Following is Blessing and Challenge: Remaking Jewish Education in our Time, the executive summary of the Commission on Jewish School Excellence convened by CAJE. Scroll down to read the summary or press the "Blessing and Challenge" image below to download the entire report. Additional copies are available from the CAJE office, 303-321-3191 x 10.

Blessing and Challenge:
Remaking Jewish Education in Our Time

A Call for Community Action from the Commission on Jewish School Excellence

The Challenge

For years ambivalence toward the pursuit of serious Jewish learning has characterized most American Jews. The consequences of this ambivalence have been keenly felt in the Jewish community along the Colorado Front Range as well as throughout the nation. Too many of us received religious instruction that left us ignorant about Judaism, unconnected to the Jewish community, or resentful of being Jewish. Often, it is this ignorance, lack of positive connection, and resentment that gets passed on to children, perpetuating an inferior Jewish educational culture.

The community's indifference to the quality of Jewish education and increased competition from non-Jewish extracurricular activities have hastened the decline in the quality of Jewish education. As a result, many Jewish educational institutions suffer from a lack of direction and leadership, robust Jewish schools are scarce, and knowledgeable Jewish teachers are in alarmingly short supply.

In 1991 the prestigious Commission on Jewish Education in North America funded by the Mandel Associated Foundations referred to this situation as "a crisis of major proportions." And yet, the failure until now to make a concerted effort to improve American Jewish education is understandable. The many serious threats to Jewish existence that our parents and grandparents confronted and conquered overshadowed efforts to address any other concern. Such dire matters as resettling Holocaust survivors, establishing Israel's statehood and security, and liberating Soviet Jewry were consuming battles. These were fights for the physical survival of the Jewish People.

But, it is a new day. Our generation's security and affluence allow us to dedicate ourselves to the Jewish People's spiritual and cultural renewal; this renaissance will happen only if our community is committed to Jewish learning on a deeper level than ever before.

There are already some examples of quality Jewish educational institutions and of fine Jewish educators in our community, but they are not enough, they reach too few, and they attract far too little support. Jewish learning in our community must be transformed to blend Judaism's profound, enthralling depth with America's vibrant breadth of choice. The legacy we create will be lasting and deep, and it must be extended to Jews of all ages, learning abilities, and backgrounds.

The Turning Point

In Colorado, the transformation began with the creation of the Commission on Jewish School Excellence convened by the Colorado Agency for Jewish Education between January and June 2000. The idea for such a Commission grew out of 1998 and 1999 independent processes of CAJE's Professional Growth Committee, Vision 2020's Jewish Learning Task Force, and The Jewish Educators Council of Colorado.

Funding from the Allied Jewish Federation of Colorado and the Sturm Family Foundation enabled the 40 key lay leaders, rabbis, and educators representing varied institutions and the broadest spectrum of Jewish life to meet ten times for a combined total of more than 500 hours. CAJE provided Commission members with selected academic journal articles on Jewish education from leading scholars, and with some of the best popular newspaper and magazine articles on educational reform.

Dividing into hevrutas, the Commission members studied sacred Jewish texts with respected local teachers to reinforce the link between traditional commentary and contemporary responses. They listened to presentations by six nationally known Jewish educators, and spent hours sharing their own experiences and brainstorming ideas for Jewish education's transformation. (A full report of the Commission's lengthy deliberations and its findings is available on the CAJE web site, www.caje-co.org, or by calling CAJE at 303-321-3191.)

From the start the Commission's mandates were to curtail the chronic Jewish teacher shortages in our schools and to revitalize - if not revolutionize - Jewish educational settings along the Front Range. Early on it became clear that one of the Commission's recommendations would be to support the growth of highly accessible, interactive communities of teachers and learners in as many different educational settings as possible.

In these communities of learners, distinctions between teacher and student will blur, as each learner is exposed to diverse, gratifying opportunities to become both teacher and student. The motivating principle is that the best Jewish teachers are those who are seriously committed to gaining and sharpening their pedagogic skills and pursuing Jewish learning while teaching. Teachers will not only learn how to teach; they will be committed to learning as they teach, and to teaching each other.

Similarly, the Commission's deliberations encouraged a more fluid definition of what a Jewish school is. A school can be something other than the space defined by synagogue walls or rows of desks in a classroom. In a community of learners, a Jewish school is a space sanctified by Jewish study, whether it is as near as a dining room table or as distant as a mountain top.

According to CAJE's 1999-2000 School Population Survey, there are more than 5,000 students in Colorado's 19 Jewish supplementary schools, seven day schools and eight preschools, and nearly 800 teachers at these schools. Additionally, hundreds of Jewish youth workers, camp counselors and adult educators along the Front Range serve thousands more through what is known as informal Jewish education. The Commission stressed the importance of programs tailored to different kinds of teachers in both formal and informal settings. The scope of the Commission's charge to provide qualified and better-trained Jewish educators for the entire range of learning environments is unprecedented in the state.

It soon became apparent, however, that the Commission needed to address more than the shortage of well-trained Jewish educators. Its second goal became to strengthen our existing schools and challenge them to improve and innovate. The models of Jewish learning and schooling that have existed for decades in our community need to be re-examined, and we must build an active partnership in which schools, parents, and the community share responsibility for providing sound, quality, and innovative Jewish learning opportunities.

The Blessing

In recommending initiatives for educational reform, the Commission urges that new programs promote the six key relationships Jewish educators need to successfully transmit Jewish belief and practice: relationships with G-d, with students, with other teachers, with their schools, with parents, and with the Jewish community.

The following goals were synthesized from a commitment to foster these relationships, and from recommendations voiced during Commission deliberations. The Commission's goals are to:

I. Expand the Supply of Qualified Teachers

II. Develop Ongoing Programs to Train
and Retain Teachers

III. Strengthen All Jewish Schools

IV. Experiment with New Educational Models

V. Encourage Parents to Become Partners in Their Children's Jewish Education

VI. Inspire the Community to treat Jewish Education as the Burning Issue of the Day

The Next Step

The Commission on Jewish School Excellence brought our diverse leaders together to ensure that the Front Range Jewish community of the 21st century will be vibrant and alive with Jewish knowledge, values, and commitment.

One way to continue the exciting task of remaking Jewish education is to create a Center for Jewish Teaching and Learning. The Center would be founded with the understanding that it cannot, by itself, accomplish all the goals stated above. But it could do many.

The Center could also help institutions coordinate their own initiatives, consult with schools and educators, help merge similar programs at different institutions to provide economies of scale, and serve as an information clearinghouse for individuals or institutions that want to proceed on their own.

Through the Center for Jewish Teaching and Learning, our community can start to claim the incomparable spiritual, cultural and intellectual legacy that can be found only through personal encounters with Torah, traditions, and excellent Jewish teachers. We must pick up where our parents and grandparents left off. It was their challenge to build, on the American continent, a secure and affluent Jewish home. It is now our blessing to furnish this beautiful home with a culture of distinct and profound Jewish meaning.

Click the icon to download the complete "Blessing and Challenge report (350KB).