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Day Schools and the Jewish Birth Rate

By Sharon Strassfeld (Sh'ma 11/219, October 16, 1981)

What I really want to do is begin this article with a yelp of pain. I've just read the four hundredth article in six months on the latest issue to absorb the attention of the Jewish community: the declining Jewish birth rate, and frankly I'm mad. No doubt the Lord, in His infinite wisdom considers it worthwhile to cause hordes of sociologists, psychologists and Jewish communal workers to descend upon us bringing their own particular theories as offerings upon the altar of Why-they're-not making-babies-anymore.

Frankly, I would suppose ingenuity to have exhausted itself in speculation that 1) Couples are not having children because they're too selfish to make the sacrifice of having children, 2) Couples are not having children because the Women's Movement decreed that women need no longer feel it their duty to bear children, 3) Couples are not having children because there are no more couples. Everybody's divorced.

There are two other reasons nobody ever offers-presumably because they would shift at least some of the responsibility from couples and the Women's Movement and place it where it better belongs. These are: 1) We are all of us, increasingly, concerned about the economy. Wildly escalating inflation coupled with a serious recession frighten us. Some of us are afraid we can't afford to raise more Jewishly literate children. 2) The two-income two-profession family is here. What the Women's Movement hasn't decreed, the economy has. And the Jewish community has no investment in infant and early childhood day care. None. In New York City there is no Jewish institution, which provides infant day care (although if you check out the churches around you'll discover just who got into this particular act early). Furthermore, on the Upper West Side (not so incidentally the place in Manhattan where the largest number of young Jewish couples reside) the Jewish community has been hard at work closing down as many Jewish nursery schools as it can, and those that are left are frequently amateurish attempts at best.

High Education Costs a Serious Factor

The New York Federation last year sponsored a symposium on Zero Population Growth and Jewish Survival. At that symposium Blu Greenberg, (who after five children has certainly done her fair share for the Jewish birth rate) suggested that the cost of Jewish education is a serious factor in deterring young Jewish couples from having more children. Her suggestion was met with patent disbelief. And yet, many of us in the room who were of child-bearing age all spoke to the fact on that occasion publicly and again later among ourselves maintaining that such financial considerations do concern us. The plain truth is that it costs about $2500 a year to send a child to day school. If two children go to day school, that's $5000 of after-taxes money. Which means, if you are in the fortieth tax percentile, your children's day school tuition's account for $7000 of your salary.

Further, Jewish summer camps now average some $1200 per summer per child. Multiply by two children and you'll find yourself being relieved of $2400 a year or more than $2800 of salary.

While it's true that one doesn't necessarily figure out the financial ramifications of having the first and even the second child, once does indeed consider carefully the additional financial burden that having a third child would create. If you are already spending $10,000 of your gross salary to send two children to day school and summer camp, the total sum of what you have to earn to feed, clothe and house the four of you is quite large.

Jewish Community Reaction

How does the Jewish community react? The American Jewish Congress recently chalked up another victory in their fight to insure that no tax credit be granted parents who send their children to private schools. The American Jewish Committee has long held the same opinion. Incredible? Not at all. The Jewish community decided, long ago, that it is within its own best interests to insure the continued separation of church and state.

Accordingly the Jewish community supplies funds to organizations who spend these funds making sure that such separation continues in its present form.

Both these organizations maintain that they are not opposed to day school education. They are merely intent on preventing government support of day school education. The net result of their efforts, however, has always been to penalize those parents who choose to send their children to day school. Frankly, I would find it much easier to believe that these organizations support day school education were they each to make available one thousand day school scholarships each year. Or alternatively, were they to provide subsidies for day school teachers' salaries each year.

Instead the Jewish community allows these organizations to spend their money on an agenda that is, whether it wants to be or not, destructive to the day school movement. It is possible that I do not fully understand the legal, social or constitutional issues involved in providing tax benefits to parents who send their children to private schools. If someone can make a convincing argument that the behavior we now exhibit is not suicidal, I should be delighted to hear it. So far as I am concerned however, I am willing to risk the consequences of government infringement in this area so that we may accrue the benefits that government could provide us.

Jewish Education for Free

Beyond this, however, I have yet another agenda. Since I believe it is in the best interests of the Jewish community to produce literate Jewish adults, I have come to believe it is in the best interests of the Jewish community to provide free Jewish education. In other words, I would propose that we consider seriously the arguments put forth here when the United States decided to provide free public school education. The theory was that the community would be better served if decisions were made by literate adults. And the best way to insure that we have literate Jewish adults is to establish a free compulsory system of Jewish education.

I would, then, propose the following: The Jewish community ought to set up a model program in one city (no, let's not study the problem; in this case, study can only amount to speculation since, despite what people may tell you or even think about the issue, having a baby is quite personal enough to make the study about it an exercise in futility). For a period of ten years, the Jewish community would guarantee a free Jewish education through high school to every Jewish child born.

The community would underwrite the cost of the entire program and would couple it with one other component. For the same period of time, the Jewish community would set up infant and early childhood day-care centers which would be open from 8:30-5:30 Monday through Friday, staffed by the best-trained professionals available, and open to Jewish children at costs that were at least competitive with, if not somewhat below, other similar programs. At the end of the ten year pilot program, we would then have to analyze a fairly simple equation. Given the demographic and sociological factors involved, and based on the testimony of those Jewish parents whose children participated in the experiment, did the Jewish birth rate rise? Interesting corollary issues to investigate are whether the Jews involved in the experiment were more sensitive to the needs/problems of the Jewish community, whether the parents felt that participation in the program put them more in touch with the Jewish community, etc.

Two Possible Objections

I hear in the back rows of my theater the disgruntled rumblings of those who feel that it is not quantity we need in the Jewish community but quality-a generation of Jews; no matter how small, who care passionately for and are committed to the Jewish community. I also hear those seated immediately to the right of those back rows who believe that it is not the responsibility of the Jewish community to subsidize parents who want to "go out and work."

To both groups I say right. You are right that we need quality Jews, and it is certainly not the responsibility of the Jewish community to subsidize those who want to work. BUT, there is a point of diminution below which there is no longer any point in talking about quality. We may rapidly be approaching that point.

And while it is not the responsibility of the Jewish community to support working parents, the plain truth is, to get what you want, you sometimes have to inadvertently provide a side benefit that you hadn't meant to provide. If you want to find out whether community support systems will make it easier for people to have children, you have to, inadvertently, it is true, support their ability to maintain two careers.

Is it worth the time, effort and money of the Jewish community to experiment with such proposals? That depends, on how serious we are about our domestic problems-on whether there is any Jewish agency with the mandate and vision to tackle such a fundamental Jewish problem-on whether we can wean ourselves away from our compulsion to talk about an issue just long enough for us to try to do something for a change. I for one hope the answers to these questions are yes. Otherwise I know my fate will be to suffer a sense of resignation and deep resentment as I spend the next few years listening to academic analyses and learned discourses on why I'm not making more Jewish babies.