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Tikvah Fund, conservative think tank, to open ‘classical’ Jewish day school in New York City
(JTA and New York Jewish Week) — The Tikvah Fund, a Jewish conservative think tank, is launching a Jewish day school that will aim to give students an education that emphasizes “the majesty of Western civilization.”
Emet Classical Academy, whose name is Hebrew for “truth,” will open next fall on the Upper East Side of Manhattan with a sixth grade and aims to run through high school. It will be led by Rabbi Abraham Unger, a political scientist and former professor who currently leads a Tikvah program for middle schoolers.
An email announcement said the school would be “small and selective.” Tikvah already offers a range of education initiatives inside and outside of existing schools, promoting the same set of values that will drive the school.
The announcement of the school comes at a time when conservatives have taken aim at elite educational institutions — including but not limited to universities. Those critics have accused some universities and public and private schools of teaching children to “hate America” and creating a hostile environment for Jews, in part through diversity and equity programs and instruction about racism in the United States.
Emet’s website says the school will offer a curriculum based on “the perpetuation of Jewish, Zionist, and American exceptionalism.”
“First, we wanted to create a school with very clear founding principles: the pursuit of excellence in every academic and cultural field, the formation of confident Jews and civic-minded Americans, and the preservation of the best of Western civilization,” Tikvah CEO Eric Cohen wrote in an email announcement Tuesday.
“Second, we are living in a moment of great Jewish awakening in America,” he wrote. “Many Jewish families and students feel the weight of Jewish history and American exceptionalism more deeply than ever. We hope that Emet will be an oasis of Jewish excellence that helps renew American culture.”
The school arrives at a time when rising concerns about antisemitism amid the Israel-Hamas war may be inducing Jewish families to consider schools where their children will not be in the minority. It also comes exactly three years after the Jewish writer and editor Bari Weiss, who has been a leading critic of elite institutions, tweeted a call for a school just like it.
Referring to a college with a curriculum built around the “great books” of Western Civilization and two non-Jewish elite private schools, Weiss tweeted, “If @tikvahfund started a school with a St. John’s style curriculum in NY or LA I think they could charge more than a Dalton or a Harvard-Westlake and still be massively oversubscribed.”
At the time, conservative discontent about education was mounting. Months later, a father of a student at the Heschel School, a prestigious Manhattan Jewish school, went public about pulling his child over “woke” instruction that he said taught her that she held “white privilege.” (The school said he left for financial reasons.)
Emet won’t cost as much as those elite private schools: Its website says tuition for the 2024-2025 school year will be $36,000 — tens of thousands of dollars less than other private and Jewish schools in the city.
Emet’s website says it will be able to accommodate children who previously attended Jewish day schools as well as children with no background in Jewish education. Children from families of all Jewish denominations and practices will be welcome, the school says.
Paul Bernstein, the CEO of Prizmah, a nonprofit that supports Jewish day schools, declined to comment on Emet specifically but said the school’s arrival reflects a growing interest in Jewish education.
“Families across North America are appreciating Jewish day schools more and more,” he told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “We are experiencing growing enrollment in our schools, as a result of which a number of new schools are opening and others are expanding their intake.”
The advertised curriculum at Emet departs from that of other Jewish day schools in New York and beyond. Alongside Hebrew, students will study Greek and Latin. Classical music and art history are among the “core subjects.” Students also have the option of studying “Military History & Grand Strategy.”
That is all part of the “classical” education model that has gained favor among conservatives in recent years, including with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a vocal critic of progressive ideologies, who has vowed to import the model to his state. Proponents of classical education say it centers values and skills that have been wrongly deemphasized by progressive educators. Its critics charge that it advances a nostalgic worldview that gives short shrift to women, people of color and non-Western voices that deserve a place in the contemporary canon.
Both sides say the model is deeply entwined with Christian ideals, with some advocates saying it is inappropriate to advance irreligious versions of classical schools. Hillsdale College, a Christian college in Michigan that is a driver of conservative thought, has launched or worked with dozens of schools across several states.
Emet Classical marks the first prominent experiment in a Jewish version of the model. Its board includes Ruth Wisse, an emerita Harvard professor and prominent Jewish conservative thinker, Bard College professor Walter Russel Mead and Wilfred McClay, a professor at Hillsdale.
“[W]e believe that history’s future leaders — in law and business, politics and statesmanship, science and religious life — benefit from a truly classical education,” Cohen wrote. “America needs a Jewish classical school.”
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The post Tikvah Fund, conservative think tank, to open ‘classical’ Jewish day school in New York City appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Former Columbia University President Appointed as UK Economic Adviser
Columbia University administrators and faculty, led by President Minouche Shafik, testified before the US House Committee on Education and the Workforce on April 17, 2024. Photo: Jack Gruber/Reuters Connect
i24 News – British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has named Minouche Shafik, former president of Columbia University, as his chief economic adviser at Downing Street, a move aimed at stabilizing the country’s fragile economy and averting a potential budget crisis.
Shafik, an economist of Egyptian origin with dual British and American nationality, has held senior roles at the Bank of England, the IMF, and the World Bank.
She later led the London School of Economics and was elevated to the House of Lords in 2020.
