundation of Greater MetroWest 

901 Route 10 

Whippany, NJ 07981

The Cost of a Jewish Education

Cost/Benefit – An Analysis of a Jewish Education

Providing a Jewish education is not inexpensive and the cost discussion has been around for many years. I frequently say that day school tuition is the most effective form of birth control.

Harry Maryles wrote in 2016:

It’s that time of year. School has started and for the vast majority of Orthodox Jews with school age children  ‘belt tightening is the order of the day. What I mean of course is that the cost of educating our children Jewishly is beyond the means of virtually all Orthodox Jewish families.  Even those that have decent incomes – north of $100,000 per year. 5 children or more per family is not uncommon. And in the more Charedi  families 10 children of more is not uncommon.

Another school year is beginning, and Maryles' analysis is still true today.  It's a subject that cannot be ignored and I invite you to read the full article at https://www.jewishpress.com/blogs/haemtza/costbenefit-an-analysis-of-a-jewish-education/2016/09/13/ 

The Alisa Fund for Jewish Education accepts contributions. Checks may be mailed to: Alisa Flatow Memorial Fund Jewish Community Foundation of Greater MetroWest 901 Route 10 Whippany, NJ 07981

On Jewish Education - Frum Jews Must Do Their Share To Save America

Has Jewish education been a disservice when it comes to things American?

My most recent column about Jewish education is on JewishPress.com.

Frum Jews Must Do Their Share To Save America

In a recent edition of The Jewish Press, comments by Rav Avigdor Miller, zt”l, caught my attention. In response to the question, “Should we celebrate July 4?” he answered, “Yes” – to show that we “appreciate the great gift of America.”

I agree fully with that statement, but, in light of recent events, I wonder if our children do and if our grandchildren will.

I think back to my New York City public school education in the 1950s before I moved to Rockland County. One of the hallmarks of that education was the requirement that boys carry a handkerchief. It was so engrained in us that to this day – 65-plus years after entering kindergarten at PS 87, Middle Village, Queens – I still carry and use a handkerchief, despite the turned-up noses of my grandchildren.

Another hallmark was the weekly assembly in the school auditorium. It was a Wednesday morning ritual, and I was a proud sixth-grader when I put on the flag carrier strap and marched the flag onto the auditorium stage. At the top of the rear wall of the stage was an inscription attributed to Francis Bacon, “Knowledge is power.” When we were done with the Pledge of Allegiance and singing of the Star-Spangled Banner (verses one and four), I put the flag into its holder on the stage and returned to my seat.

Please continue to the full article at the Jewish Press.

The Alisa Fund for Jewish Education gladly accepts contributions. Checks may be mailed to:

Alisa Flatow Memorial Fund
Jewish Community Foundation
901 Route 10
Whippany, NJ 07981.

State funding of religious schools

Blaine Amendment has outlived its usefulness

It's time to consider state funding of some aspects of religious school education

Jonathan Tobin, editor of JNS.org writes -

Why aren’t Jews supporting a court challenge to Montana’s striking down of tax credits for parochial education rooted in 19th-century prejudice?

The time of Jews' fears of mingling of church and state has come to an end.

We reported on the Montana case last week.  Its implications for Jewish education are wide and deep.

(January 23, 2020 / JNS) The majority of American Jews who identify as politically liberal and are largely secular may not think they have much in common with the parents who send their children to the Stillwater Christian School in remote Kalispell, Mont. Stillwater Christian is an avowedly evangelical establishment located in a town in the remote northwestern part of the state nestled among national forests and parks.
 But like many families throughout the country that look to private and parochial schools to provide an alternative to public schools that are either failing or don’t provide a curriculum that supports their values, many of the parents at Stillwater Christian struggle to pay the tuitions that nonpublic institutions are forced to charge. That’s why people like Karen Espinoza, a single mother of two daughters who holds two low-income jobs to make ends meet, cheered when the Montana State Legislature passed a 2015 law that gave tax credits to donors who funded private schools. The legislation, similar to other education tax-credit schemes in 17 other states, enabled scholarship programs that kept Espinoza’s children in the school she feels is best for them.

The thought provoking article can be read in its entirety here.

What do you think?

The Alisa Fund for Jewish Education accepts contributions. Checks may be mailed to the Jewish Community Foundation, 901 Route 10, Whippany, NJ 07981.

Tax credits to support private education need to be protected

As the cost of providing a Jewish education skyrockets, creative means of financing the educational process need to be found.  Tax credits, as outlined below, are in place in several states.  One program, in Montana, is under attack. 

The Wall Street Journal looks at a pending US Supreme Court case regarding tax credits for education and asks -

The Last Gasp of James G. Blaine?

When the Montana Legislature created a K-12 scholarship program funded via private donations and tax credits, it was a godsend to Kendra Espinoza. An office assistant by day and janitor by night, the single mom had pulled her two daughters out of public school. One was bullied for studying the Bible during recess.

Ms. Espinoza enrolled them in the nondenominational Stillwater Christian School. “I love that the school teaches the same Christian values that I teach at home,” she later said. But even with financial aid, odd jobs and yard sales, the tuition was “a real financial struggle.” Extra money from Montana’s scholarships, enacted in 2015, could go a long way. 

