Connect with us

Uncategorized

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.”

—
The post Hebrew school enrollment across US down by nearly half since 2006, report says appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

Post Views: 1,410
Related Topics:
Continue Reading

Uncategorized

Shabbos Kestenbaum: The New Encampments

The “People’s University” encampment, established by Students for Justice in Palestine, on the campus of Smith College in April 2024. Photo: Screenshot

The encampments have returned. At Smith and Occidental Colleges, the ugliest form of campus bigotry since the 2024 Tentifada is back.

The 2023-2024 academic year saw an unprecedented wave of antisemitic incidents on American college campuses. Infamously, anti-Israel “encampments” — also known as the Tentifada — took over at least 80 campuses during this period. These pro-Hamas zones were designed to make Jewish students feel unsafe. Sadly, they’re here once again.

At Occidental College in Los Angeles, students set up the “Rafah to Jenin Liberated Zone.” Organizers recently called it the longest-lasting encampment since 2024. The radicals were handing out “No Zionists” pins and red inverted triangle stickers, a symbol Hamas uses to mark targets.

In 2024, Occidental settled a Title VI complaint filed by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and Brandeis Center, agreeing to implement sweeping reforms to address antisemitism. The agreement explicitly states that “no Zionist” litmus tests may constitute discrimination against Jewish or Israeli students.

At Smith College in Massachusetts, radicals occupied Chapin Lawn and renamed it “the People’s University.” They demanded divestment from Israel and called for a critical race theory curriculum. The president and chairwoman of the Board of Trustees agreed to sit down with the ringleaders. Despite this concession, the coordinators pledged to continue disrupting campus.

The Smith College jihad pajama party disbanded only after the college’s administration agreed to enter into sustained negotiations with the anti-Israel rule-breakers. The radicals openly stated that they will continue to disrupt campus life to demand divestment and threatened that “if the institution won’t give it to us, we will make it.”

Allowing these terror-supporting encampments to fester is a losing strategy for college administrators. It causes real damage, both physical and institutional, at the schools that fail to immediately disband them. Many colleges are now under investigation for failing to protect their students during the spring 2024 semester.

One of the most destructive tentifadas occurred at Columbia University. Pro-Hamas radicals seized the Butler library in May 2024, disrupted final exams, and targeted Jewish students. They besieged Hamilton Hall, smashed open the doors with hammers, injured security personnel, and barricaded themselves inside. Jewish faculty lost access to campus. Jewish students alleged structural antisemitism in a lawsuit. Ultimately, Columbia canceled in-person classes and commencement ceremonies for the remainder of the school year.

Across the United States, campus agitators vandalized property with swastikas and terrorist propaganda and defaced war memorials and statues of American heroes. They smashed and occupied buildings and poured cement into sewage systems. Jewish students faced violent threats and were blocked from getting to class. In some cases, physical violence resulted in the hospitalization of Jewish students. Due to the severity of the campus disruptions, many classes and graduation ceremonies were canceled across the country.

The Tentifada caused an estimated $3 million in property damage at the City College of New York, millions in damage at Cal Poly Humboldt, and $29 million across the University of California system, including new security measures, law enforcement, and the destruction of campus spaces. These incidents are just a small portion of the damage that was done by pro-Hamas radicals on American campuses during the 2023-2024 academic year.

The Tentifada was a dark chapter for American universities. Pro-Hamas campus radicals are now trying to start a new chapter of destruction and disorder. Administrators must not let them. The response should be immediate: disband the encampments, impose disciplinary proceedings, expel participants, and refer criminal conduct for prosecution. American universities exist to educate students, not to host pro-Hamas block parties.

Shabbos Kestenbaum is a political commentator at PragerU and a former lead plaintiff in a civil rights lawsuit against Harvard University.

Post Views: 12
Continue Reading

Uncategorized

The Special Importance of Memory in Judaism

The entrance gate of a Jewish cemetery in Gauting, Starnberg, Upper Bavaria, Bavaria, Germany, on Nov. 8, 2020, is a wrought iron gate adorned with a Star of David. It stands between two stone pillars, leading into a tree-lined cemetery with gravestones and a pathway visible in the background. Photo by Michael Nguyen/NurPhoto via Reuters Connect

A few weeks ago, I conducted the funeral of Ron Plotkin, former owner of Monster.com and once a leading philanthropist in Los Angeles. In recent years, his life changed drastically — from prominence and influence to obscurity and hardship.

I knew Ron at his height and stayed in touch as others drifted away. By the time he died, there were no resources left — not even enough for a burial. We arranged for him to be laid to rest through charitable means at the Jewish cemetery in Commerce, California.

Sadly, we struggled to find 10 men to attend Ron’s funeral so Kaddish could be recited. A group from my synagogue agreed to come, but there were only nine of us. We stood in the blazing sun, waiting for a minyan.

