AJC Encourages Action on Funding Jewish Education

American Jewish Committee
Thursday, 15 June 2000

How to motivate the Jewish community to make Jewish education a more affordable experience and one that will continue past bar and bat mitzvah was the theme of an American Jewish Committee conference.

The national conference, a follow-up on AJC's Statement on Jewish Education adopted last December, is part of a new initiative of AJC's Contemporary Jewish Life Department, which, over the past 20 years, has created pioneering programs to enhance the quality of Jewish life.

"Jewish education must rise to the top of the priority list if we are serious about Jewish continuity," said Dr. Steven Bayme, director of AJC's Contemporary Jewish Life Department.

AJC's Jewish Education Conference provided a forum for more than 80 Jewish organizational leaders and educators to discuss alternative plans to address the crisis in funding Jewish education, as well as initiatives to involve adolescents in continuing Jewish education.

AJC has initiated a communal endowment fund for Jewish education, and, as a first step, has pledged $100,000 towards the education of the children of Jewish communal professionals. AJC is currently seeking partner organization to join in the fund before it is launched.

During the daylong conference, a number of different – and often controversial – ideas were floated to strengthen Jewish education.

"If we are truly serious about day school education, the Jewish community must reconsider the role of government funding," argued Dr. Jack Werthheimer, provost of the Jewish Theological Seminary and author of an article on Jewish education in the current edition of the American Jewish Year Book, published by AJC.

According to Dr. Werthheimer, it costs $420 million each year to educate today's 210,000 Jewish day school students -- a total that exceeds half of the combined monies raised by all Jewish federations each year. Dr. Werthheimer said he spends $30,000 a year in tuition for his two sons attending Jewish day schools.

Calling for a reexamination of the Jewish community's traditional opposition to government assistance to parochial education, Dr. Werthheimer said government funding could be directed strictly to general education, not religious curriculum. thereby leaving church-state separation fundamentally intact.

AJC Legal Director Jeffrey Sinensky asserted that allocating government funds to Jewish or other parochial schools would be "bad public policy" because it would divert essential monies from public schools, which the vast majority of American children attend. In addition, government aid comes with strings attached, said Mr. Sinensky.

George Hanus, director of the National Jewish Day School Scholarship Committee, said funding needs could be met faster by encouraging Jews to contribute 5% of their estates to a Jewish education fund. "If the current day school funding crisis is permitted to continue, we will witness in our lifetime the decimation of the Jewish population if the Diaspora," said Mr. Hanus. "We must act now."

"While single approaches are attractive, the challenge at hand is nothing less than the strengthening and renewal of the fabric of the entire Jewish community," said Dr. John Ruskay, senior executive vice president of UJA-Federation, New York.

By engaging Jewish children in more Jewish communal activities, recruiting strong Jewish teachers, and encouraging more "inspiring and energizing" Jewish institutions, Jewish education would become a given rather than an option, Dr. Ruskay said.

Dr. Eugene Korn of Seton Hall University and Rabbi Alan Silverstein of the World Council of Conservative/Masorti Synagogues proposed establishing an "internal national voucher system" to be funded by Jewish communal organizations. Under this plan, every child ages 5 to 21 would receive $100 for each hour of Judaica instruction, resulting in a projected expenditure of $700 million.

"If we target subsidies to the high school years where it will do the most good, we can make this proposal more affordable," said Dr. Bayme. "We must establish a principle of rewarding those who do more."

Addressing a session on the need to target adolescents with distinctive Jewish messages were Dr. Sylvia Fishman, associate professor of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies at Brandeis University; Dr. Steven M. Cohen, professor at the Hebrew University's Melton Centre; and Mrs. Sara Lee, director of HUC's Rhea School of Education. They suggested that adolescent Jewish education both compare and contrast Jewish values with American culture.

"We see today that though Jewish education may be high priority for many in our Jewish community, we still do not all agree on where to start," concluded Mimi Alperin, Chair of AJC's Contemporary Jewish Life Commission. "Most importantly, we must begin the process – encouraging a variety of programs that will enhance the collective Jewish enterprise."

For more information, or to contact American Jewish Committee, see their website at: www.ajc.org