Five years later, Ms. Espinoza is fighting to keep that support. On Wednesday the Supreme Court will hear Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue, a case touching on education, religious liberty, and whether 19th-century bigotry still has a place in American law. 

The Montana scholarships worked similar to tax-credit programs in many other states. People or companies donated to a private nonprofit fund. In return the state gave them a tax credit, dollar for dollar, up to $150. The money was awarded to families like Ms. Espinoza’s to defray tuition at the schools of their choice. 

One complication: Montana’s constitution has a clause saying public funds can’t be spent for “any sectarian purpose.” Many states adopted such language in the late 19th century, amid that era’s anti-immigrant, anti-Catholic fervor. These are often called Blaine Amendments, since a federal version was unsuccessfully pushed in 1876 by Congressman James G. Blaine (“the continental liar from the state of Maine,” as his political opponents chanted). 

Montana’s Revenue Department issued a rule to exclude the religious from the scholarship program. Secular schools could still get the money, but not Ms. Espinoza and Stillwater. Parents sued with help from the Institute for Justice. In 2018 the state Supreme Court killed 1/2 the whole program, ruling that the tax credits were indirect state aid to religious schools, in violation of the Blaine Amendment.

Now at the U.S. Supreme Court, the parents argue that Montana’s ruling is unconstitutional under the First Amendment. Free exercise of religion means that if a state passes a neutral program of student aid, it can’t exclude families who pick religious schools. The parents cite Trinity Lutheran v. Comer (2017), in which the Justices held 7-2 that a Missouri ban on sectarian aid couldn’t deny a public grant for playground resurfacing to a religious school.

The parents also say Montana violated the 14th Amendment’s “equal protection of the laws.” Here they give a history of Blaine Amendments. In the 1800s, the public schools reflected a predominant culture: “Teachers led students in daily prayer, sang religious hymns, extolled Protestant ideals, read from the King James Bible, and taught from anti-Catholic textbooks.” When states banned aid to “sectarian” schools, that meant Catholic. 

Montana replies that there’s no discrimination, at least not anymore, since the scholarships don’t exist. They were thrown out by the state court, see? Neither the faithful nor the secular are getting the money. This argument seems too clever in its circular logic. If a court strikes down a law explicitly because it includes religious believers, that can’t be unconstitutional since the law was struck down?

The state says its “No-Aid Clause” isn’t anti-Catholic bigotry, but rather a “distinct intellectual tradition.” When Montana wrote a new constitution in 1972, its convention debated and largely readopted the old provision. The goal then, Montana argues, was “protecting religious liberty by creating a structural barrier between religious schools and government.”

Yet the longer history remains. So does the effect: to cast out religious believers from a program enacted in the general interest. Such bias in law requires strict judicial scrutiny. 

Given the incrementalism of Chief Justice John Roberts, perhaps it’s too much to hope that the Supreme Court will relegate James G. Blaine to the 1800s where he belongs. In Trinity Lutheran, the Chief’s opinion came with a pregnant footnote, saying it only covered “express discrimination based on religious identity with respect to playground resurfacing.” But as the Justices have shown in a long line of cases, religious freedom doesn’t end at the playground blacktop.

Comments, anyone?

The Alisa Fund for Jewish Education accepts contributions. Checks may be mailed to the Jewish Community Foundation, 901 Route 10, Whippany, NJ 07981.  Please indicated Alisa Fund in the memo line.

Jewish Literacy in America, not in such good shape

Jewish Literacy, Part I

By Rabbi Dr. Wallace Greene

The state of Jewish education is not in good shape.

We've known Rabbi Greene since 1979 when he served as principal of the Hebrew Youth Academy of Essex County (now known as the Joseph Kushner Hebrew Academy.)

The following article is right up our alley.  The state of Jewish education is not in good shape.

We quote from the opening portion of the article and invite you to read it on line.

In the words of the old Chinese curse, we live in interesting times. Never before in Jewish history have so many people been engaged in Torah study across the globe. Never before in Jewish history have so many Jewish schools operated. Yet at the same time, despite all of this Jewish learning taking place, there are legions of Jews who are abysmally ignorant of their heritage, and myriads of children who receive no Jewish education at all or only a smattering barely sufficient for the bar/bat mitzvah rite de passage.

The positive results can be seen in the numbers and the quality of highly educated men and women who are not professional rabbis or educators and who continue their studies lishma. Often this cadre has spent a year or two of post-high school intensive study in Israel. All over the world there are ongoing shiurim at all hours, chavruta study, Daf Yomi classes, lectures, batei midrash for retirees, etc. The level of discourse in Torah by baalei batim who are businessmen, electricians, lawyers, physicians, retirees, housewives, pharmacists, tradesmen, professionals, etc., is quite elevated. At the same time, the abysmal ignorance displayed by the masses of Jews today is deplorable and directly responsible for the plague of assimilation and intermarriage.

We can't agree more with this assessment.  Read the full article ejewishphilanthropy.com
Your comments are welcome.

The Alisa Fund for Jewish Education accepts contributions. Checks may be mailed to the Jewish Community Foundation, 901 Route 10, Whippany, NJ 07981.