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When their Jewish day schools closed, these teens had to learn to adjust
This article was produced as part of JTA’s Teen Journalism Fellowship, a program that works with Jewish teens around the world to report on issues that affect their lives.
(JTA) — There had been hints of money trouble: no ink in the printers, no supplies in the maker space, teacher complaints. But Sion Cohen never imagined that her high school, The Idea School in Tenafly, New Jersey, would be closing mere months before the start of her senior year.
Almost immediately after she heard the news, Cohen, 17, began making plans to graduate early. She enrolled in online classes and reached out to her school’s guidance department to ensure she had enough credits to graduate. If she couldn’t spend her senior year at her beloved school, she didn’t want to spend it anywhere.
Mia Eskin, 13, was on the phone with her friends when a long email popped up on her cellphone. This is how she found out Gerrard Berman Day School, where she had attended for seven years, would be closing. Before she could hang up the call, she thought of all the things she would miss: the highly anticipated eighth grade Israel trip, spending every day with her friends that she had known since first grade and attending a school she considered home.
Cohen and Eskin are only two of over 130 students impacted by the recent closing of Jewish day schools in northern New Jersey. In 2021, Gerrard Berman Day School, a small K-8 community school in Oakland formerly affiliated with the Conservative movement, announced it would be closing after three decades. A year later, The Idea School, a project-based, queer-friendly Modern Orthodox school 25 miles away in Tenafly, also announced it would cease operations.
These closings left students with a difficult choice, forced to decide where and how to continue their Jewish and secular education.
This sudden change proved difficult for many students. Charlotte Barbach, 15, a freshman at Kinnelon High School, said that the closing took a toll on her mental health.
“I just broke down,” she said. “I was so sad. I started bawling in the car. It was really hard because I had been going to that school for like 10 years.”
Barbach took the closing as a chance to try something new and chose to attend public school. She said the transition was difficult at first, but she now considers her new school home.
Leo Milch and their friends at an ice cream truck at The Idea School on the last day before it closed. (Courtesy)
“The first day was a little rough,” Barbach said. “But once I made a good group of friends, it was pretty good.”
Both of the schools cited decreasing enrollment and money concerns as the main reasons for not returning the following school year.
Paul Bernstein, the CEO of Prizmah, an organization that provides resources for day schools, did not have specific information about these closings but said in general, most day schools close for similar reasons.
“The primary underlying cause tends to be when the local Jewish community is shrinking or relocating to new neighborhoods, and it reaches a point where it can no longer sustain its existing infrastructure,” Bernstein said.
A national survey of Jewish day schools by Prizmah in December 2022 found that two-thirds of enrollments have either grown or remained stable over the previous year. Most of the thriving schools are in the northeast and southwest, according to Prizmah. However, that leaves 34% of schools surveyed that reported a decrease in enrollment last year.
A census of day schools by the Avi Chai Foundation, completed in 2019, found that the vast majority of day school students are enrolled in Orthodox schools — including 68 percent enrolled in haredi, or fervently Orthodox, schools. The survey also showed that student enrollment in non-Orthodox schools declined by 16.6 percent over the previous 20 years and fell 9 percent in the previous five years alone.
“Jewish day schools are a fundamental part of a Jewish community,” Bernstein said. “When a day school closes, the whole community ecosystem is impacted.”
Many students from the closed schools now attend Golda Och Academy, 30 miles away from Gerrard Berman Day School and close to an hour from The Idea School. The school, with roots in the Conservative movement, welcomed 15 former Gerrard Berman Day School students and 14 Idea School students in the 2022 and 2023 school years respectively, according to Sari Allen, Golda Och admissions director. Other students attend area Jewish day schools including The Frisch School, Solomon Schecter of New Milford, Yeshivat Noam, Gottesman Academy or their respective public schools.
Especially for students from The Idea School, the transitions were slightly more difficult because of the schools’ unique collaborative model and small class size.