Her tenure in the United States was more turbulent. Shafik stepped down as president of Columbia University in 2024 after just a year in office, amid fierce criticism over her handling of pro-Palestinian protests following the Hamas attacks of October 7, 2023, and the subsequent war in Gaza.
US officials accused her of failing to confront antisemitism on campus, while students and faculty condemned her decision to call in police to dismantle protest encampments.
Since returning to Britain, Shafik has played an active role in policy and cultural institutions. She advised Foreign Secretary David Lammy on international aid reform, has chaired the Victoria & Albert Museum since January, and led the “Economy 2030” inquiry for the Resolution Foundation, where she argued for reforms to the UK’s system of wealth taxation.
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Israel Mulls West Bank Annexation in Response to Moves to Recognize Palestine
The Jordan Valley. Photo: Юкатан via Wikimedia Commons.
Israel is considering annexation in the West Bank as a possible response to France and other countries recognizing a Palestinian state, according to three Israeli officials and the idea will be discussed further on Sunday, another official said.
Extension of Israeli sovereignty to the West Bank – de facto annexation of land captured in the 1967 Middle East war – was on the agenda for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s security cabinet meeting late on Sunday that is expected to focus on the Gaza war, a member of the small circle of ministers said.
It is unclear where precisely any such measure would be applied and when, whether only in Israeli settlements or some of them, or in specific areas of the West Bank like the Jordan Valley and whether any concrete steps, which would likely entail a lengthy legislative process, would follow discussions.
Any step toward annexation in the West Bank would likely draw widespread condemnation from the Palestinians, who seek the territory for a future state, as well as Arab and Western countries. It is unclear where US President Donald Trump stands on the matter. The White House and State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
A spokesperson for Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar did not respond to a request for comment on whether Saar had discussed the move with his US counterpart Marco Rubio during his visit to Washington last week.
Netanyahu’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether the prime minister supports annexation and if so, where.
A past pledge by Netanyahu to annex Jewish settlements and the Jordan Valley was scrapped in 2020 in favor of normalizing ties with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain in the Abraham Accords brokered by Trump in his first term in office.
The office of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The United States said on Friday it would not allow Abbas to travel to New York for the United Nations gathering of world leaders, where several US allies are set to recognize Palestine as a state.
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Israel Pounds Gaza City Suburbs, Netanyahu to Convene Security Cabinet
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks to the press on Capitol Hill, Washington, DC, July 8, 2025. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein
Israeli forces pounded the suburbs of Gaza City overnight from the air and ground, destroying homes and driving more families out of the area as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s security cabinet was set on Sunday to discuss a plan to seize the city.
Residents of Sheikh Radwan, one of the largest neighborhoods of Gaza City, said the territory had been under Israeli tank shelling and airstrikes throughout Saturday and on Sunday, forcing families to seek shelter in the western parts of the city.
The Israeli military has gradually escalated its operations around Gaza City over the past three weeks, and on Friday it ended temporary pauses in the area that had allowed for aid deliveries, designating it a “dangerous combat zone.”
“They are crawling into the heart of the city where hundreds of thousands are sheltering, from the east, north, and south, while bombing those areas from the air and ground to scare people to leave,” said Rezik Salah, a father of two, from Sheikh Radwan.
An Israeli official said Netanyahu’s security cabinet will convene on Sunday evening to discuss the next stages of the planned offensive to seize Gaza City, which he has described as Hamas’ last bastion.
A full-scale offensive is not expected to start for weeks. Israel says it wants to evacuate the civilian population before moving more ground forces in.
HAMAS SPOKESPERSON TARGETED
Netanyahu confirmed on Sunday that Israeli forces had targeted Abu Ubaida, the spokesperson of Hamas’ armed wing. Defense Minister Israel Katz said that Abu Ubaida was killed. Two Hamas officials contacted by Reuters did not respond to requests for comment.
Gaza health authorities said 15 people, including five children, were killed in the attack on a residential building in the heart of Gaza City.
Abu Ubaida, also known as Hozayfa Al-Khalout, is a well-known figure to Palestinians and Israelis alike, close to Hamas’ top military leaders and in charge of delivering the group’s messages, often via video, for around two decades, delivering statements while wearing a red keffiyeh that concealed his face.
The US targeted him with sanctions in April 2024, accusing him of leading the “cyber influence department” of al-Qassam Brigades.
In his last statement on Friday, he warned that the planned Israeli offensive on Gaza City would endanger the hostages.
On Saturday, Red Cross head Mirjana Spoljaric said an evacuation from the city would provoke a massive population displacement that no other area in the enclave is equipped to absorb, with shortages of food, shelter and medical supplies.
“People who have relatives in the south left to stay with them. Others, including myself, didn’t find a space as Deir Al-Balah and Mawasi are overcrowded,” said Ghada, a mother of five from the city’s Sabra neighborhood.
Around half of the enclave’s more than 2 million people are presently in Gaza City. Several thousand were estimated to have left the city for central and southern areas of the enclave.
Israel’s military has warned its political leaders that the offensive is endangering hostages still being held by Hamas in Gaza. Protests in Israel calling for an end to the war and the release of the hostages have intensified in the past few weeks.