Kohelet Foundation Sponsors PEJE Conference in Baltimore, MD

The Partnership for Excellence in Jewish Education (PEJE) held it's biennial conference this past October in Baltimore Maryland.  More than 1,000 educators, lay leaders, philanthropists and  professionals gathered to discuss and learn about the state of Jewish education today.  The Kohelet Foundation was a conference sponsor.  Holly Cohen, the Director of the Kohelet Foundation addressed the plenary at the opening dinner.  Here is a transcript of her remarks:

First I want to thank Josh Elkin and the entire staff at PEJE for allowing me this opportunity to address you.  It is my distinct privilege to do so tonight on behalf of David Magerman and the Kohelet Foundation. 

Take a look around the room at who is here. We have people here from all parts of the Jewish community, geographically and otherwise.  We have contingents from nearly every day school in the United States and Canada representing the  full spectrum of Jewish perspective. 
Thank you all for ignoring the artificial barriers that so often keep us apart and for coming to this assembly to discuss, debate, promote the importance of Jewish Education. 

So - what do we know?

What we already know is that parent’s value excellence. Excellence in secular and Jewish studies, excellence in facilities, excellence in faculty, excellence in extra-curriculars.
And in this room we have the greatest  Jewish educators who work night and day for excellence.
But there’s a degree of frustration isn’t there?  Because promoting - even delivering excellence - doesn’t really get the job done. 
Still parents question the value.  Still there is a degree of apathy. 
Why must our lay leaders and administrators be perpetually convincing parents of the all important value?

At the Kohelet Foundation we submit that seeing value isn’t enough.  Giving children a Jewish Education has to be more than valuable - it must be the culmination of all that is precious to us.

Value is informed by facts and logic.  But PRECIOUS is what we’re not willing to live without.

Value is something that people may or may not agree on - it can be manipulated and derived by externals. 

What is precious comes from within.

So the question becomes not how do we make parents see the value in giving their children a day school education - But how do we make those parents feel that their child’s Jewish education is so precious -  they can’t live without. 

Take it a step further - If your parent body thinks the education you offer is has value - they’ll do some work to sustain or even promote it.

But what wouldn’t they do - if they held it to be precious.

Pull a child from something precious because it’s expensive - no; remove your child from something precious because it’s not exactly what you expected - no; walk away because it takes hard work and devotion to sustain - no.

Value is a perception - and if you don’t see it - you won’t fight for it. 

But when your parents can’t walk away, won’t walk away from their Jewish school - you’ll have a parent body ready to volunteer and work at sustaining and supporting their school.  New leaders might even emerge.

So, how do we achieve a perception that day school is something so precious that the Jewish families in our communities can’t live with out it? 

First - we acknowledge that it’s not about the perception of value.  When has being just as good as something else ever been a benchmark valued by the Jewish people. 

Parents who send their kids to our schools because they’re just as good as or cheaper than the ritzy private school will pull them if that image is tainted.  Parents who send their  children to day school because its smaller or cheaper will pull those children when class size increases or tuition rises.  We’ve all seen that.  Parents who send their kids because its what their friends do -  leave with their friends.  But if parents sent their children to day school because it’s Jewish - it wouldn’t be so easy to walk away. 
Jewish education is precious because being Jewish is precious.  And that’s what we need our parents to feel - that Jewish education is  something they just can’t live without.

And this is how the Kohelet Foundation is promoting Jewish day schools across the denominations.  We know you are providing an excellent education for the children.  But we are educating their parents in our Kohelet Fellowships program.  We inspire parents to achieve a stronger deeper working knowledge of being Jewish and how Jewish principles can inform behavior, thinking, and most of all our identity as Jewish people.  We do this without regard to denomination or level of ritual observance. 

This year - the Kohelet Fellowships Program - which is launching today - in 12 schools over 4 states, with nearly 1100 day school parents participating - will inspire these parents to know more fervently that their identity as Jewish people, is precious.  And by doing so their perception of day school shifts from having value to being something they can’t live with out.  Your school becomes precious.
That’s our goal.

If you’d like more information about what we do - please feel free to stop bt our reception in the Douglass room tonight at 10:30 or just be in touch.

Thanks for your time.

The Problem with Endowments

Q. When is planning for the future not a good idea?

A. When doing so makes it less likely you will have one.

Endowments are about planning for the future.  In order to ensure there will be money for the next year, the next decade, the next generation, an institution can create an endowment.  As long as the institution is careful to spend down only the interest produced by the endowment, it will always have the principal of the endowment and it will never run out of money.  You will always have something for tomorrow.

Endowments sound like a great idea for ensuring continuity, and since we are all talking about Jewish continuity these days, it makes sense to talk about and encourage endowments.  But endowments are at odds with the Jewish mitzvah of tzedakah.  Tzedakah means “justice,” and there is an awkward conflict between endowments and justice.  Justice implies justice for those in the here‐and‐now, not for hypothetical people in the future.  Endowments are all about ensuring justice for the future, but they make no promises about adequate resources for the present.

When a farmer observes the Torah‐obligated mitzvah of peah, leaving a corner of his field for the poor, he cannot choose to gather the unharvested remains, sell them, and set aside the money for future generations of poor people.  If he and his peers do that, what do the poor of their generation do for food?  They starve.