Yahkir Scholsberg, a junior at Golda Och, said the unique outlook on Judaism, with much space for conversation and ability to discuss doubts and struggles freely, is something he loved about the Idea School.
“I’ve had some of the most fascinating discussions about Judaism [at The Idea School],” he said.
He said he has had some similar conversations at his new school, but The Idea School model allowed for more frequent and open conversation.
Scholsberg also had to adapt to the new curriculum at his new school. Golda Och, a school with more than 30 students in each grade, cannot personalize learning to each student the way that The Idea School, with around 15 students in each grade, was able to. He said that now is waiting until college for that level of customization and ability to focus specifically on the subjects he is passionate about.
Some students are discovering the benefits of their new school. Leo Milch, a first-year student when The Idea School closed, said Golda Och’s larger size provides them with more opportunities to learn from other students.
Sion Cohen, top left, with her class at The Idea School, a small, project-based Jewish day school that closed in 2022. (Courtesy)
“I feel like it just kind of opened me up to different ideas and different sides of how people think,” they said.
Milch said the welcoming culture at The Idea School caused them to be very open about any problems they were facing, but keep more to themselves at their new school.
“Last year I was more open,” they said. “I have definitely toned down certain aspects of myself to fit in.”
For Cohen, who graduated early after The Idea School closed and now attends Kean University, the path to finding a new home after the Jewish day school closed was difficult. She took extra classes on her own to fulfill requirements and spoke weekly with the college’s admissions office. While this was not the path she originally imagined, she said it made her realize the value of education, over a university’s name recognition or image.
“The hardest part about graduating early and having my options limited was realizing that it doesn’t matter where you go,” she said. “It matters that you get a good education and that you’re happy.”
Eliana Nahomove, now a 9th grader at The Frisch School, said that starting a new school at the start of her high school career gave her a sense of closure.
“You can’t go back, you just have to move forward,” she said.
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The post When their Jewish day schools closed, these teens had to learn to adjust appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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What’s Been Happening in Gaza This Month — and What’s Next for Israel
Palestinians protest to demand an end to war, chanting anti-Hamas slogans, in Beit Lahiya in the northern Gaza Strip, March 26, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Stringer
While the fighting in Gaza has been renewed, diplomatic efforts to end the war have not abated. The Egyptians and the Emiratis in particular are trying to work out options for ending the war. The Emirati direction is closer to that taken by President Trump and Israel (the removal of Hamas from Gaza plus the evacuation of a portion of the Gaza population, at least temporarily), while the Egyptians are attempting to find a solution that is closer (though not identical) to the demands of Hamas (a non-Hamas government, but with Hamas remaining present in the Strip). The first Egyptian proposal was apparently dismissed out of hand by the US.
The official Hamas red line is its disarmament. Whether it directly governs Gaza or controls it from behind a front of supposedly independent technocrats seems, at present, to be less important to the group.
Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad fired 20-25 rockets at southern Tel Aviv, Ashkelon and Beersheva from locations across the Gaza Strip (the exact number of rockets is not clear because there were some false alarms). At least one rocket fell inside the Strip. One salvo of 10 rockets aimed at Ashkelon injured nine people. Put together, the salvos wounded about 30 people, almost all through falls they suffered while rushing to shelter.
The rockets were fired from different areas. In one case, the launchers were placed right next to a humanitarian safe zone in Beyt Lahia.
After each launch, the population of the area from which the rockets were launched received orders from the IDF (leaflets, social media messages, etc.) to evacuate. The messages included maps showing which areas to leave and where to go. This was in addition to evacuation orders from areas the IDF ground forces were reentering. UNRWA claims that about 400,000 Palestinians have evacuated the areas as ordered by the IDF.
Israeli airstrikes on identified targets and Hamas senior and mid-level officials and military commanders continue, with more than a dozen killed so far. Among those killed were the Hamas prime minister (he was hiding in a hospital, and a small guided munition was fired into the room) and Hamas’s equivalent of a defense minister.
