Ramaz Demonstrates What Jews Truly Value

Ramaz is perhaps the most prestigious of all overtly Jewish day schools in the nation. We can, therefore, deduce a few things about the Jewish community from this Modern Orthodox academy on the Upper East Side.

The Jewish Week reports on a new merit based scholarship that,

“…comes with $10,000 annually to help offset Ramaz’s tuition, which will top $30,000 this year for 12th grade. There is no application process; instead, the first cohort of 14 students was chosen based on their general applications and interviews. And in some cases scholarships are being offered to families who can well afford the pricey tuition without additional help.”

Would I prefer to also see financial aid offered specifically to those Jews of lesser means?

Yes.

Would I prefer to see Jews from “challenged” backgrounds get a leg up over everyone else?

No.

So what do we learn from this?

1) Jews ultimately prize merit. All the blather about how (some of us) treasure diversity is sheer bullshit. What many of us want most for our kids is a top quality education with the best and brightest they can be surrounded with. And for the all Jewish Ramaz to be held in such high esteem, well…that says a lot about how LITTLE we truly value the so-called strength of racial diversity, doesn’t it? Of course, I am sure that many of my friends on the social left (who themselves often attended private, all Jewish schools, unlike me who went to a public school) will tell you how important diversity really is…that is, for other peoples’ children, not their own. (I know, I know, doesn’t the adopted Korean kid count as diverse?)

2) Middle-class and working-class Jews seeking a traditional Jewish education for their children are increasingly being pushed to the haredi schools. The quality private schools never really had the same mandate to service the lower classes, and increasingly, only the haredim see a need to absorb Jews of lesser means. This translates into a choice between wither a haredi yeshiva system or a public school system, as the liberal and Modern Orthodox school are unaffordable to the masses of Jewry. For many Jews, this is an unattractive choice.

In the off chance that the Jewish community is actually serious about their concerns of a lessening affiliation, they should provide and subsidize other non-charedi educational options. Universal Jewish education should be a priority. Until that happens, I would strongly encourage those Jews of lesser means to understand that haredism isn’t worth the risk for your kids, and to respect the fact that the liberal and Modern Orthodox Jewish community simply has little use for Jews who aren’t rich.

Better to risk assimilation than haredism. Don’t send your children to a Chabad or B’nai Torah school system. It just isn’t worth the risk. Even the massive, massive problems of the “strengths” of diversity aren’t worth the risk of turning a child into haredi underachiever who speaks Yeshivish instead of English.

Instead, secular and liberal Jews need to mobilize and stand up to those attempting to constantly rig the standards of honors and gifted and talented programs in order to unjustifiably accept minority candidates who don’t really qualify for these programs in our public school system.