Who are we losing in Jewish day schools?

Who are we losing in Jewish day schools? I have been asking it since reading David Zalik, co-founder of the Zalik Foundation, whose eJewishPhilanthropy piece, “Jewish day schools are a bubble, and that is the point,” argues that children flourish when they are known, when they belong, and when they know who they are, and that the bubble parents worry about is exactly what prepares a child to leave it.

What caught my attention most was his subtitle, aimed at the parent on the fence: “Yes, I’m talking to you.” Zalik grew up in Auburn, Alabama, one of a handful of Jewish children in the whole school system. (As a Head of School in Memphis, I can tell you that Southern Jewish childhoods produce some of the most devoted and most resourceful Jews I know.) That subtitle is kiruv, the Hebrew word for “bringing close.” He is talking to the families standing outside.

Dr. Darin Katz of Hillel Day School of Metropolitan Detroit added in these pages that what we teach inside the bubble is what makes it worth entering. Then Amanda Goldstein, a parent, educator, and student at Yeshivat Maharat, asked the question that made me put my coffee down: “Who is the Jewish day school bubble for?” She describes the children the bubble does not hold: children with learning differences, children who did not feel safe, and children whose families never walk in the door. She asks whether, when the doors closed, “anyone came looking for them.”

It is the same question I had already sent to Rabbi Jim Rogozen after reading his post last month, “Chasing Symptoms.” Rabbi Rogozen gave me my first day school job, and he has been my mentor for more than 25 years. His post makes a compelling case for strong school culture and for a family mission that a school can, and should, help families live.

I sent him my question before I had fully thought it through (a habit my Leadership Team and my wife would tell you is not limited to email). What about the families who are not (yet) aligned with our mission? Are those the families we are losing? And if they are, are they also the ones who need us most?

His reply was two words: “Misaligned people?”

Yes. Those people.

We spend a great deal of energy in our field talking about mission alignment, and for good reason. But I have come to see much of my role as a form of kiruv. Pirkei Avot asks us to be “of the disciples of Aaron, loving peace and pursuing peace, loving people and bringing them close to Torah.” Aaron is not described as someone who only welcomes people who have already arrived. He loves people first and brings them close second. The order matters.

That is why I have always felt most at home in community day schools. At Bornblum, where I have served as Head of School since 2018, our families come to us from every corner of Jewish life and sometimes from outside it. Some choose us for our Judaics, some for our small classes, some because a grandparent insisted.

One parent, new to our community and to the United States after moving here from Israel, gushed when her child read Torah at our school, something that never would have happened in the secular life they lived in Israel. Another family, committed to public school, made a lateral move to us just to give it a try. They had worried about the “Jewish,” and even more about our small class sizes, yet they told me how thankful they were, because their child is seen and understood by the teachers (and sings Jewish songs in the shower). And then there is the family who was looking for a way for their child to play a musical instrument, and who is now investing in a new shofar to bring to services at their local temple.

Those are the families who can be lost if we do not meet them where they are, and then help them grow into a mission they may not have known they wanted. If we only serve families who already agree with us, we are not doing outreach; we are running a club.

And as Amanda Goldstein reminds us, losing a family does not only happen at the front door. It can happen long after the enrollment contract is signed, when a child who learns differently, or who does not feel safe, slowly stops feeling like one of us. Belonging is not a one-time admissions decision; it is renewed (or not) every morning at carpool. Her question deserves an answer from all of us, not only from our schools.

Rachel Levy, who works in admissions at Denver Jewish Day School, wrote her own response to Zalik. She grew up the only Jewish kid in her small Maine town and, after October 7, moved her family to Denver for day school. Now she sits on “both sides of the admission table,” and she is honest that choosing day school asks something of families. That is where the on-ramp comes in.

Rabbi Rogozen put the balance better than I could: “You have to have a stretch goal for parents but create the on-ramp to bring them along.” A stretch goal without an on-ramp is just a wall; an on-ramp without a stretch goal is a road to nowhere. A Jewish day school’s work is to build both.

It is easier to spend time with the parents who already share our vocabulary, who show up to every Tefillah and know every tune. The harder, holier work is with the parent at the back of the room, not quite sure they belong. And a school that serves only the family at the back loses the ones in the front row, who also need to be stretched. Holding both is the job.

So, who are we losing? Probably not the families who agree with everything we do (and if you work in a Jewish day school, there is no family that agrees with everything you do). More likely, it is the ones who are one invitation, one conversation, or one warm welcome away from saying yes, and the ones already inside who need someone to notice before they drift. Our Jewish day schools are at their best when we offer a clear vision of Jewish life (a stretch goal worth reaching for), a genuine welcome (an on-ramp wide enough for everyone), and the patience to walk alongside families (for as long as it takes, and to come looking when they step away). The bubble may be the point; the door is the mission. That is what kiruv looks like in a school building. And it is, I think, why so many of us do this work.