Suddenly, a 10th man appeared: Shalom Raichik — originally from Los Angeles, now living in Baltimore — was at the cemetery just at that moment and agreed to join us.

After I recited Kaddish for Ron, Shalom asked if we could gather at another nearby grave to say Kaddish again, along with a memorial prayer.

“Who is it?” I asked. Shalom’s answer sent a chill through all of us. It is a story I cannot put out of my mind — a story about reclaiming someone who had disappeared from history.

We often think of death as a single, final event. But Jewish tradition introduces a powerful idea: a person can die twice. The first death is physical. The second is when they are forgotten — when no one remembers their name, or visits their grave, or even knows they existed.

The man we said Kaddish for that day is marked as “Ploni ben Avraham” — the Jewish equivalent of John Doe. We don’t know his name.

His story is tragic yet extraordinary: He survived the Holocaust, came to America alone, had no money and no family, and lived quietly in New York in obscurity.

At some point, he sought the help of Dr. Maurice Frey, a dentist and fellow refugee who had escaped Europe during the war. Dr. Frey was known for caring for penniless Holocaust survivors and treated this man without charge.

The patient, wanting to keep his dignity, insisted on giving something in return and arranged to donate his body to medical science, requesting his skull be given to Dr. Frey for educational use.

Years later, long after the encounter had been forgotten, a small package arrived containing the man’s skull. Dr. Frey tried to transfer it to the NYU School of Dentistry, but when they declined to take it, he kept it.

After his death, Dr. Frey’s widow moved to California, bringing the skull with her. There, she sought its disposal according to Jewish law and was directed to Chabad, who helped arrange a proper burial in 2021. Though only a skull remained, they honored the survivor and fulfilled the obligation to respect even the smallest remnant of a Jewish life.

Still, something was missing: There was no name, no marker, and no memory. Visitors to the cemetery unknowingly walked over his grave. A man who had survived the worst horrors was, even in death, being trampled, not by malice but by ignorance.

Finally, a small group decided to act, and this past January, they placed a modest stone, simply acknowledging that Ploni ben Avraham had existed and was not forgotten. And a few weeks ago, someone finally said Kaddish for him at his grave.

At Ron Plotkin’s funeral, having just buried a man once surrounded by success and admirers, but who died nearly alone, and then walking over to the grave of Ploni ben Avraham, I was struck by how fragile life and legacy can be.

Ron had a name and achievements, and was once celebrated, but at the end, there were barely 10 people at his funeral. Ploni ben Avraham had no name or notable achievements, and no family to remember him — yet, by chance, both were remembered on the same day. Their second death was averted.

At the end of Sefer Vayikra, in Parshat Bechukotai, the Torah presents consequences for the Jewish people’s fidelity or disregard for their responsibilities. It seems like a strict formula of reward and punishment: Follow God’s laws and you’ll receive blessings; abandon them, and hardship will follow.

And yet, within this passage, there is a quieter message. After the warnings and descriptions of suffering, the Torah offers a redemptive promise (Lev. 26:42): “I will remember My covenant,” says God.

That is the turning point. Even if everything falls apart — even if the people are scattered and shattered — God says: I will remember, I will always remember.

God teaches us that memory is the foundation of meaning. In Jewish thought, remembering is not merely recalling; it is restoring. When God says, “I will remember,” it is an active commitment: No matter how far we fall, we are never erased.

That is why we say Kaddish — not for the dead, but because memory sustains identity. It ensures a person’s life continues to echo in this world. We mark graves, tell stories, and cling to names — because the greatest tragedy is being forgotten.

That is why we tell stories about the dead, and that is why we refuse to let people disappear after they’re gone. Because the ultimate curse is not suffering, or even death. It is oblivion. And the ultimate redemption is not just survival. It is being remembered.

When we remember someone, we return them to the narrative. We restore their place in the story of our people. Ploni ben Avraham had no land, no family, and no possessions. He didn’t even leave a name. But we still remember him, and that is his redemption.

That day in the cemetery, I was reminded that in the end, what matters is not how loudly a person’s life is celebrated at its peak, but whether it is remembered after they are gone. And sometimes, in the most unexpected ways, we are invited to be part of that remembering.

The author is a rabbi in Beverly Hills, California.

Post Views: 13
Continue Reading

Uncategorized

The BBC Tried to Blame Israel — but Exposed Hezbollah Instead

Men carry Hezbollah flags while riding on two wheelers, at the entrance of Beirut’s southern suburbs, in Lebanon, Nov. 27, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Thaier Al-Sudani

It is well established that Hezbollah has not only turned southern Lebanon into a base for terrorism targeting Israel but also embedded itself deep within Beirut’s civilian suburbs.

Yet when the BBC reports from those same areas, it appears determined to obscure that reality.

