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Hebrew school enrollment across US down by nearly half since 2006, report says
(JTA) — Living in Brooklyn, surrounded by synagogues and Jewish schools, Rachel Weinstein White and her husband hoped to find a place where their children could receive a Jewish education for a few hours each week.
But they knew they didn’t want to enroll at a traditional Hebrew school associated with a local synagogue. For one thing, White wasn’t interested at the time in participating in prayer services, the main offering of most congregations. Plus, her husband is Black and not Jewish, and they were not sure how well he or their children would be welcomed.
So about eight years ago, she started her own program together with a few families, setting up a cooperative and hiring a teacher in an early version of the “learning pods” that would become a pandemic fad.
“It was just this incredible, magical year,” White said. “So many people started hearing about our little class and asked to join that it became necessary to create a second class. … It just kind of grew organically from there.”
Today the school, Fig Tree, enrolls about 350 children across three locations and plans are underway to expand further. In hour-long classes on Sundays and weekday afternoons, children learn about Jewish holidays and history, engage in art and creative play, explore their local Jewish communities and learn basic Hebrew, in a program that culminates in a b’nai mitzvah year. It overlaps significantly with traditional Hebrew schools, but outside the usual setting — a synagogue classroom — that has become a cultural shorthand among American Jews for rote, uninspiring Jewish education.
That dynamic may be why Fig Tree is an outlier in a stark trend revealed in a new report: Enrollment in supplemental Jewish schools — those that students attend in addition to regular schooling in public or secular private schools — is down by nearly half over the last 15 years.
Even as the estimated number of Jewish children in the United States rose by 17% between 2000 and 2020, enrollment in Hebrew schools fell by at least 45% between 2006 and 2020, according to the report by the Jewish Education Project, a nonprofit that promotes educational innovation and supports Jewish educators in a wide array of settings.
The report identifies pockets of growth, mostly in the small number of programs like Fig Tree that operate outside of or adjacent to synagogues, and in schools operated by the Hasidic Chabad-Lubavitch movement. But overall, according to the report, just 141,000 children attend supplemental Jewish schools in the United States and Canada, down from more than 230,000 in 2006 and 280,000 in 1987.
Some of the decline in Hebrew school enrollment is countered by increasing enrollment in Jewish day schools, where students study Jewish topics for at least part of every day. The number of U.S. children attending Jewish day schools has risen by roughly the same amount, 90,000, that Hebrew school enrollment has fallen since 2006, according to the report, though a significant portion of the increase stems from population growth in Orthodox communities, where the vast majority of students attend day schools.
Miriam Heller Stern, a professor at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion who was tapped to help design the study, said the results suggest that, as with many aspects of religious life today, Hebrew school enrollment cannot be counted on as an act of obligation or tradition.
“There’s this idea that parents send their kids to Hebrew school because they went to Hebrew school and that’s a rite of passage in North America, but that may be a myth,” she said. “People don’t want to push their kids to have to do the same thing they did, necessarily, anymore.”
The report speculates about what has fueled the enrollment decline — from demographic changes to shifts in how American Jews think about countering antisemitism to increased access to Jewish learning online — and also about what has allowed some schools to thrive. It notes that all of the supplemental schools that responded to its census said their schools help children feel connected to the Jewish people.
“We believe that many factors have led to the decline in enrollment of students in supplemental schools in the last decade,” said David Bryfman, the Jewish Education Project’s CEO. “However, it’s also a myth that all supplemental schools don’t work.”
The group is planning a series of online sessions with some of the dozens of researchers and practitioners involved in the report, with one goal the sharing of success stories identified by the survey. Of the six identified in the report, a common theme is urging experiential, community-based learning. Some of the promising models explicitly position themselves as infusing Jewish content into child care, filling a pressing need for American families.
Still, it may be hard to counter the demographic realities of contemporary American Jews: Just a third of U.S. Jews in a 2020 survey said someone in their household was a member of a synagogue. That was the case even for the majority of non-Orthodox Jews who said they identified with a particular denomination, a marker of traditional engagement.
The waning of synagogue affiliation is borne out in the Jewish Education Project’s report, which found that more than 700 supplemental schools shuttered between 2006 and 2020 — most outright, though as many as 200 have survived in a new form after merging.
Temple Solel, a small Reform congregation in Fort Mill, South Carolina, shut down its Hebrew school in recent years. The volunteer-run program had up to eight students at a time, according to Russ Cobe, a lay leader.
“We sort of hit a point where we weren’t able to sustain it,” Cobe said. “We only had a couple of people teaching and students from a wide range of ages and they wouldn’t show up every week. Also, our wheelhouse seems to be retirement age and above. We don’t have a lot of young families.”
