This is the most important Jewish investment in 50 years.

If we are striving for Jewish continuity, we need more than hope. We need classrooms.

photo: Note Thanun/Unsplash

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This is a guest essay by Adam Hummel, a lawyer in Toronto.

You can also listen to the podcast version of this essay on Apple Podcasts, YouTube Music, YouTube, and Spotify.

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Toronto’s Jewish community is facing a simple and urgent reality: We do not have enough space for all the Jewish children whose parents want them in Jewish day schools.

This isn’t a crisis of interest, but a moment of remarkable strength. Families are choosing Jewish education in numbers we have not seen in decades. Parents who once wavered are now decisive. People who never imagined day school are walking in and asking how soon they can start. The demand is real, and it is inspiring.

No one “forgot” to build classrooms. What happened is that the ground shifted beneath us faster than anyone expected. For years the communal conversation centred on affordability. Tuition was the dragon we set out to slay, and in many ways, we did. Costs stabilized. Scholarships expanded. The Generations Trust remarkably reshaped the landscape. Tanenbaum Community Hebrew Academy of Toronto’s tuition reductions and subsidies drew in many new families. Donors stepped up, leaders strategized, and there was a collective sense that a long-standing obstacle had finally begun to move.

The pandemic was, at least for day schools, a blessing. Transitioning faster than public schools to remote learning gave day schools a leg up, and showed the community the value of that expensive tuition. Enrollment expanded.

Then October 7th happened, and the outside community’s relationship with Jewish identity, Jewish safety, and Jewish continuity changed literally overnight. The toxicity within the public school boards showed parents and students what their teachers and colleagues really thought. Maybe day school could, now be, an option? Our day schools rose to the occasion.

Suddenly, the limiting factor wasn’t tuition. It was physical room. Doors. Floors. Classrooms. Schools found themselves with interest they had prayed for — and nowhere to put the children who wanted in.

No institution ignored this. They were caught off guard by a surge that would have surprised any city. Federation, board members, donors, and school administrators have all been scrambling to assess the scale of this moment and determine what is needed not just now, but 10 and 15 years from now. They are trying to ensure that new builds are adaptable, flexible, and sustainable, especially given past closures, relocations, and the understandable nervousness that comes with committing tens of millions of dollars to long-term infrastructure.

The concern is real: What if families continue leave for Florida or Israel? What if a rise in antisemitism changes the demographic landscape? What if this surge softens five years from now? These are legitimate questions. I don’t share all the alarmist assumptions behind them, but I understand why they are being asked.

But here is the other side of that story: This moment is not a blip. It is not a fad. It is not a panicked reaction. It is an awakening. Jewish parents are choosing Jewish schools because the case for Jewish education has never been stronger, never been clearer, and never been more empirically supported.

And this is the part of the narrative we must emphasize.

American writer Dan Senor said it plainly in a recent episode of his podcast: “The one thing that has worked is raise Jewish kids. Raise Jewish kids. That is how you get Jewish continuity.” He’s right. It is not a gimmick. It is not a flashy initiative. It is children spending their formative years in environments that feel Jewish, where their friendships are Jewish, where their sense of self is nourished rather than negotiated.

The data is everywhere, and it all says the same thing. Jewish day school alumni are twice as likely to feel deeply connected to Jewish identity and four times more likely to identify with and support the state of Israel. Four times! You can’t argue with that. You can’t hand-wave it away.

In every single study across Canada, the United States, and around the Jewish world, the message is identical: If you want strong, confident, committed Jews, you place them in Jewish day schools.

And it’s not just curriculum. As Senor noted, children form the relationships that define their lives in day school — relationships more influential than any adult. Day schools build those relationships inside a Jewish environment. They make Judaism lived instead of theoretical. They turn Jewish holidays into memories instead of vocabulary lists.

