Which one of these statements is true?

The earth is flat.

The sun orbits the earth.

The synagogue is at the center of the Jewish community.

The answer is that none of these statements are true: The earth is round (10% of American adults believe that the earth is flat); the earth orbits the sun (26% of American adults believe that the sun orbits the earth); and the Jewish day school is at the center of the Jewish community.

In making the case for day schools as the keystone that upholds a community, I am not suggesting that the day school community comprises the majority of the Jews. Rather, I am asserting that the robustness or fragility of a Jewish community’s day school or schools are reflections and determinants of the health of that community.

Synagogues are the holy space where people pray, celebrate, learn, socialize and organize. There are the junior congregations, the youth groups, and senior groups; the early childhood center, the Men’s Club, Sisterhood and kiddush clubs. There are Israeli dance groups, challah-baking events, pick-up basketball, Talmud classes, social action groups and all the rest. Synagogues may be the glue that holds the building blocks of Jewish community together, but all of this rests on the foundation of a strong day school.

How do people choose to join a given synagogue? After employment considerations, the next thing they look for when considering where to live, before they seek out a synagogue, is a nearby day school. If there is none, or if it is in decline, many families with children never even take that next step of going shul-shopping.

Think of a community and the day school or schools tied to it. It does not take a lot to imagine what might happen to that community if the day school died. Without day school families, the local market that caters to kosher and kosher-leaning customers would close. The bakery with kosher and Jewish-themed items would crumble. The mikvah used for conversion, traditional and emerging rituals would dry up. The Judaica store where you could run in to replenish your Hannukah candle supply would be dark. Prayers from synagogues would rise only in a whisper. The Jewish educators who filled the pews would be gone. The children that made happy noises there would be the ghosts of memory. The very infrastructure that supports a full range of communal services could not survive were there no vibrant day school nearby acting as a magnet, drawing generation after generation of families with children, the energy that feeds and sustains communal growth.

This would impact all Jews in the area, even those who do not send their children to day school, even those whose children no longer live at home. Just as every particle of matter collapses into the deadly vortex of a black hole, everyone will feel the fallout of a failing day school.

Even in communities with dense urban populations, it is the nearby day schools that anchor those Jewish communities. Of course, in these cities many professionals, singles, retired people, as well as other families would still be attracted to the vitality of cosmopolitan living. Without day school, though, the community would contract, its diversity and vibrancy paling by several shades.

And this strategic role of the day school in upholding Jewish community exists in addition to the benefits of a day school education that enable communities to thrive: Jewish literacy; scholarship; Israel education and Zionism; embracing Jews and Judaism from a place of love, not fear; and developing future Jewish leaders — communal, rabbinic and philanthropic.

Finally, consider this: Even when a synagogue’s children attend their own congregational school (which often but not always employs day school educators), it is the presence of the local day school population that serves as the catalyst for the communal amenities that characterize a vibrant Jewish community — characteristics that may have drawn those synagogue families to the community in the first place. And for both Orthodox and non-Orthodox clergy with school-age children, even those who run their own congregational school, the vitality — sometimes even the mere presence — of a Jewish day school for their own children to attend is a significant factor in their decision to put down roots.

The Copernican shift

We did not always know that Earth orbits the sun. Now we know. We did not always know that the Jewish community orbits the day school. Now we know. Clergy and lay leaders should publicly acknowledge this. Just as a Tesla without a charge is going nowhere, so, too, the grandest synagogue without day schools is stuck.

The declaration that the synagogue is the center of Jewish communal life obscures the reality. Synagogue leadership should say it: Day schools are the most important asset in our community. Day schools are our lifeblood. They are the reason our community took root, the reason our community flourishes and the best hope for our future.

As such, Jewish educators should be seated in places of honor in the sanctuary much like the clergy and lay leadership.

Jewish educators should receive the greatest ritual honors in communal prayer and other synagogue-sponsored occasions.

Jewish educators should get the same courtesy discounts on membership and program fees that day schools traditionally offer to clergy, such as partial or full tuition waivers.

And one more thing:

Since day schools support the quality of life for all Jews, even those who are not presently or never have been day school consumers, every synagogue should establish a mechanism for financially supporting their local schools.

There are multiple iterations of how this could happen. For example, every member unit of the synagogue could be billed $365 a year annually while Jewish educators and current day school parents would be exempt. (Members with limited resources would pay less, as with any synagogue expense.) The funds would be distributed equally among all the day schools that draw any students from the synagogue. Slide the fee up or down, devise another distribution formula — as long as members pay in and all the schools benefit. The goal is to get to yes: Yes, we recognize the primacy of day school education. Yes, we understand that we need to do more than just to say it. Yes, we should support day schools financially. Yes, the funds that end up in each day school may not be especially significant if there are several schools that support one community, but there is no day school that will say it does not appreciate or need it.

Jewish communal leaders who tirelessly advocate for day schools utter this prayer, “I lift my eyes to the mountains and wonder, where is the help that we need going to come from?”

A mega-donor? To quote Erin Brokovich, “Superman’s not coming.”

Federations? Federations are pulled in many important directions. Federations are not coming.

I am hopeful, though, that a Jewish community that venerates the synagogue will be open to a new understanding of how communities live and die. That they will bravely take the necessary steps to position day schools in our hearts and minds rightfully at the center of the Jewish community. That their bold actions will create a perpetual income stream that nurtures the Tree of Life that sustains us.

Robert Lichtman lives in West, N.J. and draws upon his long tenure of Jewish professional leadership to teach and write about strategic issues and opportunities impacting the Jewish community, among other things.