Hebrew school mergers offer one possible approach to countering the enrollment decline. Two synagogues, one Reform and one Conservative, located half a mile apart in Oak Park, Michigan, established a joint school about seven years ago and called it Yachad, which means “together” in Hebrew.
“One day a week we meet at the Conservative congregation and one day a week we meet at the Reform congregation, so we are keeping our kids involved in both,” said Gail Greenberg, Yachad’s director. “My goal is to make it at the highest common denominator. For example, all of our food is kosher so anyone who wants to eat here can.”
The arrangement appears to be working. Last year, about 90 students were enrolled, and this year, enrollment is at 128, including 26 new kindergarteners, with even larger numbers expected in the future.
Another set of programs has grown dramatically in recent years: those affiliated with the Chabad movement, which tend to operate even when small and cost less than synagogue programs. Since 2006, the study says Chabad’s market share in terms of enrollment has grown from 4% to 10%, and in terms of the number of schools from 13% to 21%.
Those figures might represent an undercount, according to Zalman Loewenthal, director of CKids, the Chabad network of children’s programs. While the study says there are some 300 Chabad programs in the United States, Loewenthal said he is aware of at least 500 and perhaps as many as 600 — a number driven up in the last decade amid a push by Chabad to launch more Hebrew schools. His count is based on the number of customers purchasing the curriculum offered by his organization, which is also new in the last decade and in his view has contributed to improved quality among Chabad Hebrew schools.
In general, non-traditional approaches to Jewish education may be attractive at a time when American families have packed schedules and competing needs, according to Stern.
“People want to be able to have bite-sized pieces just like you sign up for a six-weeks art class, they might want a six-weeks Jewish class,” she said. “In this atmosphere, some communities are finding ways to be more modular and more flexible, and meet people’s needs in different ways.”
Stern also said, referring to six programs highlighted in the study as success stories, that the future calls for programs to offer an “immersive” experience, meaning that children become part of a community.
“They are getting something beyond just knowledge,” Stern said. “They’re also getting connection and belonging, which provides the foundation for something bigger in their lives.”
Stern said she thought the report pointed to gaps in the way American Jewish communities allocate their resources.
“Supplementary education really was abandoned as a communal priority,” she said. “Individual communities had to find ways to fund it on their own. And I think that is part of why we’re seeing a decline.”
Bryfman said he’s optimistic, both about the power of supplemental schools and the potential for them to generate new support from Jewish donors.
The Jewish Education Project had sought outside funding to pay for its study and failed, he said. But now that the numbers are clear, he is beginning to see interest from philanthropies.
“I don’t want to count the dollars before they’re granted,” Bryfman said. “But the study is already beginning to have the desired effect of bringing more resources to the field.”
Fig Tree isn’t set up to benefit in a possible future of increased charitable investments in Jewish education. That’s because the school is set up as a business — an expression of confidence in its growth and to insulate itself from the vagaries of philanthropy.
“It’s a very unusual model for the Jewish education and I would argue a self-sustaining one,” White said. “We don’t have to rely on fundraising… and we’re not beholden to some of the other requirements that a nonprofit would necessitate, which allows us to be nimble.”
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French Jewish Community Marks 20 Years Since Ilan Halimi’s Brutal Murder
A crowd gathers at the Jardin Ilan Halimi in Paris on Feb. 14, 2021, to commemorate the 15th anniversary of Halimi’s kidnapping and murder. Photo: Reuters/Xose Bouzas/Hans Lucas
France’s Jewish community on Tuesday commemorated the 20th anniversary of the death of Ilan Halimi, a young Jewish man who was brutally tortured to death, as his memory continues to be defaced amid a rising tide of antisemitism threatening Jews and Israelis across the country.
“Twenty years on, Ilan Halimi’s memory still needs to be protected and honored, yet it continues to come under attack, as recent vandalism at his memorial site shows,” the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions of France (CRIF) — the main representative body of French Jews — wrote in a post on X.
“Antisemitism remains a persistent threat in France today,” the statement read.
Le 20 janvier 2006 marque l’enlèvement et le début de la séquestration d’Ilan Halimi, 23 ans, parce qu’il était Juif.
20 ans plus tard, alors que la mémoire d’Ilan Halimi doit être protégée et honorée, elle continue d’être atteinte, comme l’ont montré les récents actes de… pic.twitter.com/Htu9ntMHhq
— CRIF (@Le_CRIF) January 20, 2026
Last week, another olive tree planted to honor Halimi’s memory was vandalized and cut down, as French authorities continue efforts to replant trees in remembrance of the young Jewish man who was murdered in 2006.
