Joel Starr, a 10th grader at Akiva Hebrew Day School: Study, prayer, science and computers.
More Than Three Rs
Jewish day schools are the hope for the future, say proponents,
and should become a communal responsibility
DAVID HOLZEL
Staff Writer
oday the second grade is
studying a section of the
Book of Genesis. The class is
trying to untangle the rela-
tions between Abraham,
Sarah, Lot and their kinsmen.
They are learning to see through
the often-blurred distinctions between
Chumash and Midrash — between
what is written in the Bible and the
homiletic tales told by the rabbis in
the Talmud about biblical figures —
between fact and fiction, as it were.
They also are trying to unders-
tand why Abraham, not once, but
twice, passed off his wife Sarah as his
sister when he was faced by powerful
foes, and allowed her to be carried
away to another man's house.
A tough assignment for 7 year
olds. But the ingredients — a prickly
moral dilemma, reading in Hebrew
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FRIDAY, JUNE 3, 1988
and learning a biblical text — make leans toward ultra-Orthodoxy.
for a -perfect recipe in a Jewish day
All three schools have a two-track
school.
curriculum. The Hebrew track con-
Is it ever all right to lie, the tains language study, prayer and
teacher asks. Why did Abraham, a Tarah studies, including Talmud. The
righteous man, abandon his wife?
secular curriculum includes
The answer, the class concludes, mathematics, science, computers,
is that you are permitted to lie to save English and social studies.
your life.
Hillel manages to fit its 50-50
Lessons like the one learned by academic split into an 8:30-to-3:30
the second grade at Akiva Hebrew day. By contrast, Beth Yehudah's up-
Day School in Lathrup Village are oc- per classes study six days a week and
curring more and more in Detroit and are dismissed at 6 p.m.
around the country. Enrollment in
The heads of each school say that
Jewish day schools nationwide has secular studies are not sacrificed in
grown from 60,000 in 1962 to 130,000 the pursuit of Jewish learning. If they
in 1986.
were, the schools would be out of
Some 1,400 children attend three business.
local day schools. Hillel Day School in
"Would you want to spend $3,000
Farmington Hills is affiliated with of your hard-earned money on tuition
the Conservative movement. And and not get chemistry?" says Steven
while both Akiva and Yeshivath Beth Cohen, president of Akiva.
Yehudah in Oak Park are Orthodox
At Beth Yehudah, "What Hebrew
schools, Akiva follows a centrist brand studies do come in expense of is the
of Orthodoxy while Beth Yehudah extra-curricular — music, gym, arts,
drama," says Rabbi E.B. Freedman,
administrative director.
The success of the day schools can
be seen in their rapid expansion. But
their problems have grown as well.
Motivated by the belief that every
Jewish child is entitled to a Jewish
education as well as quality secular
education, the schools have run up
tremendous deficits. Often they must
rely on daily injections of cash from
donors to meet the payroll. More than
once this year, Akiva and Beth
Yehudah teachers have gone home
empty-handed on payday.
Can a school put its full energy in-
to educating its pupils if it is living
a hand-to-mouth existence? Are the
schools charging too little for the ser-
vice they provide?
"If we simply situated tuition on
a cost factor, we could end the finan-
cial problem," says Rabbi Robert
Abramson, headmaster of Hillel.
But that would place hard