Being an Orthodox Jew can cost a pretty penny. There are the premium prices for kosher meat, the two sets of dishes, the mikvah fees. There are expensive lifecycle celebrations like brises and bar mitzvahs, and requisite accessories like tefillin ($1,000). The Jewish holidays have expenses all their own: sukkahs, shmura matzah, big holiday meals…
Among the many crises plaguing the presidential transition, one has special meaning for American Jews. You could almost call it a test case in the ability of the Jewish community’s expensive network of institutions to serve our needs and handle the scrapes for which they were designed. And they’re failing. If you look closely, we’re…
WASHINGTON (JTA) — An Orthodox Jewish umbrella group urged the Senate to confirm Betsy DeVos as education secretary and another expressed enthusiasm for her agenda, while the Reform movement expressed concerns about her support for government funding of religious schools. Agudath Israel of America said in a letter Tuesday to the Senate Education Committee as it…
— Jews are the world’s most-educated religious group, with an average of more than 13 years of formal schooling, according to a new study. The Pew Research Center study published Tuesday found that Jews worldwide have four years more of schooling on average than the next-most educated group, Christians, who average about nine years of schooling….
(JTA) — The Jim Joseph Foundation has provided major grants for Jewish teen initiatives and educator training. The fall grants from the San Francisco-based foundation were announced on Wednesday. Among the major grants awarded were more than $2.1 million to the Jewish Federation of Greater Atlanta for its Community-Based Jewish Teen Education and Engagement Initiative….
Jay Michaelson, in his column dated Nov. 28th, slanders Orthodox Jewish organizations for their support of President Elect Trump’s nominee for Secretary of Education — Betsy DeVos — because we dare to support policies promoting “school choice.” We at OU Advocacy have consistently supported funding for quality public schools; we just think fairness dictates that some…
Forward contributing editor Jay Michaelson is acutely exercised over President-elect Donald Trump’s nomination of Betsy DeVos to serve as the nation’s next Secretary of Education. Writing in these pages, he echoes teachers’ unions by sounding the alarm that DeVos, a school choice advocate, aims to destroy American public schools. Michaelson also asserts that “the agenda…
For generations of American Jews, public education has been the gateway to American life. It was certainly true for my parents, the children of immigrants; public school taught them not just facts and figures, but alao how to be American — and how to be proud of being American. Which is why the nomination of…
100% of profits support our journalism