“We will bring those responsible to justice,” French Interior Minister Laurent Nunez wrote in a post on X. “Our collective outrage is matched only by our unwavering determination to combat antisemitic and anti-religious acts that continue to tarnish the memory of an innocent man.”
This latest antisemitic act came after a plaque honoring Halimi was vandalized in Cagnes-sur-Mer, a town in southeastern France, prompting local authorities to open an investigation for “destruction and antisemitic damage.”
According to local reports, a 29-year-old man with no prior criminal record has been arrested. While he admitted to the acts, he denied any antisemitic motive and is now awaiting trial.
Last year, a tree planted in memory of Halimi was also vandalized and cut down in Épinay-sur-Seine, a suburb north of Paris.
Two Tunisian twin brothers were arrested and convicted for cutting down the tree, but were acquitted of the antisemitism charges brought against them.
Both of them were sentenced to eight months in prison, but one of them received a suspended sentence, meaning he will not serve time unless he commits another offense or violates certain conditions.
According to local media, one of the brothers has reportedly been deported from France.
Halimi was abducted, held captive, and tortured in January 2006 by a gang of about 20 people in a low-income housing estate in the Paris suburb of Bagneux.
Three weeks later, Halimi was found in Essonne, south of Paris, naked, gagged, and handcuffed, with clear signs of torture and burns. The 23-year-old died on the way to the hospital.
In 2011, French authorities planted the first olive tree in Halimi’s memory. However, the young Jewish boy’s memory has faced attacks before, with two other trees planted in his honor vandalized in 2019 in Essonne, where he was found dying near a railway track.
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Mourner’s Kaddish for Bondi Beach victims recited in Australian parliament as tougher hate crime laws pass
(JTA) — A Jewish member of Australian Parliament recited the Mourner’s Kaddish in an address Monday to honor the victims of the Hanukkah massacre on Bondi Beach.
The address, delivered by Jewish parliamentarian and former attorney general Mark Dreyfus, came over a month after two gunmen motivated by what authorities said was “Islamic State ideology” opened fire on a celebration in Sydney, killing 15 and injuring dozens more. Most of the victims were Jewish, and Dreyfus read all of their names aloud.
Dreyfus, who wore a kippah for the presentation, then commended the “acts of extraordinary courage” by bystanders and emergency workers during the attack, naming Ahmed al-Ahmed, the Muslim man who received widespread support from the Jewish community after he was shot while disarming one of the attackers. He also told the Australian House of Representatives that the country’s “response cannot be confined to grief,” exhorting his fellow lawmakers to take action around “upholding our laws against hate.”
Then he invited everyone present to rise for the Mourner’s Kaddish, recited in Jewish communities in memory of the dead.
“You don’t have to be Jewish to feel this in your chest, an attack like this hurts all of us,” Dreyfus said, describing the prayer as “a prayer about life, dignity and the hope for peace at times of profound loss.”
The public recitation was redolent of the decision of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette to publish the Hebrew text of the prayer on its front page following the murder of 11 Jews in their synagogue there in 2018.
https://www.instagram.com/p/DTtw-r7Dehs/?hl=en
Late Tuesday, Australia’s parliament passed anti-hate speech and gun reform bills initiated in the wake of the attack. The gun reform bill included new checks on firearm license applications and a national gun buy-back program, while the anti-hate speech bill banned hate groups and imposed penalties for preachers who promote hate.
The hate speech component won support from liberal lawmakers who said they had free-speech concerns after it was weakened from its initial version.
“The terrorists at Bondi Beach had hatred in their hearts and guns in their hands,” wrote Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in a post on X. “Today we passed new laws that deal with both. Combatting antisemitism and cracking down on guns.”
The new laws come as Australia grapples with another searing antisemitic incident. Late in the day on Monday, five Jewish teenagers in Melbourne were chased for several minutes by a car whose occupants chanted “Heil Hitler” and performed Nazi salutes at them.
The boys, aged 15 and 16 and easily identifiable as Orthodox Jews, were walking home from Adass High School when the incident occurred in the proximity of Adass Israel Synagogue, which was firebombed in December 2024. No arrests were immediately made.
“The antisemitic hate incident last night in St Kilda targeting young Jewish boys has no place in our country,” Albanese in a statement, according to The Australian. “At a time when Australians are joining with the Jewish community in sorrow and solidarity, it is beyond disgusting to see these cowards shouting Nazi slogans at young people.”
