Among the many decisions involved in raising children, how to educate them is one of the crucial ones. It will influence their growth - intellectually as well as socially and morally. It will also orient them toward a certain set of values, identity, skills, and sense of community. For Jewish parents, there is an additional layer of consideration in educational decisions: how to ensure your children grow up with a Jewish sense of values, identity, skills, and sense of community. Jewish day schools of all types - Orthodox as well as Reform, Conservative, and community day schools - provide one answer to this conundrum of how to raise kids Jewishly. Non-Orthodox parents have a wide array of choices and factors in choosing schools for their children. They consider geography, finances, culture, … Continue Reading
On the Ground at NAJDS: What Funders Want
by Deborah Fishman The North American Jewish Day School Conference’s session “What Funders Want” dealt with a few striking questions which funders - and anyone interested in deciding where to devote resources - face. One such question is whether the needs of individual schools or “the community” as a system take priority. This can manifest itself geographically: How does what is occurring on the local scene relate to the national picture? It also surfaces when considering how schools work with one another: Do schools have unique needs they need to focus on inwardly - or can they collaborate? Three panelists - Daniel Perla from the AVI CHAI Foundation, Amy Katz from PEJE, and Holly Cohen from the Kohelet Foundation - discussed funding priorities with one another in a “fishbowl” … Continue Reading
A Portrait of Israeli Jews
The Israeli Democracy Institute today formally presents the findings of the third Guttman-AVI CHAI report, A Portrait of Israeli Jews: Beliefs, Observance, and Values of Israeli Jews. Based on a survey conducted by IDI's Guttman Center for Surveys for the AVI CHAI Foundation in 2009, the report is a sequel to two earlier studies conducted in 1991 and 1999. Taken together, the three surveys present a unique continuum of Jewish religiosity in Israel. Here are the main findings: From 1991 to 1999, there was a decline in attachment to Jewish tradition and religion. From 1999 to 2009, by contrast, there was an increase in this attachment, which returned to and in some aspects even surpassed the level measured in 1991. One example of this is the observance of religious tradition: in 1991, 24% of the … Continue Reading
Foundation for Jewish Camp Nadiv Program Moves Forward
Last summer, Foundation for Jewish Camp announced a grant from the Jim Joseph and AVI CHAI Foundations for a pilot initiative to create senior experiential Jewish educator positions to be shared by nonprofit Jewish overnight camps and Jewish day or synagogue schools. The program, Nadiv, was designed with several goals: the first, to experiment with a new model that could enhance the quality of education at Jewish camps in a sustainable way. The second, to create a new model for year-round positions for trained and talented Jewish educators and the third, to model a new way to foster deeper collaboration between different kinds of institutions in the Jewish educational world. The selected camps, and schools, for pilot program partnerships have now been announced: Camp Mountain Chai (Angelus … Continue Reading
Day School Numbers Not So Bad
from AviChai.org: Day School Numbers Not So Bad by Jack Wertheimer The Avi Chai Foundation’s newly released data on current day school enrollments has drawn attention from many ... The mere existence of the data is worthy of comment, as is the identity of the data compiler. Thanks to Marvin Schick’s yeoman’s efforts over the past 13 years, we possess detailed information on trends in day school enrollment. The same cannot be said about participation rates in any other form of Jewish activity, except summer camps, for which we have only partial information. We lack regularly published data on national trends in synagogue and organizational membership, supplementary schooling, trips to Israel and other forms of Jewish engagement. Why, one wonders, does a Jewish community that prides … Continue Reading
Reshet Ramah Launched to Network Camp Alumni
The National Ramah Commission of The Jewish Theological Seminary today announced establishment of Reshet Ramah, a network driven in part by technology to engage and connect thousands of alumni of the Ramah camping movement and offer a channel for extending and enhancing Jewish community involvement. The initiative is fueled by just-announced grants totaling up to $1.8 million from the AVI CHAI Foundation and the Maimonides Fund. As the camping arm of Conservative Judaism, Ramah runs eight overnight camps, four day camps and youth programming in Israel, with participation by more than 9,000 campers and staff members each summer. Over its 65-year history, an estimated quarter-million participants and staff have passed through Ramah camps and programs creating a large, diverse cohort of alumni … Continue Reading
North American Jewish Day School Conference Opens Today
Over 600 educators and lay leaders will convene today for the third annual North American Jewish Day School Conference taking place in Atlanta, GA. Jointly planned by RAVSAK: The Jewish Community Day School Network; the Institute for University-School Partnership at Yeshiva University; the Schechter Day School Network; PARDeS: The Progressive Association of Reform Day Schools; and PEJE, the Partnership for Excellence in Jewish Education, the conference advances the field of Jewish education through collaboration and by convening people and networks with a shared purpose. This year's conference theme, “Current Landscapes - Changing Horizons,” will focus on key issues affecting institutions across the denominational spectrum. Workshops and conversations will address topics such as 21st century … Continue Reading
Fishka Celebrates New Home with Chanukah Candle-lighting
For those working in, or with Israel's Russian-speaking young adult community, the new place to be seen is the Fishka House in South Tel Aviv. Here, on the 3rd night of Chanukah, an overflowing group of participants, funder representatives and other supporters, were on hand for a candle-lighting and dedication of their new home, complete with good conversation, good food, and musical and theatrical entertainment. Fishka, a community-based organization, programs to a Russian-speaking young adult population through cultural programs, including cinema, music and theater projects, poetry workshops, volunteer initiatives working with south Tel Aviv senior citizens and more. They have recently launched a number of new projects including Laboratoria - a place to pilot projects which impact … Continue Reading
Middle Income Affordability Programs: A Promising Frontier in Day School Affordability
by Dan Perla If you ask a large group of parents whose children attend a Jewish day school to name the most pressing school issue on their mind, they will almost certainly utter the same word - AFFORDABILITY. Simply put, for a large group of parents, a day school education in the U.S. and Canada has become unaffordable. The average day school tuition nationally is approximately $14,000 and has increased at a 3%-6% percent annualized rate over the past decade. By comparison, wage growth over the same period of time (particularly the last 3-4 years) has been virtually flat. So for many families it really is more costly to send a child to day school than it was five or ten years ago. While the quality of a Jewish day school education is arguably better than at any time in recent history, an … Continue Reading
2011-12 Day School Enrollment Sees Modest Decline
The question raised frequently in the press and around day school tables across the country has been how the recent and lingering economic crisis is affecting day school enrollments, with widespread predictions of significant enrollment decline, including in the Modern Orthodox sector. As he has done annually since the economic decline in 2008, Dr. Marvin Schick has collected and provided enrollment data for schools outside the yeshiva world and Chassidic sectors. “The data evidences a modest decline overall,” explains Dr. Schick. “Nevertheless, it is important to note that the decline is not necessarily a trend being seen across the country. In fact, there are some schools and communities experiencing growth while others decline.” In collecting and analyzing the data, Dr. Schick … Continue Reading
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