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Israel to invest $40 million in North American Jewish day schools
(JTA) — Citing “a major crisis in Jewish education,” Israel’s Diaspora ministry plans to pour about $40 million into training educators at Jewish schools in the United States and Canada.
Amichai Chikli, Israel’s minister of Diaspora affairs, announced the initiative, called “Aleph Bet” after the first two letters of the Hebrew alphabet, on Monday. He hopes enrollment will increase at Jewish day schools, fearing that “we are losing large parts of the Jewish people,” and said the initiative would “focus on training teachers for Jewish education and Israel studies as well as principals for Jewish day schools,” according to the Jerusalem Post.
Chikli did not elaborate on how his ministry would spend the allocation of NIS 150 million, nor did he detail when funds could start making their way into North American Jewish schools. His office did not respond to a request for comment. Israel’s governing coalition plans to approve a state budget next week, ahead of a May 29 deadline.
North American Jewish schools have received varying levels of Israeli government support for years, according to Paul Bernstein, CEO of Prizmah, a nonprofit supporting Jewish day schools. He said staff members of day schools were optimistic about the additional funding despite lacking details about where it would go.
“There’s quite a lot of chatter. People are excited by the fact that the State of Israel really sees the importance of Diaspora education, and is recognizing that the strength of the Diaspora is integral to [a] strong Israel and strong relationships,” Bernstein said. “Irrespective of all that’s going on in the world, that is a very positive and important long-term development.”
The announcement comes at a time of tension between Israel’s right-wing governing coalition and North American Jewish communities. A chorus of U.S. Jewish leaders has criticized the government’s proposed overhaul of Israel’s judiciary, and last month, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu canceled a speech at a signature conference of North American Jews in Tel Aviv in the face of anti-government protests. Chikli, who assumed his role in January, has defended the judicial overhaul while acting as an ambassador of sorts to an often skeptical audience of Diaspora Jews.
Chikli, whose father is a Jewish educator in Mexico, had previously indicated that he sees Jewish day schools abroad as an important destination for Israeli aid. He has said repeatedly — including on Monday — that children who do not attend Jewish day schools are at risk of being lost to the Jewish people.
“We are in the midst of a crisis where it is possible to lose an entire generation of Jews,” he said during the funding announcement.
Early in his tenure, Chikli floated the idea of working with philanthropists to subsidize day school tuition in the Diaspora. More recently, he has signaled that covering tuition — which can range from several thousand dollars at haredi Orthodox yeshivas to more than $40,000 a year — is less of a priority.
“Jewish education in private schools is very expensive, and at times out of range for the average family,” he told Hamodia, a haredi publication, in April. “This is where we step up to the plate. This isn’t to say we’re giving out free scholarships … but we invest, as noted earlier, in the teachers, in the school systems, to ensure Jewish education, and continuity of Jewish generations. We want to raise the pride of Jewish studies teachers.”
Attending a Jewish school is widely considered a strong predictor of lasting Jewish identity, although that may be because parents who prioritize Jewish identity are more likely to send their children to Jewish day school. Enrollment in Jewish schools in North American Jewish schools is growing, largely because of the growth of Orthodox communities, where the vast majority of children attend private Jewish schools.
Outside of those communities, most North American Jewish children do not attend Jewish day schools. But the pandemic saw Conservative, Reform and nondenominational day schools grow as well, according to a survey by Prizmah, following more than a decade of decline. The survey found that schools have maintained those enrollment gains even as the pandemic has ended.
Meanwhile, Hebrew schools and other supplemental Jewish schools have shrunk by nearly half since 2006, according to a recent report by the Jewish Education Project. Chikli did not specify whether any of the new funding could go to such schools
Chikli’s father, Eitan Chikli, is the rector of the Hebraic University in Mexico City, which receives some funding from his son’s ministry. Previously, he was the longtime director general of Israel’s TALI Education Fund, which promotes pluralistic Jewish education in Israeli schools and also produces materials for use in Jewish schools abroad.