The post Mourner’s Kaddish for Bondi Beach victims recited in Australian parliament as tougher hate crime laws pass appeared first on The Forward.
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Number of UK Schools Marking Holocaust Has Dropped by Nearly 60% Since Oct. 7 Massacre
Tens of thousands joined the National March Against Antisemitism in London, Nov. 26, 2023. Photo: Tayfun Salci/ZUMA Press Wire via Reuters Connect
The number of British schools commemorating the Holocaust has plummeted by nearly 60 percent following the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of southern Israel.
Since Hamas-led Palestinian terrorists perpetrated the largest single-day massacre of Jews since World War II, the number of secondary schools across the UK signed up for events commemorating Holocaust Remembrance Day, which takes place annually on Jan. 27, dropped to fewer than 1,200 in 2024 and 854 in 2025, according to data from the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust.
The figure had been rising each year since 2019, reaching more than 2,000 secondary schools in 2023.
There are about 4,200 secondary schools in the UK.
Sir Ephraim Mirvis, chief rabbi of the UK, commented on the figures in an essay published in The Sunday Times, expressing alarm about an increasingly hostile environment for the British Jewish community.
“I fear for what will happen this year,” Mirvis wrote. “For if we cannot teach our children to remember the past with integrity and resolve, then we must ask ourselves what kind of future they will inherit.”
Mirvis urged readers to put themselves in the shoes of a UK teacher preparing a Holocaust memorial event. “Now imagine that as you begin to organize such an event, you learn that some parents of pupils at your school are unhappy about it,” he added. “One of the claims that Holocaust education is a form of “propaganda”; another insists that the event must not go ahead unless it also highlights the awful suffering of Palestinians in Gaza.”
Karen Pollock, chief executive of the Holocaust Educational Trust, described to The Times how some students “arrive in the classroom with views shaped by social media trends rather than evidence.”
The European Jewish Congress (EJC) released a statement on Monday reflecting on the drop in UK schools recognizing the Holocaust.
“Holocaust Memorial Day is not about politics. It is about memory, responsibility, and education. It exists to honor the 6 million Jews murdered in the Holocaust and to remind future generations of the consequences of hatred, indifference, and extremism,” the EJC stated. “Avoiding commemoration out of fear of controversy undermines the very purpose of education. When remembrance becomes optional, memory itself becomes fragile.”
The EJC continued, “Now is precisely the moment when Holocaust education matters most: when misinformation spreads easily, when antisemitism is openly visible, and when fewer survivors remain to bear witness. Schools play a vital role in preserving this memory, not only for Jewish communities, but for society as a whole.”
Dwindling commemoration of the Holocaust comes amid a steep surge in antisemitism across the UK.
The Community Security Trust (CST) — a nonprofit charity that advises Britain’s Jewish community on security matters — recorded 1,521 antisemitic incidents from January to June this year. This was the second-highest number of antisemitic crimes ever recorded by CST in the first six months of any year, following 2,019 incidents in the first half of 2024.
In total last year, CST recorded 3,528 anti-Jewish hate crimes — the country’s second worst year for antisemitism, despite an 18 percent drop from 2023’s record of 4,296.
“When a trigger event such as the Oct. 7 attack occurs, antisemitic incidents initially spike to a record peak; then gradually recede until they plateau at a higher level than before the original trigger event occurred,” CST stated.
These figures juxtapose with 1,662 antisemitic incidents in 2022, 2,261 in 2021, and 1,684 in 2020.
The struggles of the UK’s educational establishment to counter the rising antisemitism problem mirror the ongoing challenges confronted by its medical institutions.
In November, UK Health Secretary Wes Streeting called it “chilling” that some members of the Jewish community fear discrimination within the NHS, amid reports of widespread antisemitism in Britain’s health-care system.
The comments came weeks after British Prime Minister Keir Starmer unveiled a new plan to address what he described as “just too many examples, clear examples, of antisemitism that have not been dealt with adequately or effectively” in the country’s National Health Service (NHS).
One notable case drawing attention involved Dr. Rahmeh Aladwan, a trainee trauma and orthopedic surgeon, who police arrested on Oct. 21, charging her with four offenses related to malicious communications and inciting racial hatred. In November, she was suspended from practicing medicine in the UK over social media posts denigrating Jews and celebrating Hamas’s terrorism.
Other incidents in the UK included a Jewish family fearing their London doctor’s antisemitism influenced their disabled son’s treatment. The North London hospital suspended the physician who was under investigation for publicly claiming that all Jews have “feelings of supremacy” and downplaying antisemitism.