This Week in Jews
School enrollment declines and primary races hotter than a truckload of flaming oxygen tanks on I-5.
But First
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This Week in Jews
The great school resignation
According to an article in the Washington Post and reprinted in the Seattle Times, the recent Bremerton ruling is affecting schools nationwide, with more teachers, activists, and parents trying to push prayer into schools — and likely more parents and students pushing back on institutions and filing lawsuits.
See my coverage from earlier this month:
In Seattle, public enrollment is way down, and no one really knows why. Many possible reasons exist, with data and anecdotes vying for narrative control. Zoning? Funding? Families moving out of Seattle? Covid closures? Progressive agendas?
Meanwhile, Catholic school enrollment is up. According to Kristin Moore, director of marketing and enrollment for Washington’s Catholic schools:
“From what we’re hearing … in terms of parents there’s an overall unhappiness with what public schools have been able to deliver,” Moore said. “A lot of families maybe came to Catholic schools because we were in person or had stronger academic programs.”
I think there’s a strong case for this being a main reason for the shift. I addressed the valiant efforts made by many private Jewish schools to stay open during the shutdown in a post last year.
At the time, I was terrified to sound like some sort of Covid denier, but as more information comes out about learning loss suffered from remote school (for many kids, that meant no school), I stand by my personal conclusion that schools should have been open in the fall of 2020.
But will enrollment trends benefit Jewish day schools? While we did see students join or re-join the day schools during the pandemic, we are also seeing a religious Jewish population shift out of the region. (More on that in the coming weeks.) We also have the new Samis tuition incentive, which lowers the financial barrier to entry for anyone making less than (gulp) $350,000 a year, the latest and most aggressive attempt to attract and retain students.
This fall and coming year will also see some significant changes to the Jewish day schools. Longtime head of school Rivy Kletenik retired from Seattle Hebrew Academy, making way for Rabbi Benjy Owen, a Seattle native and former head of school at Margolin Hebrew Academy in Memphis, Tennessee, and former assistant head of school and Judaics director at Northwest Yeshiva High School on Mercer Island. Meanwhile, NYHS head of school Jason Feld is moving on at the end of 2022-23 after six years with the small high school. A search is underway for his successor. Rabbi Yona Margolese stepped down from leading Torah Day School, a year after sending a doom-and-gloom email about the possibility the small Orthodox school would not survive another year. It is hanging on, as are the tiny separate-sex high schools Derech Emunah and Torah Academy of the Pacific Northwest. And this will likely be the next-to-last year JDS, which has long struggled with enrollment, spends on its Crossroads campus. More on these developments in the coming months.
Primary concerns
The Washington state primary is August 2. Several races are of interest to the Jewish community. One is the 9th congressional district — covering South Seattle, Mercer Island, Bellevue, Renton, and on down to Tacoma — safely in the hands of Congressman Adam Smith since forever. He’s got four challengers of the Republican variety, plus Stephanie Gallardo, a school teacher, daughter of refugees, and Democratic Socialist who champions Medicare for all, the Green New Deal, a moral immigration system…and BDS.
Gallardo is endorsed by the National Educators Association, though she failed to secure the endorsement of The Stranger’s lefty “election control board.” Is The Stranger finally getting old and conservative? Ha. Their endorsement of Smith is mostly a form of public flagellation. They hate themselves for endorsing a “weasel,” but keeping Smith in place will stop worse people (i.e., Republicans and Democrats slightly to the right of Lenin) from getting more power. Oh, and Gallardo doesn’t really have a command of policy. That too.
More exciting is the 8th congressional district, which spreads out into eastern Washington, where Jewish pediatrician Kim Schrier is defending her title from Republican heavyweights Reagan Dunn, Jesse Jensen, and Matt Larkin. She flipped the district and faced a fairly serious threat from Jensen before. Schrier is pro-choice and has been widely endorsed, but her serious challengers are well positioned to harness conservative fury around social issues and the defund police debacle.
Here’s Schrier talking with me about Covid response, bipartisanship, and the White House Hanukkah party.
Whatever your politics are, you can’t say Jensen isn’t a badass.
One other race that seems relevant to the community is the 3rd congressional district in southwest Washington. Republican Jaime Herrera Beutler of Battleground is being challenged by Trump loyalists who view her vote to impeach the former president as damning. While Herrera Beutler may not share many of the social concerns that the mainstream Jewish community takes up, she’s a member of the Latino-Jewish caucus (did you know that was a thing?) and an advocate of protections for children and mothers. I’ve been trying to get her to talk to The Cholent but her staff does not respond. Congresswoman, if you see this, call me!
Shabbat shalom.
Community Announcements
Check out the Seattle Jewish community calendar and the virtual calendar.
This week’s parasha is Matot-Masei.
Candlelighting in Seattle is at 8:29 p.m.
Shoutouts
Mazel tov to Sam Witus and Erin Frazier on the occasion of their nuptials on July 3. With Sam’s PhD in Biochemistry now in hand, they are on their way to Berkeley, CA, where Sam joins a UC lab as a postdoctoral fellow & they start life together in their new home in El Cerrito. —David Witus
Happy 37th Birthday to Avi Levitan on July 30th. Munchos y buenos! —Dina Levitan
NEW – Kvetches!
Shame on AIPAC for financially supporting Republican coup enablers such as Jim Jordon and Ronny Jackson among many others and abandoning Representative Andy Levin. —Jeremy Miller