Jewish Schools

Nothing is simple in the Jewish community—and education is no exception. Many American Jews were and still are strong supporters of the public schools as forces for assimilation and acceptance into the larger society. Yet, from the early arrival of Jews in the United States, some proportion of Jews favored separate, Jewish schools—starting with the Yeshivas or Orthodox Jewish day schools in the early 19th century. But as the Jewish community became more diverse, so did the schools, as each “denomination” started its own school. These Jewish dissenters were, and remain, concerned about exposing their children to the core culture, for fear that their children will stray from Judaism, marry non-Jews, and create a process of integration and assimilation into the nonreligious mainstream of American life. Public schools were and are a mainstay of the “core culture” that has welcomed and absorbed Jews, and with this process came the loss of Jewish religious practices for some families.

The tension and differences revolved around the separation of the Jewish community and its children from the mainstream public school community, with the desire to have private day schools to maintain Jewish identity and a link to Israel and the Zionist dream. Then, as the American Jewish community moved out of the major cities like New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles to smaller southern and western towns, groups formed interdenominational Jewish day schools, which eventually joined RAVSAK, the Jewish Community Day School Network.

The dissent came in several forms. First, a relatively small but important portion of the 6.44 million Jews in the United States sought to leave mainstream public schools to attend private Jewish schools—as the number has just passed 200,000 nationwide. Second, for those families who seek a Jewish school, the choices are not similar, as the denominational differences among Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform Jews and their selection of Jewish schools make for widely divergent preferences. Third, another group of Jews has in a sense dissented from traditional denominational Jewish education—and has started and/or joined so-called “community Jewish day schools.” Fourth, while some Orthodox schools are not Zionist in particular, a number are, creating some dissent within the Orthodox community.

Thus, dissent meant that the mainstream in the American Jewish community did not enroll their children in Jewish schools, in contrast to Orthodox Jews, who maintained a separate community and did not allow their children to attend public or private schools with non-Jews. Then some dissent emerged between the denominational (Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform) and the “nondenominational” Jewish day schools, as more of the Jewish community moved into the American heartland. Also, some supporters of the Orthodox Jewish day schools were not as interested in Zionism as the more mainstream Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform Jewish families.

Thus, while Jewish day schools play a strong, positive, and expanding role in the education and socialization of Jewish children in the United States, the schools themselves are quite different in organization and practice. Unlike Catholic and other larger “systems” of schooling, Jewish schools are rather separated, individually managed, and localized. These Jewish religious schools are particular to a subgroup of Jewish religious practice, ranging from: (a) the majority that are traditional-Orthodox and Chasidic Jewish schools; (b) those affiliated with the Conservative Jewish movement (Solomon Schechter schools), which are more mainstream than Orthodox schools; and (c) the more liberal Reform Jewish day schools. And Jewish communities have also opened schools to serve children with special needs and immigrants as “outreach programs.”

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