Israeli ground troops entered the Strip in various locations, increasing the depth of the 1-kilometer perimeter Israel has held since withdrawing during the ceasefire to several kilometers:
- From the northern border, Israeli forces are moving closer to Gaza City, especially along the coast (the same direction they originally entered Gaza in late October 2023)
- South of the city of Gaza, the IDF returned to the Netzarim Corridor, which separates northern and central Gaza. The IDF has not yet completely blocked the corridor. The coastal area is still open for travel
- In the south, the IDF moved back into two areas around the city of Rafah from which it had withdrawn. Another force advanced north along the coast, closer to the al-Muwasi humanitarian area declared by the IDF last year
- A new corridor, called Morag, is being taken north of Rafah, separating it from the rest of the Gaza Strip
The Hamas Ministry of Health, which had published numbers of killed including the missing, has gone back to its previous pattern of not including the missing. Its latest casualty update (24 March) is 50,810 killed and 115,700 wounded. Hamas still does not differentiate between combatants and non-combatants. According to the IDF, the killed include a verified total of more than 20,000 Hamas personnel and at least 3,000 personnel of other terrorist organizations. The number of wounded terrorists is not known but is probably at least similar to the number killed.
Whereas most Western countries have denounced Israel’s renewed offensive, the US government has declared unqualified support.
The humanitarian issue is again being trumpeted by Hamas, which claims that the stopping of supply convoys is threatening the population of Gaza with starvation and a lack of medical supplies. Israel responded that about 25,000 truckloads (enough for 50 days) entered Gaza during the ceasefire and Hamas is hoarding most of their contents – including supplies that arrived prior to the ceasefire – in its own warehouses and is selling them to the population at exorbitant prices to fund its activities.
In Gaza there have been increasing protests demanding that Hamas surrender and leave the Strip and complaining about Hamas not distributing the supplies that have arrived. These protests have been small in scale so far, but the number of participants is gradually increasing as is the spread. Initially, the protests were occurring only in northern Gaza, but they have taken place in central Gaza as well and have recently spread to southern Gaza.
It is still too early to tell if these protests are harbingers of change or just the expressions of a small minority. At first, Hamas did not respond with violence, instead trying to pass off the protests as directed against Israel. Hamas media and Al-Jazeera ignored the statements being made against Hamas and quoted only the demands that the ceasefire be renewed. But after a few days, Hamas began to capture and even kill some of the protesters. This diminished the number of protests but did not halt them entirely. In one case, the clan of a protester killed by Hamas security forces retaliated by killing the Hamas police officer who had shot their family member. There have been a few other skirmishes between clans and Hamas security forces.
There have also been many more posts on social media by Gazans saying they would leave Gaza permanently if only they were allowed to do so. While these posts are increasing in number, they are still relatively rare, and we cannot know how deep this sentiment really is — are they exceptions, or do they represent the feelings of a much larger proportion of the population?
Dr. Eado Hecht, a senior research fellow at the BESA Center, is a military analyst focusing mainly on the relationship between military theory, military doctrine, and military practice. He teaches courses on military theory and military history at Bar-Ilan University, Haifa University, and Reichman University and in a variety of courses in the Israel Defense Forces. A version of this article was originally published by The BESA Center.
The post What’s Been Happening in Gaza This Month — and What’s Next for Israel first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Exposed: CBS News Caught Deleting Hamas Propaganda on ‘Martyrs’ & ‘Israeli Aggression’ from Website
Smoke rises from Gaza after an explosion, as seen from the Israeli side of the border, April 14, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen
It was right there, on their website. For all to see. Evidence that a major American news outlet — one with prestige, resources, and supposedly rigorous editorial standards — had quietly published, almost word-for-word, what can only be described as a press release from a designated terrorist organization.
Earlier this month, CBS News ran a story about an alleged Israeli airstrike on a school in Gaza. The headline set the tone: “Israeli strike on Gaza school allegedly kills 31 Palestinians, many kids, but IDF says it hit Hamas.”