That may not be surprising. As HonestReporting previously documented, Hezbollah tightly controls access and information available to foreign journalists. What reporters see — and therefore what international audiences are shown — is often filtered through Hezbollah’s interests.

When a Sky News crew reported from Lebanon earlier this year, journalists openly acknowledged the restrictions imposed on them. Hezbollah limited where they could go and what they could film following Israeli airstrikes, likely to conceal evidence of terrorist activity.

So, when BBC reporters arrive in Lebanon two months later and somehow fail to find evidence of Hezbollah’s presence, it is hardly coincidental.

The “BBC traces how 10 minutes of Israeli bombing brought devastation to Lebanon” investigation attempts to portray Israel as deliberately targeting Lebanese civilians. But the report itself repeatedly undermines that narrative.

The very case study the BBC highlights gives the game away.

In Beirut’s Hay el Sellom suburb, a BBC journalist interviews Mohammed, whose son Abbas was killed in an Israeli airstrike on an apartment building in April 2026.

Mohammed claims that, had he known Hezbollah operatives were nearby, he would have left. But that admission directly undermines the BBC’s broader framing. It reinforces the reality that Israel’s operations are linked to Hezbollah’s presence, not random or indiscriminate attacks against civilians.

Another interviewee claims Israel is bombing Lebanon in an attempt to “take over” the country. Yet the report’s own details point to something else entirely: a campaign directed at Hezbollah infrastructure and operatives in an effort to restore security along Israel’s northern border.

According to the IDF, the April 8 strikes that reportedly killed Abbas also targeted more than 250 Hezbollah terrorists.

Ironically, while touring the suburb, the BBC journalist also filmed martyr posters of Ali Mohammed Ghulam Dahini, reportedly killed in the same strikes — corroborating Israeli media reports identifying him as a Hezbollah operative.

Yet the BBC still avoids acknowledging the obvious implication: these strikes were targeting Hezbollah personnel embedded within civilian areas.

Civilian deaths in war are tragic. But tragedy alone does not determine intent.

Under the laws of armed conflict, counterterrorism operations require assessing proportionality — weighing anticipated military advantage against potential civilian harm. In each example highlighted by the BBC, evidence of Hezbollah’s presence at the strike locations is difficult to ignore.

The report itself notes that Mohammed expressed support for Hezbollah in Arabic-language interviews, praising the group for “defending Lebanon.” But Lebanon would not require “defending” from repeated wars had Hezbollah not transformed civilian neighborhoods into military infrastructure.

The BBC acknowledges that Mohammed gave pro-Hezbollah views when speaking to local media. Yet Mohammed presents himself differently to international English-speaking audiences. That discrepancy raises an obvious question: why?

The answer may lie even closer to home.

Investigative journalist David Collier revealed that Mohammed’s son, Abbas Khair al-Din, was himself affiliated with Hezbollah, citing martyr posters and Hezbollah imagery at his grave.

Had the BBC acknowledged these Hezbollah ties, its central framing — that Israel was recklessly targeting civilians — would have become far more difficult to sustain.

This is not the first time the BBC has minimized or erased Hezbollah’s presence in Lebanon.

By omitting Hezbollah’s systematic use of civilian infrastructure, the outlet constructs a narrative in which responsibility falls almost exclusively on Israel while Hezbollah’s role fades into the background.

Most remarkably, despite the evidence presented throughout the report, the BBC still repeats Hezbollah’s denial that it embeds itself among civilians.

The contradiction is striking: the BBC’s own reporting repeatedly points to Hezbollah activity within civilian areas, yet the outlet still amplifies Hezbollah’s denials with minimal scrutiny.

Not all Lebanese civilians support Hezbollah. But the BBC’s inability — or unwillingness — to feature meaningful Lebanese criticism of the terrorist organization reveals how selective the report truly is.

Hezbollah has effectively held Lebanon hostage, exploiting civilians while dragging the country into repeated cycles of conflict.

There is genuine dissent within Lebanon. Many Lebanese are exhausted by Hezbollah’s dominance and want a future free from perpetual war. Yet those voices are almost entirely absent from the BBC’s report.

The BBC intended its report to portray Israel as conducting a campaign against Lebanese civilians.

Instead, it inadvertently documented something else entirely: Hezbollah’s deep entrenchment within civilian infrastructure.

The report repeatedly presents evidence of Hezbollah activity, Hezbollah support, and Hezbollah-linked individuals in the very locations Israel targeted — while simultaneously attempting to deny or downplay the implications.

When media outlets obscure Hezbollah’s use of civilian areas, they do more than distort the story. They sanitize the conditions Hezbollah itself created.

And in this case, the BBC’s own reporting ultimately undermines the narrative it set out to build.

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.

Post Views: 26
Continue Reading

Copyright © 2017 - 2023 Jewish Post & News