This past month, JEIC gathered around 100 Jewish day school champions for our annual Innovators Retreat. As usual, we assembled an array of people: educators, funders, lay leaders, and influencers from as disparate geographical areas across North America as Montreal and Toronto, South Florida and Boston, Chicago and Washington DC, Los Angeles and Seattle. Additionally, we intentionally brought together Jewish day school people from across the denominational spectrum.
We hosted folks from Central Agencies–once known as Boards of Jewish Education–which serve all kinds of Jewish day schools within their catchment area, funders and foundation professionals who support a diverse range of Jewish day schools, and educators from day schools ranging from Community and Conservative schools to Modern Orthodox schools, Yeshivas, and Mesivtas.
Every one of our various cross sections was intentionally composed. We need people from the different components of the Jewish day school ecosystem communing with each other in order to align visions and goals surrounding Jewish day school education. We want to include schools from varying parts of the country as each one manifests a different culture based on their geography, community size, etc.
The denominational cross section of people in the Jewish day school field was particularly intentional and purposeful; here are just some of the reasons:
At JEIC, we believe that every single Jewish child deserves a Jewish day school education. It is the only way the Jewish people will sustain itself. According to the latest Pew Research, in the United States, 37% of Jews identify as Reform, 36% as other, 17% Conservative, and 10% Orthodox. However, according to the last census from The AVI CHAI Foundation in 2020, only about 10% of children enrolled in day schools attend Community, Conservative or Reform schools. We need to change that. A good Jew, however one defines that, needs to be an educated Jew. The more deeply educated our children are in Jewish wisdom and values emanating from our shared foundational texts, the stronger the American Jewish community will be as we move into the future.
As Ben Zoma says in the Ethics of the Sages, 4:1, “אֵיזֶהוּ חָכָם, הַלּוֹמֵד מִכָּל אָדָם–Who is wise? One who learns from every person.” Every Jew has something to learn from every other Jew no matter what their religious proclivities are. Whether it is how someone fulfills the commandment of remembering the Sabbath day while not maintaining normative traditional prohibitions against work, or how someone in the Modern Orthodox world navigates the current challenges of functioning within a secular sphere, we all learn and grow by listening to the Other and internally comprehending the ways in which they have chosen to live their lives. At the Innovators Retreat, no one is trying to convince anyone else that they are living the only kind of authentic Jewish life, they are just sharing ideas about what their personal Judaism entails.
The conversations among people from across the denominational spectrum about shared interests and values within Jewish day schools always yield incredible results. The discussions, based on mutual respect and appreciation, consistently prove to be robust, with each side leaving enriched, even if the parties walk away still in different places from one another. I remember one year in which a Reconstructionist rabbi and an Orthodox rabbi were in deep discussion about where God belongs in the classroom, and how God should be presented to and discussed with the students. This year, we witnessed an Israeli educator debating with a Yeshiva rabbi on what text-based lesson plans should look like in the classroom. It was such an important and productive conversation that we felt badly breaking it up to shepherd these folks to the next activity. I certainly hope that they took some of the subsequent networking time at the retreat to continue their discussion.
We, at the Jewish Education Innovation Challenge, believe in a big tent, large enough to hold any Jew who wants to immerse themselves in day school education. This idea is reflected in two of our core values:
Jewish Peoplehood: Enduring Jewish community relies on each individual being part of a cohesive, mission-driven nation that values members’ contributions.
Inclusion: Diverse paths to God--intellectually, academically, emotionally, and spiritually--are encouraged, and all comers to the tent should be welcomed.
Come join our big tent as we continuously strive to promote the best Jewish day school education in order to, as our mission says, “optimize student internalization of Jewish wisdom, identity, and decision making.”