Already, the usual red flags: a suspiciously specific death toll, immediate emphasis on children among the casualties, and of course, the requisite skepticism toward the IDF’s explanation — all paired with the now-standard framing of an aggressive Israel recklessly targeting civilians, rather than Hamas.
According to CBS, the death toll was sourced from the “Civil Defense rescue agency in Gaza,” which in turn cited medical records from Al-Ahli Hospital — the same hospital that, just days after CBS published its report, was revealed to contain a Hamas operations center inside the facility. That’s right: inside the hospital. Just to give you an idea of the reliability of the sources CBS deems fit to cite.
And yet, rather than question the reliability of medical records emerging from a Hamas-controlled war zone — or pause to consider the well-documented strategy of placing multiple command centers in civilian institutions — CBS instead cast doubt on the IDF. Why? Because the IDF had issued similar warnings the day before, when targeting a different Hamas site. Apparently, the editorial team at CBS finds it hard to believe that a terror group that has ruled Gaza with an iron grip for nearly two decades might operate more than one military facility embedded in civilian infrastructure.
We know. Shocking. Almost as if tunnel networks, human shields, and base duplication are all part of Hamas’ war strategy.
But the real giveaway came in a line CBS quietly scrubbed from its article after publication — with no correction, no note, no admission. The line that read: “The death toll of the Israeli aggression has risen to 50,609 martyrs.” [emphasis added]
Yes, really. “Martyrs.” And “Israeli aggression.” Directly lifted from Hamas propaganda.
On April 4, @CBSNews referred to 50,000 Palestinian “martyrs” before quietly amending it, hoping nobody would notice.
Pro-tip: Don’t copy-paste Hamas press releases. pic.twitter.com/mV6qa8718u
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) April 14, 2025
At some point, a CBS journalist hit Ctrl+C on that phrasing and dropped it straight into a news story — no quotation marks, no attribution, no context. Just presented as plain, unqualified fact.
This is how warped coverage of Israel’s war with Hamas has become: ideologically blinkered or just plain lazy reporters sourcing claims from the most biased actors in the region and piping them directly into American living rooms under the banner of “journalism.”
We’ve seen it before. HonestReporting has documented how outlets like UPI routinely republish Hamas talking points. The BBC, The Guardian, NPR — all have quoted Hamas press officers and “health ministry” officials as if they were neutral observers rather than representatives of a proscribed terrorist organization.
This is how distortion becomes doctrine. This is how Hamas’ narrative — complete with inflated death tolls, blood-soaked victimhood, and cartoon-villain depictions of Israel — spreads far beyond Gaza’s borders.
When Western news outlets start parroting the language of groups banned in their own countries, it’s not just a lapse in editorial judgment. It’s complicity.
The author is a contributor to HonestReporting, a Jerusalem-based media watchdog with a focus on antisemitism and anti-Israel bias — where a version of this article first appeared.
The post Exposed: CBS News Caught Deleting Hamas Propaganda on ‘Martyrs’ & ‘Israeli Aggression’ from Website first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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The Protocols of the Elders of Zion Thrive on Palestinian Authority TV
The opening of a hall that the Palestinian Authority named for a terrorist who killed 125 people. Photo: Palestinian Media Watch.
Official Palestinian Authority (PA) TV is the mouthpiece of the PA, and the PA uses it to transmit libels and lies about Israel.
One such libel claims that Israel’s fight against Hamas is just a symptom of an Israeli plot to rule the entire Muslim world:
Speaker at anti-Israeli demonstration in Algiers: “The goal of the Zionist enterprise is not just to eliminate the central cause, which is the Palestinian cause.
