The Charlotte Jewish News - February 2013 - Page 26
The Day School Affordability/Community Torah Value Crisis
The Day School affordability
crisis has not spared any commu
nity in the United States. This
dilemma is one that community
leadership has grappled with for
years but which reached a higher
pitch in urgency since the 2008 fi
nancial recession. This recent post
explores the issues that parents
and community members must
consider when making this deci
sion for financial commitment as
it pertains to Jewish education.
The desire and belief that Jew
ish children should have a full
time Jewish education goes back
two thousand years. Then, there
was no tuition charged to the fam
ilies. Families were focused on
survival and trying to provide
food for their family, and the com
munity knew that if they wanted
Jewish continuity, education was
paramount.
Flowever, in these times the
communities across the country
accept anywhere between 10 and
20% of the financial responsibility
for the expense of having a Day
School education available in the
city. The balance is the responsi
bility of the parents and the board.
This shift in thinking and sup
port is seemingly a natural exten
sion of the belief that it is up to the
individual choice for each family.
It’s clear that it’s not working.
This article challenges our
thought process as parents and as
a community.
David Maneger the founder
and president of Kohelet Founda
tion writes, “As we have learned
time and again, we will always be
Jewish in the eyes of others. But
if we stop being Jewish to our
selves, if we stop learning and fol
lowing Torah, we risk irrelevance
and uselessness as a people, which
is one step away from losing our
freedom.”
Read on for a provocative and
persuasive article about the im
portance of Jewish education. I
couldn’t have said it better.
The (Day School Affordability)
Community Torah Value Crisis
Posted on November 28, 2012
by Kobelet Foundation
The following blog entry was
written by David Magerman,
President and Founder, Kohelet
Foundation
The Jewish Day School world
is flooded with conversation about
The Affordability Crisis. Even the
most committed families, the Or
thodox and observant Conserva
tive Jews, are questioning whether
the system is sustainable.
The concerns about the unbear
able cost of day school to parents
are certainly real, but they are
misdirected. The problem is not
simply a matter of affordability.
Affordability is the ability of the
recipients (customers) of a prod
uct to afford to pay for it. The
problem is that all of the recipients
or beneficiaries of the product
aren’t paying their share.
Consider the following ludi
crous proposal: Jewish children
should be responsible for paying
for their own education. To be fair.
let’s start this program at kinder
garten. Five- and six-year-olds
should pool together their tooth
fairy money and cash in the bonds
they received at birth, scraping to
gether whatever they can to pay
for their first year of school. The
resulting educational program
would be, dare I say, inadequate.
So what’s the logical flaw in
this proposal? Many of the real re
cipients of the benefits of the ed
ucation aren’t paying for it. While
the students may be getting the
education, their parents are bene-
fitting too, in countless ways.
They are having their obligation
to educate their children met by
the school. Their kids are learning
values that will make them pro
ductive, self-sufficient members
of society and hopefully instill in
them the sense of obligation to
care for their parents as they age.
Parents get significant value out
of their children’s education, so it
makes sense for them to pay for it.
In the real world, of course,
parents are paying for their chil
dren’s education. But we are still
living in the ludicrous land where
the vast majority of the benefici
aries of day school education
aren’t paying for it. Who are the
real beneficiaries of Jewish day
school education? Let’s look at
this question more closely.
Consider the position of Jews
in society. Why are we safe? Why
aren’t we being persecuted now,
like we have been throughout his
tory? Some would say it’s because
of the freedoms accorded to us by
virtue of being Americans. But to
conclude that is to ignore history.
We have been persecuted in
America, as have other minorities,
even though the U.S. Constitution
has always suggested it should be
otherwise. And we have had free
doms in other times and other
lands.
We are free and safe because it
is in the interests of the leaders of
the lands we inhabit in Diaspora
to afford us freedom and safety.
Throughout history, Jews have
been leaders in medicine, science,
philosophy, and government, to
the extent that we have been al
lowed to be. Even in lands where
we have been reviled, our doctors
have been welcomed into palaces
to treat the royal and infirm.
So, we have to ask ourselves,
why do the Jewish people survive,
and frequently thrive, in almost
every era and almost every coun
try we have gone to in exile? The
answer is the one constant that
Jews have always had throughout
time and everywhere we have
gone: Torah. We thrive because
we are the People of the Book. We
teach our children Torah. We live
our lives by Torah. And by that
formula do we become, time and
again, necessary to the lands we
live in, regardless of whether we
are loved or hated. Eventually, our
success has bred jealousy and re
sentment, and we have been
driven out. But first we are suc
cessful.
Sadly, we are now working
hard to break this chain by con-
Charlotte
Jewish bay^
School
vincing ourselves that the reason
for our success in America is free
dom and assimilation. We tell our
selves that we came to America as
nothing, with nothing, and Amer
ica and freedom made us great.
This is so terribly ignorant and
misguided. It ignores history. It ig
nores the disproportionate number
of Nobel Prizes awarded to Jews
around the world. It ignores the
backgrounds of the immigrants
who came here around the turn of
the 20th century and formed the
backbone of the modem American
Jewish community. Those immi
grants grew up in Torah-observant
communities, and even if they
didn’t observe Judaism in their
American homes or even teach
Torah explicitly to their children,
the residue of their Torah-infused
upbringings impacted their chil
dren and even their grandchildren.
All of the members of the Jew
ish community are beneficiaries
of a Torah-educated Jewish people
and all should bear its cost, each
according to his or her ability to
pay. The Jewish billionaires and
(Continued on the next page)
Charlotte
^ Jewish Preschool
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