On My Mind

The fact is that the model that has been the Jewish Communities approach to education has never worked. It has always been based on families that could afford the astronomical tuitions paying for the families that couldn’t and today at least half if not the majority cannot afford it.  The future of a dual curriculum Yeshiva education is being threatened and its going to take some out of the box thinking to save it.  A couple of great examples are the Hebrew Charter school which will be opening up in Bergen County and the low cost Yeshiva model.

I think its easy for you to say.  Your children are grown and have had the education you wanted.  Going to public today is not the same as when we were growing up.  Also would you feel comfortable sending your child to Northwestern?  NOT ME

You don’t need to look to hard to prove that this half-and-half scheme is wishful thinking. The Associated has studies that show the greatest predictor of a child staying Jewish is having both parents being Jewish. I say that it’s not a stretch to say that a strong predictor to making sure a child grows up to be a committed, practicing Jew is to be immersed with his/her peers for the full school day.

Claiming that having done this somewhat successfully in the past validates the present ignores the difference in the mores and situations of the times. Jewish day schools were not as prevalent and the Jewish community infrastructure was not as extensive. Immigrants were struggling to survive. There was still a strong expectation of following the traditions and attending synagogue. The secular world has become cruder, and more accessible through the Internet. Porn and scripture can be retrieved with the same ease.

The Conservative movement was an attempt to meld American assimilation and religious practice. We can see how successful that has been to creating observant, practicing Jews. What is the intermarriage rate?

Some of the most pious people I knew, my mother included, had an after-school Talmud Torah education.  But they were the exception, rather than the rule.  The majority of their friends, although they were from almost equally religious families, ultimately left Orthodox religious practice and more than a few totally left Judaism behind.  It isn’t entirely a fear of the “other” that makes the hybrid you suggest unlikely to succeed.  Study after study shows that a day school education is most likely to produce a practicing, committed Jew.  Granted, there are many problems that day schools face, both financially and in their abilities to confront the difficulties of a changing society.  But to go back to a system that largely failed our parent’s generation is a mistake.  We need to look at new directions, but we’ve been down that path before and lost too many on the way.

Sorry, but I take exception with that comment from EB.  I grew up in a “modern-orthodox” home.  I went to a secular school and had a “two afternoon/Sunday morning” Hebrew School education.  I, from that education, and my upbringing, can daven in front my congregation as Ba’al Tfiloh.  Trust me, it can be done.

So, basically, afternoon Hebrew school?  What’s new about that?  That’s been a part of the American Jewish experience for generations.  And, it’s produced generations of kids with a poor Jewish education and identity.  I watched my father-in-law, a man who grew up in an orthodox home with a secular and afternoon Hebrew school education, unable to say kaddish for his mother after she passed away last year.  That’s not the education I want for my children.