For Silver, betraying Jewish education is old hat

Sheldon Silver, Speaker of the New York State Assembly, may yet be found innocent of the charges against him in a new federal indictment. But the dirty secret within the Jewish community, is that he's been guilty of other offenses: Allowing milions in campaign contributions from teacher union override his allegiance to the Jewish community.

The most recent twist in this long-running farce: Crowning a public career understandably devoid of even a yarmulke, the privately Orthodox Silver -- who blocked tax incentives and other offsets that would ease the tuition crisis in New York State, home to the largest private day school population in the world -- dressed today like a yeshiva rebbe for his "perp walk".

In all our dealings with the Speaker, he never once offered serious relief of the kind that's worked in other states, without breaching constitutional protections or incentivizing tuition hikes -- excuses he consistently used to avoid serious legislative remedies.

To be fair, we were able to work out agreements with the Speaker to expand or update existing programs, netting tens of millions for non-public schools, including the yeshiva/day school community. And also, to be fair, major Jewish groups hailed the Speaker's "leadership" and good will, both publicly and in private ring-kissing sessions, to preserve and advance their claims of access and influence, and to maintain credibility as if they were accomplishing great things for Jewish education. With tuition totalling something over $1 billion a year for New York's Jewish community, a few million at a time is barely a dent.

I figured, politics is politics, and never bore a grudge against the Speaker. Even with the conflicts of interest implicit in his outside earnings, Albany is no clean room for good government and Governor Cuomo's own fighting words against corruption have faded into farce.

 

But seeing the Speaker suddenly don his yeshiva-style fedora for the most public appearance of his life -- in a moment of disgrace, pointedly identifying with the very community he had blocked -- is what pushed me to speak my mind.

The Catholic community hasn't waited patiently for the Speaker to throw them crumbs, which is the reason Governor Cuomo -- just yesterday -- committed to pushing a modest but promising initiative to increase the tax benefits for donations to non-public school scholarship funds.

 

I don't expect any Jewish community groups with a stake in "business as usual" to speak out against anything the Speaker has done, so I am voicing my own humble protest against his duplicity and our own community's complicity. I also confess my own playing ball (but never backing down) when I thought it could advance the cause.

On day school advocacy, follow the money.

I was intrigued to learn that my colleagues at the Jewish Council for Public Affairs are holding a panel discussion on vouchers, tax credits and other forms of government aid to non-public (i.e., private) schools. The panel is scheduled for this week's annual JCPA Plenum, where community activists from around the country gather to coordinate national and local approaches to pressing issues.

As was pointed out in the latest New York Jewish Week, this is a big deal for a national umbrella that's typically left-of-center when it comes to social policy and domestic politics. Part of JCPA's strength has been its affinity with labor unions and liberal church groups, which has come in handy over the years especially in protecting Israel from would-be boycotts. Some years back, JCPA ran afoul of some of the more monied interests in the Jewish community by opposing the Bush-era tax cuts.

Could this be a sea change? Government assistance to private schools -- even yeshivas -- is usually perceived by teachers' unions as undercutting their bottom line on the public school side. Many liberal Jews have lingering concerns over separation of church and state -- even for financing of secular aspects of Jewish day school education.

According to The Jewish Week, the three panelists for the session will be two academics -- including the leading historian of American Jewry -- and the head of a major teachers' union. It's a nice "get" to have a major skeptic of government funding, and two thoughtful scholars... but no sea change yet. Hopefully, sometime soon, JCPA will be in a position to give a platform to those in the community who are actively engaging in political advocacy for this cause, at the national, state and city levels;  a constitutional law expert; and possibly, one of the many community leaders who are also on board.

For now, it may be up to the Jewish Federations to lead the way, since that's where the donors are. Who better to appreciate what it costs to fund Jewish continuity?

Outsourcing American Jewish identity?

Right before the royal wedding and Osama's descent into Hell, a brief press item reported that North American Jewish Federations "generated nearly $2.5 billion for program needs in 2010." Most Jewish community leaders seem to agree that continuity is a key challenge, and that Jewish education is the key ingredient to strengthening Jewish identity and securing the future of the Jewish people. And yet, Birthright Israel -- which brings young Jews to Israel for free 10-day Israel tours with no strings attached -- is considered to be the silver bullet of Jewish identity. So what's not to like...?

If (1) the cornerstone of our Jewish future is supposed to be promoting Jewish identity; (2) $2.5 billion was raised last year in North America (though serving the elderly and the poor and supporting Israel are also high-ticket necessities); (3) presumably several hundred million was spent on Jewish schools, camps, and informal education; and (4) the best thing we did was send kids to Israel for ten days -- then why even bother with Jewish education at all? Isn't it better to just invest in El Al futures?

So maybe that's a rhetorical question, or maybe it's just sarcastic. Oops.

My expectation is that truly independent research would show that Birthright is not so successful overall, that many of the kids who return with a strong Jewish identity already had it or that it wears off pretty fast. The fact is, when Birthright was first designed, there was basically no follow-up programming, and even today, what was tacked on after the fact reaches 10-15 percent of the Birthright alumni in any meaningful way. The fact is, most of the tour operators have no consistent standards for training and overseeing counselors on Birthright trips, and the most prevalent qualification is prior experience as a Birthright participant.