Editorial: Even Bernie couldn't do this alone

Issue of August 21, 2009 / 1 Elul 5769

Even Bernie Madoff isn't completely to blame for the current crisis over yeshiva tuition. And he gets blamed for everything, including the weather.

Yes, the bottom fell out of the economy, and, yes, Madoff stole billions, including many dollars that would have eventually found their way to institutions of Jewish learning. Nonetheless, if the day comes when parents who sacrificed for years to send their children to yeshiva have no choice but to opt for public school — and for at least a small group of parents that day is here — then some of the blame must rest with the yeshivas themselves, and most of the rest of the blame lies squarely with the Jewish community as a whole. In other words, with all of us.

We believe it's fair to generalize and say that it was only very recently that yeshivas began to intensively seek ways to reduce overhead and cut costs. It's taken the Orthodox Union and Yeshiva University (separately, for some reason — more wasted resources) to begin sitting down with yeshivas and proposing money-saving solutions. The jury is still out on most of them, but at least the subject is finally being addressed.

The rest of us, at least those blessed to be parents and grandparents, fall into two general categories: paying tuition or used to be paying tuition. Do the schools that you are involved with send fundraising literature to grandparents? If not, why not?

Some older readers might have had this experience: the last child in the family graduates from a school and, just like that, you're purged from the mailing list. What kind of a foolish administrator or fundraiser allows that to happen? Does the word 'alumni' ring a bell?

In our current situation and moving forward, paying the freight for our yeshiva system simply cannot be the sole province of parents of school age children. Too much money is required and most families simply can't handle it, even on the two paychecks that are commonplace today. When a family bringing home $200,000 or a quarter of a million dollars has to sweat the tuition, there's a big problem that can only be solved with a group effort, and that group must include grandparents and even non-parents.

Jewish education has been shown to be the single strongest predictor of Jewish continuity — an Jewishly-educated Jew is most likely to marry a Jew, to remain involved in the community and to educate his or her own children as Jews, passing our Mesorah, our treasured heritage, down to the next generation.

In Chicago and, more recently, in Teaneck, endowment funds have been founded to amass money to ensure the future of local Jewish schools. It's unfortunate that in Nassau County, the nexus of so much charity and so many good works, our leaders have failed to step up and start such a fund. Someone must.

And each of us, rich and poor, can take a very important step to demonstrate that Jewish continuity is very much our concern, even if almost no one will know about it until after you're gone: change your will and leave 10 percent of your estate, at least, to support Jewish education.

The current tuition crisis may not be so easily solved; boys and girls may be tragically lost to Torah observance because of it. But the next crisis can almost certainly be prevented. It's in our hands.

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