When a hedge fund manager tithes his earnings for the year, he cannot choose to hold onto that tenth, invest it, preserve the principal, and only give away to his less fortunate peers the proceeds of those investments.  If he and his peers do that, what do the poor of their generation do for money?  They starve.

If a community philanthropist allocates a portion of his tzedakah to community religious projects, like improving his synagogue or improving access to Jewish education, he cannot hide his contributions away in an investment pool, giving out only the interest that is spawned from those investments.  If he and his peers do that, what happens to those community projects?  They are diminished due to lack of resources.  And what happens to their neighbors who depend on the success of those projects?  Spiritually, intellectually, Jewishly, they starve.

I am not discrediting the long-term benefits of endowments.  There are valid reasons to grow endowments naturally.  It makes sense to set aside up to ten percent of every gift given to an institution to save for the future, just as it makes sense for a family to set aside savings for a rainy day.  Endowments also make sense as a temporary repository for unexpected lump sum donations, like estates and stock grants, a place to keep money until an appropriate use can be found for it (and one has to be looking).

But endowments are increasingly being raised as a sine qua non of any institution that wants to exist into the next generation, regardless of how vital that money might be in the present.  They are attracting tzedakah that should be doing justice in our time, not being saved to allow subsistence justice for current and future generations.  If we found that we had more than enough money to satisfy every need in every part of every Jewish community, then it might make sense to talk about putting the excess in an endowment.  But we must be willing to spend it.  And no one can argue that we are in that situation now.  Endowments are being accumulated while we are starving for resources in the here‐and‐now.  We are willing to let our children starve and die so that we can feed our unborn grandchildren.

There are other difficult problems to address with endowments: they should be invested wisely; they limit accountability; they are inflexible to changes in a community’s needs.  But these problems are surmountable.  The biggest problem with endowments, which cannot be overcome, is that they represent a travesty of justice, of tzedakah.  Until we have enough to nourish this generation, physically, educationally, nutritionally, and spiritually, we cannot allow ourselves to direct our tzedakah exclusively to endowments.

Planning for the future is one thing.  Jeopardizing it while we are doing so is another.   

 

Pennsylvania Budget Impasse Means No New Books for Community's Students

Dear Community Member,

At Back To School Nights across our community, the message was clear - the education of our children is at risk because our schools have no new books.

As the last state in the nation to pass its budget, funding for all Pennsylvania schools, public and private, secular and religious, remains frozen. This means that across the state, schools have not been able to provide teaching materials to students. Some books can be reused from previous years, but many cannot. New curricula can’t be implemented and teachers are faced with conducting classes as usual without the most fundamental tools of education.

Books are essential to a child’s academic success and the children in our community still have no new books for school!

Devoted to the Jewish community and focused on supporting Jewish education in Philadelphia, the Kohelet Foundation is taking action to deal with this crisis. We have already granted funds to every Day School for the immediate purchase of those books that are essential to the education of their students. But we can’t do it alone!

We invite you to join us and contribute to the Kohelet Book Fund. Together we’ll ensure that our schools can complete their book orders and provide our children with the tools they need to grow into the future of our community.

A $50 contribution buys all the materials needed to educate one student this year. Contributions of any amount will make a huge difference.

Please send checks made out to “Kohelet Foundation” directly to the Foundation at 223 North Highland Avenue, Merion Station, PA 19066 or to one of our community day schools in an envelope marked Kohelet.

Additionally, please make a note on the check that it is designated for the “Book Fund.”

Thank you for partnering with the Kohelet Foundation.

David Magerman, President

Holly Cohen, Associate Director
    

Why is Jewish Day School Education Important?

Because Kohelet is committed to strengthen Jewish identity and faith it is important to address why Jewish education, in particular Jewish Day Schools, are such a key component in achieving the goals of the foundation.

In 2007 the Partnership for Excellence in Jewish Education conducted a review of studies relating to the impact of a Jewish education. The studies found, that (quoted from the review of the studies):

• The longer and more intensive that a person is trained in Judaism, the greater likelihood that the person will be committed to practicing Judaism
• 80% of adults with 6 or more years of day school training are married within the faith to another Jewish adult
• Extensive Jewish day school education is the most important contributor to the formation of strong Jewish identities
• Students who attended Jewish high schools...are more observant, are involved more actively in the community, have visited Israel

A more comprehensive review of the studies can be found at: http://www.peje.org/docs/researchstudiesimpact.pdf

What it means to us at the Kohelet Foundation is that a strong relationship and commitment to Judaism begins with a formal education rooted in the traditions and teachings of our faith. In our fast paced worlds where it is easy to not make time for family and faith, we want to remind every member of the Jewish community that the tradition of thousands of years moves forward because we place importance and value on this. In a world that is rapidly embracing secular values, we need to remind ourselves the importance of the traditions and values that have brought us to this point.

Education, specifically that which is given at the Day School level, is critical to keeping those traditions alive within “us” as individuals and “us” as a community. I would like to challenge all parents, educators and members of the faith to think about ways that we can renew and strengthen our relationship with our faith and the community at large. At the Kohelet Foundation we believe it starts in the schools, but we also believe that is up to all of us to continue the effort beyond school and throughout life.

Thank you.