by
NJJN Staff Writer

Two major MetroWest institutions — the Jewish Historical Society and the Jewish Community Foundation — combined forces May 21 to celebrate the achievements of the area’s day schools, even as they announced a new campaign to ensure their future growth.

The occasion was the historical society’s 16th anniversary dinner, held at the Jewish community campus in Whippany. It featured a keynote address by Rabbi Joshua Elkin, executive director of the Partnership for Excellence in Jewish Education. (related article)

The event’s combined purpose was to recognize a new JHS exhibit on the evolution of the community’s day schools and to announce plans for a Jewish Community Foundation endowment campaign whose aim is to finance academic improvements and tuition assistance for families.

The exhibit will open Oct. 7 in the atrium of the Alex Aidekman Family Jewish Community Campus in Whippany.

The foundation will launch a multimillion-dollar endowment campaign in the fall intended to strengthen the three day schools in MetroWest — the Nathan Bohrer-Abraham Kaufman Hebrew Academy of Morris County in Randolph, the Joseph Kushner Hebrew Academy and Rae Kushner Yeshiva High School in Livingston, and the Solomon Schechter Day School of Essex and Union in West Orange and Cranford.

“Educating our children is the key to survival of the Jewish people,” said Bruce Shoulson of West Orange, chair of the dinner. “Our Jewish community is recognizing that in a way we never have before. It is true that we have had support from our federation for years. But finally, we are seeing that issue come to the forefront.”

The foundation is pledging to add $1 million from its own coffers to the first $10 million in day school endowment funding it receives from donors.

“We are developing a community-wide day school endowment campaign to ensure affordability and academic excellence at our three day schools, to make them affordable for every Jewish child and make them the best they can be,” said Kim Hirsh, a JCF endowment development officer.

Hirsh said part of the money would be earmarked for “tuition subvention,” an assistance program “targeted toward middle-income people.”

“The idea is that the wealthiest can afford day school, and people with lower incomes can get scholarships. But donors step forward and pay part of the tuition for that vast middle class,” who can afford to pay only a portion of tuition costs, said Hirsh.

Endowment funds would also “pump millions into making the schools excellent, so that parents would have a hard time saying ‘no’ to day school.”

Elkin said the collaboration among the day schools in the MetroWest community is the “gold standard” that will enhance the JCF’s fund-raising effort.

But he cautioned that the community faces the challenge of “spreading the word” to the non-Orthodox Jewish majority that is not using the day schools. Outside the “Orthodox four walls,” said Elkin, “70 percent of the Jewish community does not know what we’re talking about.”

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Day schooling, from generation to generation

AS THEY SALUTED the success of the day schools in MetroWest, celebrants at the annual dinner of the Jewish Historical Society gave a special round of applause to three generations of the Levitan family — all of whom have a special relationship to what is now the Joseph Kushner Hebrew Academy and Rae Kushner Yeshiva High School in Livingston.

Shirley Levitan of Livingston was one of seven students at what was then called the Hebrew Youth Academy of Essex County when it was located in a one-family house on Clinton Avenue and South 13th Street in Newark. There was no local yeshiva beyond grammar school when she finished her elementary education in 1950, so she attended Weequahic High School. But after two years, her parents agreed to let her commute to an Orthodox high school in Brooklyn.

“The two years I had in public high school were very unpleasant. I missed the comradeship, the feeling of belonging, the feeling of unity,” Levitan told NJ Jewish News. “We shared something in the yeshiva and we shared friendships.”

Her husband, Philip, attended the Yeshiva of Hudson County in Jersey City and said that experience enriched his education. “Even though I went to a yeshiva, I grew up in a neighborhood where many of my friends were not Jewish. We played ball together, did many things together, and learned about everybody else’s family. I felt no loss. I felt a gain,” he said.

Their son, Ari, graduated in 1980 from the Hebrew Youth Academy of Essex County, which had relocated from Newark to West Caldwell. A graduate of Yeshiva University, he works as an accountant at a real estate firm.

Ari’s son, Dov, a fourth-grader, and daughter, Leora, a sixth-grader, are students at Joseph Kushner Hebrew Academy in Livingston, the successor to the Hebrew Youth Academy.

“I think it is very important that you have a strong background, then you integrate in the world,” said Ari Levitan. “When you enter college or the business world, you are using the skills you developed in your yeshiva.”

— ROBERT WIENER

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