The elder Chikli told the Jerusalem Post in January that he would not discuss the funding his university receives with his son, who he said is fastidious about avoiding conflicts of interest. But he said that teacher training was an urgent problem for Jewish schools.
“The biggest problem Jewish people in the Diaspora face today is Jewish education and lack of a high level of teachers for Judaic studies,” Eitan Chikli said in January. “The most difficult problem is that there is no new generation of proper teachers for Hebrew and Judaism.”
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The post Israel to invest $40 million in North American Jewish day schools appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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US Officials Tell i24NEWS Israeli Concerns About Gaza Board of Peace Are ‘Unfounded’
FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Donald Trump is interviewed by Reuters White House correspondent Steve Holland (not pictured) during an exclusive interview in the Oval Office in the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., January 14, 2026. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein/File Photo
i24 News – Amid the criticism in Israel over the composition of the “Board of Peace” and the bodies set to govern the Gaza Strip, as well as concerns that Hamas could continue to threaten Israel under the new plan, officials in Washington suggest these concerns are unfounded, i24NEWS understands.
A Senior US official tells i24NEWS: “Turkey, Qatar, and Egypt were instrumental in achieving the ceasefire, securing the return of the living hostages, and bringing back the deceased. They have co-signed commitments that Hamas will follow through on its part of the plan, and the Board of Peace will work with them to ensure compliance.”
The underlying message is clear: President Trump will make the calls, and the US will ensure full implementation of all objectives of the plan, first and foremost the demilitarization of Gaza, regardless of the positions or hostile statements towards Israel coming from Turkey and Qatar.
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One Person Killed, 14 Hurt in Blast in Iranian Port of Bandar Abbas, Iranian Media Reports
FILE PHOTO: An aerial view of the Iranian shores and Port of Bandar Abbas in the strait of Hormuz, December 10, 2023. REUTERS/Stringer/File Photo
At least one person was killed and 14 injured in an explosion in the southern Iranian port of Bandar Abbas on Saturday, a local official told Iranian news agencies, but the cause of the blast was not known.
The semi-official Tasnim news agency said that social media reports alleging that a Revolutionary Guard navy commander had been targeted in the explosion were “completely false.”
Iranian media said the blast was under investigation but provided no further information. Iranian authorities could not immediately be contacted for comment.
Separately, four people were killed after a gas explosion in the city of Ahvaz near the Iraqi border, according to state-run Tehran Times. No further information was immediately available.
Two Israeli officials told Reuters that Israel was not involved in Saturday’s blasts, which come amid heightened tensions between Tehran and Washington over Iran’s crackdown on nationwide protests and over the country’s nuclear program.
The Pentagon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
US President Donald Trump said on January 22 an “armada” was heading toward Iran. Multiple sources said on Friday that Trump was weighing options against Iran that include targeted strikes on security forces.
Earlier on Saturday, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian accused US, Israeli and European leaders of exploiting Iran’s economic problems, inciting unrest and providing people with the means to “tear the nation apart.”
Bandar Abbas, home to Iran’s most important container port, lies on the Strait of Hormuz, a vital waterway between Iran and Oman which handles about a fifth of the world’s seaborne oil.
The port suffered a major explosion last April that killed dozens and injured over 1,000 people. An investigative committee at the time blamed the blast on shortcomings in adherence to principles of civil defense and security.
Iran has been rocked by nationwide protests that erupted in December over economic hardship and have posed one of the toughest challenges to the country’s clerical rulers.
At least 5,000 people were killed in the protests, including 500 members of the security forces, an Iranian official told Reuters.
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How a law used to protect synagogues is now being deployed against ICE protesters and journalists
After a pro-Palestinian protest at a New Jersey synagogue turned violent in October, the Trump administration took an unusual step — using a federal law typically aimed at protecting abortion clinics to sue the demonstrators.
Now, federal authorities are attempting to deploy the same law against journalists as well as protesters against Immigration and Customs Enforcement amid the agency’s at times violent crackdown in Minneapolis.
