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Jewish day schools are in the news. Some of the attention comes in the form of negative publicity about health risks that schools in the more insular sectors of Orthodoxy have taken to keep classes in session during the COVID-19 pandemic. On a more positive note, day schools with a more modern orientation have received praise for doing an unusually good job of helping their students get through the spring lockdowns—and, where possible, for how rigorously they planned and executed reopening the current school year. Their efforts seem more successful than those of many public and nonsectarian private schools. These achievements have not been lost on parents, including some who had not enrolled their children in the past but over the summer showed new interest. Why day schools have done well and what parents are seeing when they give them a second look is a story that can be understood only in the context of their significant, yet largely unremarked, educational transformation over the past two decades.

The articles in this issue demonstrate that, remarkably, day school stakeholders are continuing to dream about their schools, their community, and their craft—and doing so with more intensity and vibrancy than ever before. All of the training, the regular preparation, the professional development and investment in change that schools made before Covid are showing their value now palpably, “in the sight of all the people” (Exodus 19:11). Even as they work to create solutions to the challenges of today, they have an eye to the future, trying to anticipate which changes will bear fruit—which “castles in the air” may acquire a “foundation”— in a post-Covid world.

The crisis is real, and there is no virtue in ignoring it. The pressure on day-school leaders and boards is relentless, and the immediate question is how to keep our existing educational institutions afloat. But the strategic challenge is to imagine “the new normal”—including the new possibilities—born of this multifaceted crisis. In short: how do American Jews—and Americans in general—eventually turn this tidal wave of disruptions into (as the great social thinker Joseph Schumpeter put it) “a gale of creative destruction” in the Jewish education sphere? Looking beyond the current crisis, can we fashion new models of Jewish schooling that are intellectually, culturally, and economically stronger than ever? And can Jews serve as a light unto other traditional communities in America, who face similar challenges?

The Jewish community, like most of the world, still does not yet know when the current crisis will end. We can, however, begin to think about parts of our life that will be different after this period than they were before. For Jewish education specifically, thinking ahead is critical; it will fall to Jewish communal and educational organizations to bring the Jewish community back to life, and to revitalize it so that it can emerge even stronger. We accept that our world will look different in a post COVID-19 era; there will be mourning for what’s lost, but new things built as well. So, I am starting to imagine a better future.