New Jersey Jewish News
MetroWest Feature Story

by Johanna Ginsberg and Robert Wiener
NJJN Staff Writers

This story was prepared with the assistance of Penny Schwartz of JTA.

Seventeen day school lay leaders and staff members from MetroWest played an active role at the three-day national gathering of the Partnership for Excellence in Jewish Education for Jewish Day School Education.

Meeting in Boston from March 19 to 21, the local leaders joined colleagues from around the country to discuss common issues facing the Jewish day school movement: maintaining quality, controlling costs, and raising funds within the community.

Developer Brad Klatt of Short Hills, who along with his wife Robin is a PEJE board member and long-term benefactor of the Joseph Kushner Hebrew Academy and Rae Kushner Yeshiva High School in Livingston, greeted the conference’s 1,000 delegates at dinner Sunday night.

Klatt described the work of PEJE as “enabling all of us to work together as professionals, donors, and lay leaders to craft the platform, identify the variables, and then help us build higher and higher common denominators to examine our concerns, manage our risks, and improve our successes.”

Joining them were representatives of the Solomon Schechter Day School of Essex and Union in West Orange and Cranford and the Nathan Bohrer-Abraham Kaufman Hebrew Academy of Morris County in Randolph.

“It was an opportunity to meet colleagues from so many different schools and feel that you are not alone in your successes and struggles,” said Moshe Vaknin, acting HAMC principal.

“I felt that there were 1,000 of the best Jewish minds in America there, who are making sure that Jewish day school education will help ensure the survival of Jews in America.”

Participants included activists, educators, and supporters from the United States, Canada, Israel, and Australia. Chabad rabbis mixed easily with professionals and lay leaders from Conservative, Orthodox, Reform, and nondenominational schools, discussing topics ranging from recruiting new students to the latest software for tracking academic achievement.

Gary Wingens of North Caldwell, president of the board of SSDS of Essex and Union, told NJ Jewish News it was “the best conference I’ve ever attended.”

“The level of thinking from across the spectrum — with at one table the black-hatters and the nonsectarian community school people actually talking about the same things,” he said.

What especially impressed Wingens and the other nine delegates from the local Schechter schools was “we all had the same goal — to raise the level of day school education throughout North America. Ultimately we want to raise the number of kids in day school to ensure their identification with Judaism as adults. The more kids we get, the more vibrant out community is going to be in 50 or 100 years from now. One of the ways you get kids to day schools is by raising the quality of the day schools, especially in the non-Orthodox world, where day school is truly a choice.

“People are starting to get the message that sending your kids to day school doesn’t mean you’re living in a ghetto,” Wingens added. “But it is a very expensive proposition. We’ve got to make it more affordable to middle-income families.”

Also in attendance was Kim Hirsh, a development officer at the Jewish Community Foundation of MetroWest.

Hirsh joined in conversation with federation staffers from Toronto and Los Angeles who are coordinating community-wide day school efforts in those cities. Their “main message was that day schools need the federations, and — just as importantly — federations need day schools. We need to work together to build a Jewish future for our communities.”

The JCF is working closely with those schools to develop a major Day School Endowment Campaign, with a stated objective “to promote affordability and academic excellence.”

The effort is part of a national “MATCH” program joining PEJE, the Jewish Funders Network, and the AVI CHAI Foundation to allocate $26 million to 159 Jewish day schools in the United States, including $400,000 for the three in MetroWest. (See sidebar.)

There are more than 700 Jewish day schools serving 200,000 students across the country, and the number of schools continues to grow, according to PEJE. Enrollment in the past 10 years has increased by nearly 20 percent, or 35,000 students, with nearly 100 schools opening between 1993 and 2003.

Schools gain $400,000 from MATCH program

OF THE $26 MILLION raised nationally for 159 day schools through the highly successful Day School MATCH program, about $400,000 will go to support MetroWest’s three Jewish day schools.

The initiative — sponsored by the Partnership for Excellence in Jewish Education and the Jewish Funders Network and funded by the AVI CHAI Foundation and private donors — offered local schools 50 cents for every dollar donated for first-time gifts of $25,000 or more.

Organizers said the matching program really struck a chord with donors.

“The program has been successful beyond our wildest expectations,” PEJE chair Michael Steinhardt said, in announcing results of the MATCH program at PEJE’s assembly last month in Boston.

Two successful matches were made locally. The Jewish Community Foundation of MetroWest received approval for matching funding of $87,000 for recent donations totaling $174,000 to a community-wide Day School Endowment Fund. The fund benefits the Joseph Kushner Hebrew Academy/Rae Kushner Yeshiva High School, the Solomon Schechter Day School of Essex and Union, and the Nathan Bohrer-Abraham Kaufman Hebrew Academy of Morris County.

In addition, the Kushner schools were approved for a $50,000 match for a donation of $100,000 to the school.

With applications far exceeding the available match money, the program sponsors asked benefactors to raise more money to match all eligible donors.

The original funding partners increased their contributions, and additional PEJE Partners —including Robin and Brad Klatt of Short Hills — contributed funding to MATCH. All told, an additional $3 million was raised, for a total of $8 million in matching funds to meet $16 million in eligible applications.

“Our PEJE partners responded magnificently,” Steinhardt said.

— NJJN STAFF

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