Section archive - Trends in Jewish Education

This piece, the follow up to my recent discussion of the financial and non-financial costs of yeshiva day schools, proposes what I respectfully submit is a relatively simple and intuitive solution to this fundamental flaw in the yeshiva day school model. Put in place, it would radically alleviate yeshiva day school costs without compromising our children’s Jewish education, and potentially make that education more effective and lasting.

There are many ways to view yeshiva day schools. The Orthodox community generally views them with pride, as a substantial communal achievement — and rightfully so. In less than a century, a community of largely impoverished refugees, decimated by the Holocaust, came to a foreign country and established schools that rival that country’s most elite and established schools. Almost every yeshiva day school produces graduates who attend the finest colleges and graduate schools, and their students regularly win national literary, advocacy, math and science competitions. And the sweeping success of these schools has also been religious — there are more Jewish religious studies students in America today than at any time in its history. And yet, this achievement has come at a cost, and that cost continues to be extraordinary and multifaceted. The most obvious cost is financial: it costs an extraordinary amount of money to send a child to yeshiva day school and for our community to sustain such independent schools. But there are also other, associated costs which may be less obvious than the monetary costs, but which are no less profound.

The language of “Jewish identity” has served us well for decades, but is now limiting us and conditioning us in ways that are detrimental to the objectives we claim. I want to propose that we thank “identity” profusely for its services, dismiss it, and then think together of better language to express the mission of the Jewish community. Academics and educators have already begun to question “Jewish identity” as a concept, and it is time for the funder community to do likewise.

The current investigation tested the efficacy of the Extended Class Exchange Program (ECEP) in reducing prejudicial attitudes. Three hundred and twenty-two 3rd and 4th grade students from both Israeli–Jewish and Israeli–Palestinian schools in the ethnically mixed city of Jaffa were randomly assigned to either intervention or control classes. Members of the intervention classes engaged in ECEP's activities, whereas members of the control classes engaged in a social–emotional learning program. The program's outcomes were measured a week before, immediately after, and 15 months following termination.