Moriah College

CHANTAL ABITBOL

A STRING of non-Jewish appointments to head Sydney’s leading Jewish schools has led to suggestions there is a dearth of Jewish educators in Australia ready to seize top posts.

Some school boards have argued their priority is finding the best person for the job, “regardless of religious affiliation”.

This was the case when Sydney’s Emanuel School announced plans last month to replace outgoing principal Dr Bruce Carter, who is not Jewish, with another non-Jewish principal.

Moriah College also opted for the same route when it hired principal/CEO Kim Fillingham last December, despite some parents’ concerns that a non-Jewish head would struggle to push the school’s “modern Jewish ethos”.

All nine Jewish schools in Melbourne are headed by Jewish principals, although a number of them have been brought here from abroad to take up their posts.

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Time to address Jewish education

IN an interview a few years before he died, business tycoon and community benefactor Richard Pratt said that the formation of Mount Scopus Memorial College was the most important achievement of the Melbourne Jewish community in the past 60 years.

From the small enterprise on St Kilda Road grew a Jewish day school system that now consists of nine schools that between them tick the ideological box for just about anyone who identifies as a Jew in Melbourne. It is estimated that more than 60 per cent of school-age children in our community attend Jewish schools. Read the full story

ABSURD COMPARISON

TO compare being sprayed with tear gas to what millions who were exterminated in the gas chambers of Auschwitz went through, as done by Alex Nissen (AJN 06/03), is absurd to the extreme, and by all reason this comparison should discredit her, her arguments and her campaign. 

But unfortunately, such comparisons are used by our antagonists to further their cause. My greatest fear, however, stems from what the French philosopher, Voltaire, once said: “If we believe absurdities we shall commit atrocities.”

HENRY HERZOG
St Kilda East, Vic

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YOSSI ARON

ANOTHER school year is underway, and as students settle into their routines both within and beyond the Jewish day school system, there are many issues relating to education requiring consideration by our community. First and foremost are cost and affordability. From my work with Melbourne’s United Jewish Education Board (UJEB) -– Melbourne’s equivalent of Sydney’s Academy BJE, dealing with those outside the Jewish day school system -– it is clear that ever-increasing fees are having a detrimental effect on the entrance of new children into the Jewish day school system and even on retention rates at those schools. Read the full story

NAOMI LEVIN AND DALIA SABLE

ADMISSIONS across Melbourne’s Jewish schools are stable in the wake of unprecedented fee increases and unstable economic times. Despite some schools lifting fees by almost 10 per cent, Jewish schools are pleased with admissions numbers. Some, including Bialik College, which last week announced a fee increase of 9.5 per cent, are bordering on capacity.

The United Jewish Education Board (UJEB), a provider of Jewish education to students at non-Jewish schools, is also reporting a jump in enrolments. While numbers are still being finalised for the 2009 academic year, UJEB president Judith Perlstein said it is likely 1100 primary schoolchildren will attend classes, up 10 per cent on 2008. Read the full story