September 2025: Diversity in the Jewish Day School

Diversity is a characteristic of life. Based on differences in both nature – the predispositions baked into genetics – and nurture – the cultural values, norms, and expectations picked up from families, friends, and communities – […]

by Mushky Kulek How do we teach children to embrace diversity? I submit that we don’t need to; we just have to stop unteaching it. Children are not born with prejudice. In fact, babies naturally accept […]

by Rabbi Jordan D. Soffer I was 18 years old when I first met Jihad. Jihad was a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin and the leader of Students for Justice in Palestine. Over the […]

by Alanna Pepper, LMSW, and Rabbi Dr. Avichai Pepper As adults, we often view diversity through the lens of challenge, like something to be navigated and explained, and as such, it brings up deep concerns. We’re […]

by Dvora Sarfaty “I am so grateful that I am not an adolescent nowadays. You have many more challenges than we did, and I have no idea how I would have overcome them.” When I say […]

by Dalia Appel As I observe the students in my middle school classroom at a Modern Orthodox co-ed school in the tri-state area, I notice many commonalities in their dress, religious background, culture, and financial status. […]

by Rabbi Isaac Entin When hiring a new teacher, principals seek to determine whether a candidate is qualified to teach the content. After all, a good math teacher should know math well, and a Chumash teacher […]

by Mrs. Miriam Gettinger Diversity within our student demographics, whether cognitive or hashkafic, is chinuch’s majesty, its raison d’être. כשם שאין פרצופיהן דומות.. כך אין דעותיהן שוות teaches us that they will be different, a challenge […]

by Rona Milch Novick, PhD Morah Jacobs, who leads davening for the third and fourth graders, complains to you that Esti insists on using a Sephardi siddur and does not follow the class davening. Moshe, the […]

by Rabbi Shmuel Chait Undoubtedly, “diversity” is one of the most controversial topics in Jewish education today. According to the Rambam (Guide for the Perplexed, 2:40, quoted by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks), while variation is a hallmark […]

by Esti Schiffmiller Across Jewish day schools and yeshivas, a quiet crisis is unfolding. It isn’t always visible or loud. It doesn’t make bold headlines. But it happens every day — in hallways, classrooms, lunchrooms, minyan […]