If you randomly selected 100 non-orthodox Jewish sixth graders in the US today1:
- 14 would attend a Jewish Day School.
- 40 would attend Jewish Part-Time Education.
- 46 would not be receiving formal Jewish education.
The reality is clear:
- Day Schools serve a small fraction of Jewish youth.
- Jewish part-time education enrollment is declining, down by nearly half since 2007.
- The only growing market segment is children who get no Jewish education.
We are leaving thousands of children and families without the gift of a Jewish education. When young students don’t develop a love of Judaism early, they are far less likely to engage in Jewish experiences like Israel trips, Jewish learning and community engagement later in life. Why have part-time education numbers dropped so severely? How can we attract the 46% of Jewish children who receive no Jewish education?
First, let’s understand the current part-time Jewish education landscape: Initially conceived in (and largely unchanged since) 1900, traditional supplemental schools are ill-designed to meet today’s realities. Between 2006 and 2020, 700 supplemental schools shuttered.2 Sociologist Steven Cohen has long argued that, on average, a child is better doing nothing than attending a one-day-a-week supplementary school.3
In a 2012 paper, Jonathan Woocher, of blessed memory, called the Jewish education field to action,
A century ago a group of educators led an effort to transform American Jewish education to enable it to operate successfully in the 20th century. Today, with American Jews living under very different conditions, a similar effort is needed to reinvent Jewish education for the 21st century. Changes and new initiatives already taking place on the educational landscape point the way toward a set of paradigm shifts that will make Jewish education more learner-centered, relationship-infused, and life-relevant… [We need a] redesign of the educational system itself to make it better able to accommodate learners. 4
If we want to save part-time Jewish education and attract the 46% of students not enrolled in any Jewish education program, we have to do something differently.
Jewish After School
Jewish After School is a powerful option that combines camp-style learning with daily after school childcare. By infusing Judaism into an essential childcare service that families rely on Monday through Friday (2:30-6:00 pm), Jewish After School becomes a regular and natural part of families’ lives. Parents benefit from transportation from school, healthy snacks, a loving environment and homework help. Kids become part of a Jewish community and get an inspiring, fun Jewish education every weekday afternoon. Independent studies of Jewish After School point to many positive outcomes: 79% of families said their children’s involvement with Jewish Kids Group (a Jewish After School I founded in Atlanta) greatly increased their positive association with being Jewish; 57% said that Jewish After School motivated them to hang out with other Jewish families; and 43% said without Jewish After School they would have little or no involvement in Jewish community.
Jewish After School is already thriving in several cities. There is Jewish Kids Groups (JKG) in Atlanta, MoEd in Maryland, the Jewish Enrichment Center in Chicago, Makom Community in Philadelphia, and Edah in Berkeley. These local projects have a significant impact on the few hundred students they serve, but most do not have aspirations to scale.
Could synagogues transform their Hebrew Schools into Jewish after school programs? “I can think of no reason why this model could not be adapted by a synagogue,” wrote Dr. Isa Aaron, Professor Emerita of Jewish Education at HUC, in an article in the Journal of Jewish Education in 2014. Why then, in the nine years since the publication of Dr. Aaron’s paper, have exactly zero synagogues adopted the Jewish after school model? Research conducted by Plan A Advisors on behalf of JKG, points to the fact that our valuable and beloved synagogues lack the resources, bandwidth, expertise, start-up capital and support to experiment. The risk-to-reward bar of developing a high-quality Jewish After School program from scratch, or radically redesigning an existing program, is simply too high.
“If we want to save part-time Jewish education and attract the 46% of students not enrolled in any Jewish education program, we have to do something differently.”
Spreading the Model
In 2019, JKG began exploring a plan that would involve training other organizations to open and operate their own Jewish after school programs. We set out to develop a multi-year impact scale plan with strategies, tactics and budget to achieve our aim. We engaged many partners in this work: Plan A Advisors, the JKG Board of Directors, JKG team members, and national Jewish educational leaders.
In real time, as we were designing the Jewish After School Accelerator, we were also testing feasibility with future stakeholders. Plan A Advisors conducted confidential, one-on-one interviews with approximately 20 individuals representing synagogue, day school, and JCC leadership around the country. These confidential interviews served as a way to develop and continuously test whether there was a substantial market for the scaling model we were developing, so that we could anticipate and overcome any potential roadblocks from early in the design process. They indicated to us that there was a substantial market for a program to help existing institutions open their own Jewish After School programs.
In 2023, the Marcus and Zalik Foundations granted JKG seed funding to launch the Jewish After School Accelerator. We launched the Jewish After School Accelerator (JASA) to help entrepreneurial synagogues efficiently open and run their own Jewish After School programs. Our goal is to reverse the trend of discontinuity amongst families of elementary school students. JASA provides turn-key systems, business resources, curriculum, coaching and start-up capital, making it attractive, manageable, and affordable for synagogues to adopt the Jewish After School model. Over the next two years JASA will support 11 synagogues across the United States in the development, launch and operations of a new Jewish After School, which will be owned and operated by the synagogue. As of August 2023, we have received 50 applications for participation.
“We launched the Jewish After School Accelerator (JASA) to help entrepreneurial synagogues efficiently open and run their own Jewish After School programs.”
The spread of the Jewish After School model will result in a new and significant trend nationwide. At scale, Jewish After School will serve thousands of families a year and change the reality of Jewish education by expanding access to a high-quality model that meets parents’ essential need for childcare. Jewish students who would otherwise attend programs at the YMCA or Boys and Girls Clubs will instead fill the halls of underused Jewish spaces and spend their weekday afternoons playing, learning and connecting with Jewish friends and teachers. It will also create daily opportunities for synagogues to build authentic connections with the Jewish after school families.
The potential payoffs are enormous. By getting Jewish part-time education right, we can reshape the future of Jewish engagement. Let’s work together to empower the next generation of Jewish learners and create a vibrant, thriving Jewish community.
