Baltimore Jewish Day Schools

By Maayan Jaffe, Baltimore Jewish Examiner

Comforting. Warm. Truly phenomenal. All adjectives that have been used to describe the local day school known as the Beth Tfiloh Dahan Community School or “BT”. On one surprisingly warm winter day last week, this reporter stopped into Beth Tfiloh to meet the students, the teachers and the parents. While no doubt the day school’s physical structure – a nearly-new lower school with exquisite personal touches and plush and inviting classrooms and library – the individuals who make up the Beth Tfiloh family stood out most of all.

“I learn about my Jewish background at Beth Tfiloh, explained fifth-grader Haviva Gurewitsch. “I get to know how my great, great, great ancestors were living and how they got around and what their thinking was, how they celebrated some  of the same holidays that I do.”

In her pink BT polo and tan pants, Haviva was full of praise for the institution she has attended since preschool. She loves the morning prayers, she said. She loves her math teacher, her English teacher and her Torah teacher. One teacher, she said, “really teachers you how to be a student, and that is the most important skill you could ever have.”

Wise beyond her years, Haviva isn’t shy when it comes to the importance of day school. She said she can’t imagine life at any other place. When she tries, she pictures being disconnected; “I would only learn about my Judaism at home and that wouldn’t be enough for me. I want to be at a school where I can learn about me and my people.”

“When my husband and I started thinking about having children, we said if we don’t give them a Jewish education, they are not going to get it in the world,” explained Becky Brenner, who sends her sons, Jacob and Noah, to BT. She noted her kids are very well-rounded, participating in sports and many other extracurricular activities. However, she said, “we want them to get a Jewish education and background and we don’t believe they can get that anywhere else but at a day school.”

Petite Olivia Plant said going to BT has influenced her family. Now in middle school, Olivia said her family has learned ways to enhance its personal celebration of holidays such as Purim and Chanukah from Olivia’s classes. High school student Joseph Schwartz said his well-rounded education – Talmud to chemistry – has better prepared him for college than some of his non-day school friends. He said going to BT “helps build your confidence during the college admissions process.”

It all makes sense. Recent studies by the Partnership for Excellence in Jewish Education have indicated that day school students tend to be equally, if not more, successful in college than their non-day school counterparts. Day school students express a greater desire to participate in social action and other community endeavors as they age, and, of course, they tend to have a stronger Jewish identity, especially those who graduate from a Jewish high school. What is striking, however, is not that a small private school can foster such future leaders, but that the long day and difficult curriculum not only doesn’t phase the students, but is actually praised; the kids want to be in school because they say its like a home away from home. The teachers are trusted caregivers. The other students are brothers, sisters and cousins. The values are wholesome … and Jewish.

Rabbi Yehuda Oratz has been teaching at Beth Tfiloh for seven years. When he came to BT, he was new to the Baltimore Jewish community.

“I came here because I needed a job. I always loved Jewish education, but this position was just another place to teach. BT has brought something out in me. The students have ignited a spark. It is not a job anymore, it has become my life,” he said.
Oratz said he feels the day school environment is unique, especially at Beth Tfiloh. At basketball games, the stands are packed with cheering peers. A siyuum, or completion of a section of Torah study, will be equally celebrated. At performances, each participant receives a standing ovation from his/her classmates.

“Jewish life is about being part of a community. Whether you are Reform, Conservative, Orthodox, whatever, being Jewish is about being part of something larger than yourself. At a school like BT, you are part of a community,” Oratz explained. “It’s not from the classes or from the dogma, for lack of a better word. It is part of who you are. Just by walking the halls, you are automatically surrounded by other Jewish people. … Day school is the single most important link to Jewish continuity.”

“A Gift That Lasts a Lifetime” — A series of eight days of posts about Jewish Day School for Chanukah 2010. Read them all.

A recent post on the PEJE Blog by Renee Rubin Ross, Ph.D., a postdoctoral fellow at the Mandel Center for Studies in Jewish Education at Brandeis University suggests that a Jewish day school is something quite different from a “Jewish independent school”.

“Some might suggest that Jewish day schools are just like independent schools, except Jewish. Day schools are often encouraged to think about their similarities with independent schools and draw on the governance, fundraising, and administrative practices of independent schools.

But my dissertation research suggests that a Jewish day school is something quite different than a “Jewish independent school.” For a year, I conducted ethnographic research at a Jewish day school, a Catholic school, and a secular independent school, exploring how parents were involved in each of the three schools. I interviewed administrators, teachers, and parents, and attended parent events. What I found was that the terms of the relationship between parents and administration were qualitatively different across the schools.

What do I mean by this? At all three schools, parents were concerned about their children’s academic success: They attended parent conferences and back-to-school nights, helped their children with homework, and spoke to teachers and administrators when they had a concern about their children’s learning. But at “Jewish Day”[*] and “St. Cornelius,” parents had a more robust relationship with the school.

How could I tell this? One fascinating piece of evidence was that parents at Jewish Day and St. Cornelius had much more to say about their schools. My conversations with parents at “College Prep” (the independent school) centered around the fact that the school was a good fit academically and socially for their child. Most parents were not looking to build community around the school, and those who were interested reported that others families were often “busy.”

In contrast, parents at Jewish Day and St. Cornelius also spoke about the fact that these schools were a good fit academically and socially for their children, and how meaningful it was to support and be involved with a community institution; how they celebrated religious holidays with other families from the school; how families supported one another in times of need; and how they trusted the other families to help them raise their children.  When I interviewed parents at each of the three schools, I asked the same questions, but the interviews with Jewish Day and St. Cornelius consistently took longer, because these parents had many more ways of connecting with the school.

It may not be surprising that families connected to a Jewish or Catholic school had more to talk about than academics. But what was a little more surprising was that this different kind of relationship helped to buffer conflict between administrators and parents when it inevitably occurred. For example, when several students at College Prep were reported to have fallen behind, parents were angry, some to the point of being litigious. In contrast, when students at Jewish Day were reported to have not met curricular standards, parents were also angry, but they worked with the school to find solutions and improve teaching and learning.

So a Jewish day school can be more than a Jewish independent school; parents’ emotional investment in the school may be deeper and exist on many more levels. At a time of thinking about how to strengthen Jewish day schools financially, the impact and importance of this emotional investment should be carefully considered.”