Former CNN anchor Don Lemon, a local journalist, and two protesters were arrested after attending a Jan. 18 anti-ICE protest at a church in St. Paul, Minnesota, Justice Department officials said Friday. Protesters alleged the pastor at Cities Church worked for ICE.
The federal law they are accused of violating, the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, or FACE, prohibits the use of force or intimidation to interfere with reproductive health care clinics and houses of worship.
But in the three decades since its passage in 1994, the law had almost entirely been deployed against anti-abortion protesters causing disruptions at clinics.
That changed in September of last year, when the Trump administration cited the FACE Act to sue pro-Palestinian demonstrators at Congregation Ohr Torah in West Orange, New Jersey.
It was the first time the Department of Justice had used the law against demonstrators outside a house of worship, Harmeet Dhillon, an assistant attorney general for the department’s civil rights division, said at the time.
The novel legal strategy — initially advanced by Jewish advocacy groups to fight antisemitism — is now front and center in what First Amendment advocates are describing as an attack on freedom of the press.
“I intend to identify and find every single person in that mob that interrupted that church service in that house of God and bring them to justice,” Dhillon told Newsmax last week. “And that includes so-called ‘journalists.’”
How the law has been used
The FACE Act has traditionally been used to prosecute protesters who interfere with patients entering abortion clinics. Conservative activists have long criticized the law as violating demonstrators’ First Amendment rights, and the Trump administration even issued a memo earlier this month saying the Justice Department should limit enforcement of the law.
But in September, the Trump administration applied the FACE Act in a new way: suing the New Jersey protesters at Congregation Ohr Torah.
They had disrupted an event at the Orthodox shul that promoted real estate sales in Israel and the West Bank, blowing plastic horns in people’s ears and chanting “globalize the intifada,” a complaint alleges.
Two pro-Israel demonstrators were charged by local law enforcement with aggravated assault, including a local dentist, Moshe Glick, who police said bashed a protester in the head with a metal flashlight, sending him to the hospital. Glick said he had acted in self defense, protecting a fellow congregant who had been tackled by a protester.
The event soon became a national flashpoint, with Glick’s lawyer alleging the prosecution had been “an attempt to criminalize Jewish self-defense.” Former New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy pardoned Glick earlier this month.
The Trump administration sued the pro-Palestinian protesters under the FACE Act, seeking to ban them from protesting outside houses of worship and asking that they each pay thousands of dollars in fines.
At the time, Nathan Diament, executive director of the Orthodox Union Advocacy Center, told JNS he applauded the Trump administration “for bringing this suit to protect the Jewish community and all people of faith, who have the constitutional right to worship without fear of harassment.”
Diament did not respond to the Forward’s email asking whether he supported the use of the FACE Act against the Minneapolis journalists and protesters.
Mark Goldfeder, CEO of the National Jewish Advocacy Center, a pro-Israel group that says it uses legal tools to counter antisemitism, did not express concern over the use of the FACE Act in the Minnesota arrests — and emphasized the necessity of protecting religious spaces from interference.
“The idea that ‘you can worship’ means nothing if a mob can make it unsafe or impossible,” Goldfeder wrote in a statement to the Forward. “So if you apply it consistently: to protect a church in Minnesota, a synagogue in New Jersey, a mosque in Detroit, what you are actually protecting is pluralism itself.”
Goldfeder has also attempted to use the FACE Act against protesters at a synagogue, citing the law in a July 2024 complaint against demonstrators who had converged on an event promoting Israel real estate at Adas Torah synagogue in Los Angeles. That clash descended into violence.
The Trump administration Justice Department subsequently filed a statement of interest supporting that case, arguing that what constituted “physical obstruction” at a house of worship under the FACE Act could be interpreted broadly.
Now, similar legal reasoning may apply to journalists covering the Sunday church protest in Minneapolis. Press freedom groups have expressed deep alarm over the arrests, arguing that the journalists were there to document, not disrupt.
The arrests are “the latest example of the administration coming up with far-fetched ‘gotcha’ legal theories to send a message to journalists to tread cautiously,” said Seth Stern, chief of advocacy for Freedom of the Press Foundation. “Because the government is looking for any way to target them.”
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