For the past year, or so, the cost of Jewish education in the U.S. has been at the fore-front of many communal discussions. Op-eds have appeared in numerous publications; the Jewish Federations of North America hosted a session on the subject during last fall’s GA and various conference dialogues have ensued. Discussions, and studies continue, but solutions still seem to be elusive. And, while panic has been replaced with a level of calm in the philanthropic world, the combined issues of attractiveness, accessibility, and/or affordability in Jewish education, continue to be a major topic of concern.

With the aim of propelling the discussion forward, eJewish Philanthropy and JESNA’s Lippman Kanfer Institute, have invited a cross-section of communal educators and thought leaders to address the subject. We asked of them,

“What can we and what do we need to do to make Jewish education more attractive, accessible and affordable, even under current conditions of economic pressure on both “providers” and “consumers”? How do the challenges of expanding educational participation play out today in specific arenas – day school, “complementary” education, camp, Israel education – and for specific critical populations – families with young children, teens, young adults, etc.? What new approaches are being tried and where are there signs of success? What has yet to be tried, but ought to be?”

Over the next six weeks or so, we will be publishing their submissions. Along with our colleagues at JESNA, we believe this series can make a meaningful contribution to the public discussion on this important topic. We invite all our readers to comment on the individual posts, to forward to friends and colleagues, to create conversation and perhaps, begin to find solutions. We also welcome others to join in with their own submissions; if you are interested, please be in touch directly with us.

This post is from the series Growing Jewish Education in Challenging Times.