Its goal is to harm the [Arab] nation, dismantle it, and tear it apart, and to establish the [Zionist] entity state (i.e., Israel) on the land of Islam, on the land of Palestine, and on all the Muslim lands.” [emphasis added]
[Official PA TV, April 6, 2025]
The PA has repeated this libel for decades as Palestinian Media Watch has exposed, claiming that Israel harbors colonialist aspirations and dreams of ruling the entire Arab world:
Political science lecturer Hareth Halalmeh: “Israel has an expansionist outlook. This expansionist outlook does not only include Palestine, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip, but encompasses the entire Arab and Islamic entity… The Arabs are now convinced that we are facing an imperialistic, expanding, occupying, settler state that does not accept a Palestinian partner, nor an Arab partner, but rather only thinks in the language of violence and power. The Arabs are now fully convinced that if this danger will not be nipped in the bud, this danger will reach every Arab state.” [emphasis added]
[Official PA TV, Capital of Capitals, March 6, 2025]
One speaker broadcast by official PA TV claimed that “traditional colonialism” was “just Zionist colonialism”:
Political science lecturer Dr. Ibrahim Al-Rifa’i: “Was traditional colonialism just French and British?”
Official PA TV host: “Or Italian?”
Ibrahim Al-Rifa’i: “It was actually Zionist colonialism… They [the Jews] think that the entire world that is outside the circle of Zionism are goyim (i.e., non-Jews) and that Zionist globalization should rule, and they have been waging a world war ever since the time before traditional colonialism. Traditional colonialism was completely Zionist. This colonialism with its various names – British, English, French – was just Zionist colonialism.”
[Official PA TV, Capital of Capitals – Tunis, Feb. 12, 2025]
A Lebanese Shari’ah Judge who was given a platform on PA TV packaged this in the well-known antisemitic libel that “Jews seek world dominion” and recommended that “Arabs, Muslims, and even Christians” should “re-examine” The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which was exposed as a Russian antisemitic forgery over a century ago, for proof that “any decision made by the Zionist enemy contains traps and unannounced goals”:
Lebanese Shari’ah Judge Sheikh Khaldoun Oraymet: “We must understand, as Lebanese, Arabs, Muslims, and even Christians, that any decision made by the Zionist enemy (i.e., Israel) certainly contains traps and unannounced goals, which are necessarily not for the benefit of Lebanon [or] the Palestinian cause or the Arabs. For us to know for certain that this is their position, one must re-examine The Protocols of the Elders of Zion and examine – I’m not saying the Bible, but the Talmud that was written by the Jews’ rabbis.” [emphasis added]
[Official PA TV, Capital of Capitals, March 18, 2025]
PA leader Mahmoud Abbas’ advisor Al-Habbash has presented a different version of this libel, claiming that it is the US that seeks dominion over the Arab world, using Israel as “a pawn state” to reach its “colonialist goals”:
PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’ Advisor on Religious Affairs and Islamic Relations Mahmoud Al-Habbash: “There is no strategic alliance in the true political sense between the US and Israel. What actually exists is American employment of Israel. Israel is nothing more than an American interest.
It is nothing more than a pawn state or pawn entity whose goal is to serve the American and colonialist goals. The US is making sure to keep this entity and state so that it will serve its goals to keep the Arab region divided, backward, and conflict-ridden… The US is interested in continuing the situation (i.e., Israeli counter-terror operation against Hamas). It wants to pressure the Palestinian people, and to break the willpower of the Palestinian people and the Arab nation that is behind it.” [emphasis added]
[Mahmoud Al-Habbash, Facebook page, Dec. 13, 2023]
Official PA TV has repeatedly served as a means for spreading the libel that Israel’s goal is to expand beyond “Palestine.” A Syrian commentator warned that Israel poses “a danger that will wash over the Arab and Islamic world”:
Syrian commentator Husam Taleb: “Israel wants to expel [the residents from] the entire West Bank, so that not a single Palestinian will remain. Afterwards they will move on to the 1948 Arabs (i.e., Israeli Arabs)… Then the Golan Heights, they want to expel the [Druze] people of the Golan… This plan is being put on the table by the Israelis.”
[Official PA TV, Capital of Capitals – Damascus, Jan. 26, 2025]
The author is a senior analyst at Palestinian Media Watch, where a version of this article was originally published.
The post The Protocols of the Elders of Zion Thrive on Palestinian Authority TV first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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