Not all revolutions are tumultuous. A Webster’s dictionary defines “revolution” as “a fundamental change in political organization; especially: an activity or movement designed to effect fundamental changes in the socioeconomic situation or a fundamental change in the way of thinking about or visualizing something.”
One of the common threads in most revolutions is broad grassroots dissatisfaction with and protest of the insensitivity and failure of the power elite, guardians of the public purse, to meet some significant need of the general population.
The Jewish people are in the midst of a social, political and economic revolution concerning the mandate of educating our children. The business of funding our children’s Jewish education can no longer continue as usual. Some are calling it the “Revolution for Our Jewish Children.”
Currently, with tuitions at approximately $10,000 (in after-tax dollars) per student per year, intensive Jewish education is only available to the very wealthy and to those fervently religious families who are willing to make extraordinary financial sacrifices. The current trends portend a doubling of these costs every eight years. Young families just cannot continue to tolerate the oppressive burden of high tuition.
This user-pay model is causing a catastrophic schism in the Jewish community. Only 20 percent of all of our Jewish children are receiving an intensive Jewish education in day schools or yeshivas in North America.
The consistent results of repeated Jewish demographic studies lead to the indisputable conclusion that Jewish education for our children is essential to insure the continuity of our 4,000-year-old heritage, and it is a communal obligation to make such education available to all Jewish children.
Affordable option
No one is saying every Jewish child must attend a Jewish day school. It is clearly the parents’ decision to determine what is right for their family. But it is shameful that most young Jewish families cannot even consider it as an option because they are not rich.
There are currently tens of thousands of Jewish children who would go to Jewish day schools but for the heavy economic burden it would place on their families. If sufficient funds were available to make tuitions affordable for all our young families and to staff our schools with quality teachers who earn a dignified living wage, there would be lines at the doors to the admissions offices.
Here we are, the wealthiest and most secularly educated Jewish community in the history of the world, and we can’t seem to find the funds to educate our children Jewishly.
In an attempt to address this extraordinary crisis, “The Revolution for our Jewish Children” is stimulating discussions across America to organize local community “Superfunds for Jewish Education and Continuity,” which will raise money to provide day school scholarships for Jewish students.
Creating local superfunds as central funding depositories for Jewish educational scholarships will help highlight the financial crisis facing the Jewish community. Substantial energy must be focused on obtaining new donors and retaining existing donors whose youngest children are no longer in the system.
There must be a change in the funding model. Jewish education can no longer be viewed as a user-pay system. The community must take financial responsibility for the Jewish education for all of our children. Each superfund, we hope, will become the central address for this communal participation and create a visionary focus for solving the crisis facing our young families.
The goal is simple. Leave no Jewish child behind. Every Jewish child should be able, if the family desires, to attend a high quality day school that pays its teachers a dignified living wage and has an affordable tuition, regardless of the student’s religious affiliation or financial resources.
The continuity of societies is measured by their ability to educate succeeding generations in their values and heritage. Our current socio-economic system of funding Jewish education is failing miserably.
The success of “The Revolution for Our Jewish Children” will only be insured by a high level of participation within the Jewish community. If every Jew in the United States that hears about this idea speaks to their friends and relatives and urges them to enlist in this initiative, we will begin to solve the problem. There is no cavalry riding to the rescue. If we don’t act, who will?
When future generations of children look back to their Jewish grandparents and ask, “Where were you during the revolution?” the record must be clear.
George D. Hanus of Chicago is chairman of the Jewish Broadcasting Network. This article originally appeared in the World Jewish Digest.
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