This is an abridged version of the author’s speech delivered at The Jewish Education Project’s annual spring benefit on June 8, 2026.

A few weeks ago, I interviewed professor Jonathan Krasner from Brandeis University on our podcast, ”Adapting,” about the capacity for Hebrew schools to innovate in today’s world.

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During the conversation, Jonathan reminded all of us about the importance of history — not simply to understand the past, but to help us navigate the present and avoid repeating the mistakes of those who came before us.

As it happens, Jonathan also wrote a book about Samson Benderly, the visionary founding leader of the Bureau of Jewish Education on the Lower East Side more than 115 years ago. Today, that organization is known as The Jewish Education Project.

One hundred and fifteen years later, the questions are different. But in many ways, the stakes are the same.

Nine months into my tenure as CEO, we sent an email to our staff that essentially said:

“Pack up your things. Go home. We’ll see you back here in a couple of weeks.”

Of course, it wasn’t a couple of weeks.

For three years during COVID, Jewish educators kept waving our hands trying to tell the world:

Jewish education still matters.

Jewish community still matters.

Human connection still matters.

And now, in a post-Oct. 7 world, no one is asking anymore whether Jewish education is relevant.

No one is asking whether it is worth investing in Jewish identity, Jewish belonging, Jewish literacy or Jewish community.

Now the real questions are what kind of Jewish education is needed most right now and what kind of Jewish educators do we need to become?

One of the challenges of education is that everyone thinks they understand it because everyone has experienced it. But those of us who have devoted our lives to this work know something different. Helping another human being grow, discover meaning, wrestle with complexity and find belonging is sacred work.

This moment demands that we reclaim and recharge Jewish education. 

Yes, antisemitism is rising. Yes, Israel is under scrutiny and attack. Yes, our young people are navigating a world that is more polarized, more complicated and more emotionally exhausting than many of us have ever known.

But I told my staff something very important in the weeks and months after Oct. 7, 2023: For some people, motivation will come from fighting antisemitism; for others, motivation will come from defending Israel; but we, as educators, must always lead with joy and pride.

External forces can mobilize people. Only internal forces can sustain them.

Fear may gather a crowd. But joy builds a life. And when I think about the kind of Jewish educators we need right now, I don’t think in abstractions.

I think about a public high school teacher who participated in one of our programs. She told me that for months she had been terrified of teaching about Israel and the Arab-Israeli conflict. She worried that whatever she said would be viewed as biased. She worried about students. She worried about parents. She worried about getting it wrong.

After working with our educators, she said, “For the first time, I feel like I have the tools to teach this responsibly” — not because we told her what to think, but because we helped her learn how to teach.

I think about an early childhood educator who approached me after a professional development workshop and said, “This is the most useful day of professional development I have attended in my entire career” — not only because it was inspirational, and not because it was theoretical, but because it actually addressed the challenges she would face the very next morning when she walked into her classroom.

And I think about a religious school teacher who joined one of our educator missions to Israel after Oct. 7. At the end of the trip, she stood in tears, and she said, “Thank you for taking me seriously enough to bring me here.” She needed to see, bear witness and understand what had happened so she could return home and help her students make sense of a world that no longer made sense.

Those are the educators I think about. Those are the educators who inspire me. And those are the educators who remind me every day why this work matters. Because education is not simply about transmitting information: it is about shaping ethical human beings.

I believe deeply in Jewish Peoplehood. Others might call it pluralism. For some of you, that may come from the language of b’tzelem Elohim — the belief that every human being is created in the Divine image. For others, it may come from a universal belief in human dignity. However we frame it, the message is the same: the human being is sacred.

One of the things that worries me most right now is not what is happening outside the Jewish community. It is what is happening inside it. The name-calling. The purity tests. The obsession with deciding who is in and who should be out. The inability to disagree without dehumanizing.

With all the external pressures facing the Jewish people, what I fear most is that we may tear each other apart from within. 

That is why education matters more than ever. 

Because I do not believe dogma will save the Jewish people. I do not believe certainty will save the Jewish people. What will save us is belonging, dignity and our ability to remain in relationship with one another even when we profoundly disagree. That is educational courage. 

Our children need that from us right now. Education is not about creating replicas of ourselves. It is not about manufacturing children who think exactly like us, vote exactly like us or repeat our worldview back to us.

Every single one of us was shaped by transformative experiences. By mentors, communities, questions and struggles. None of us became who we are simply because someone instructed us what to believe.

So, our task is not to control the next generation. Our task is to create the kinds of experiences that allow them to become the people they are meant to become.

Every one of us can point to a teacher. A camp counselor. A youth leader. Someone who saw something in us before we could see it ourselves. Someone who helped shape the trajectory of our lives. That is what Jewish educators do: They help young people discover joy. They help them discover meaning. They help them discover community. And perhaps most importantly, they help them discover one another. In a moment when the Jewish world feels fractured, education remains our greatest act of hope.

Education is how we build a future that is wiser than our present.

A future that is more compassionate than our discourse.

A future that is more united than our politics.

A future worthy of our children.

That is the work. That has always been the work. And 115 years after Samson Benderly first imagined what Jewish education could become in America, it remains the work before us still.

I cannot imagine more important work than that — and we simply cannot do all of this work without all of you.

David Bryfman is the CEO of The Jewish Education Project.