Our ancestors already understood this. Pirkei Avot¹ (Ethics of the Fathers) teaches that the world rests on Torah, service (avodah), and acts of loving-kindness (gmilut chasadim). Day schools weave those values into a child’s life before they can even spell them. Pirkei Avot also warns that we have two stark options for fulfillment in our lives: o chevruta, o mituta (give me community, or give me death).

So here we are today: overflowing waitlists, maxed-out classrooms, and a moment that demands bold action.

Tanenbaum Community Hebrew Academy of Toronto is bursting at the seams with over 350 students in the incoming grade 9 year. May I be so bold as to suggest that Tanenbaum Community Hebrew Academy of Toronto must be given the resources to expand, open another branch (yes, again), or that our community needs a second Jewish high school (preferably in Thornhill, for the junior Hummels).

Bialik’s Viewmount campus is full. Their Himel (Thornhill) campus is nearly full. Associated, Leo Baeck, and Robbins Hebrew Academy are similarly running out of space. These (and others) are the schools that attract families who have a genuine choice between public and Jewish education. These are the families we must reach now, not in five years, not once committees finish needs-assessments and strategic plans, but now.

Now is also the moment to think big. As I wrote a few months ago, we need to aim high with the capacity of our Jewish education systems. This includes post-secondary school too. After Tanenbaum Community Hebrew Academy of Toronto (or any other Jewish high school), we need post-secondary options where our kids won’t be marginalized or worse, persecuted, because of their religion or Zionism. Why not build a Jewish university? Or at least one based on Jewish values that will never capitulate to the woke/anti-Zionist/antisemitic mobs?

In 2024, the province of Ontario accredited the Canadian Islamic College, so why can’t they do the same with a Jewish university? Bari Weiss, Niall Ferguson, Joe Lonsdale, and others founded the University of Austin several years ago “dedicated to the fearless pursuit of truth.” It has already raised over $200 million from almost 3,000 donors, and just received a $100 million grant from prominent Jewish philanthropist Jeff Yass, to keep tuition free. Why not do that here?

I get that the Jewish Federation of Greater Toronto and major donors have legitimate reasons to feel cautious. They are trying to plan responsibly. They are trying to learn from past experience. They are trying to ensure that massive capital investments remain relevant even if the future shifts again. None of this is unreasonable, but it means we must build spaces that can expand, contract, adapt, or be repurposed if needed.

We also need courage. We need urgency. And we need donors (who we already have in our community) with vision to understand that the risk of building too few classrooms is far greater than the risk of building one too many.

In October and November 2023, Toronto’s Jewish community raised over $60 million for Israel. That was a response to emergency.

This, too, is an emergency. It is one grounded in hope, though, not fear. Perhaps that distinction motivates something different in our subconscious or desire to reach for our wallets and cheque books, but if ever there was a moment that called for bold investment, it is now.

This is not a Jewish guilt trip. This is an invitation to take part in something generational. When Dan Senor speaks to philanthropists about day school expansion, he says they often only consider the schools their own children attended. But the moment demands something bigger: a communal mindset that sees Jewish education not as a personal project, but as a collective responsibility.

Every Jewish child deserves a seat. Not eventually. Not after a long planning cycle. Not once the next campaign wraps. Now.

There is no make-up year for identity. There is no late-entry equivalent for formative childhood experience.

So, yes, we need buildings. We need renovations. We need temporary modular classrooms. We need search committees looking at vacant properties right now. We need fully funded capital campaigns, and yes’s when people are asked to donate. Buy a building, gut it, put up walls. It doesn’t need to look perfect on day one. It needs to exist (preferably with a washroom, some books, pencils, and a smartboard).

The future of Jewish life in Toronto is calling. Will we answer with classrooms or with waiting lists?

We are heirs to a tradition that survived empire, persecution, and displacement. We can survive a zoning meeting. We can build something worthy of the moment. We can look at one another and our children and say: This is ours to fix.

And then fix it. Already.

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1. Pirkei Avot is a compilation of the Jewish theological and ethical teachings and maxims from Rabbinic Jewish tradition.