The future of day schools and synagogues is closely connected. For 80-90% of parents who send their kids to day school, I believe that the school has replaced the synagogue as the major institution of Jewish family contact. This has consequences for both, and will change the role of both. More and more, when families need pastoral help, they turn to the school rather than to their rabbi. This is logical -- a student may see a teacher for several hours per week, and shake hands with their rabbi once a year. But should schools embrace this new role, and all that it entails? Avoid it? What are the staffing and programme implications? Conversely, synagogues seem less and less relevant to many families, with rare exceptions seeming to offer them little -- especially families who are "different" in any way.
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