Dearest Members of the Los Angeles Jewish Community,

The recent events surrounding the outbreak of COVID-19 have turned our world upside-down, devastating entire countries, economies, communities and families. It is truly an event of a lifetime which will leave its mark on us for many years to come. 

As Americans and Jews, we pride ourselves on our ability to band together during times of challenge and support each other with an outpouring of kindness, generosity and super-human spirit. This time around is no different. From the Jewish community here in Los Angeles, to people all across the country, we are stepping up to help both physically and financially.

In contrast to the many acts of kindness taking place right now, on Monday, March 23rd, thousands of Jewish parents in Los Angeles awoke to a jarring new reality in the form of this joint email, composed and sent out by many of our Jewish Schools:

From:

Rabbi Shlomo Einhorn - Yeshivat Yavneh
Rabbi Ari Segal - Shalhevet High School
Rabbi Mordechai Shifman - Emek Hebrew Academy Teichman Family Torah Center
Rabbi Joshua Spodek - YULA Girls High School
Rabbi Avrohom Stulberger  - Valley Torah High School
Rabbi Arye Sufrin - YULA Boys High School
Rabbi Boruch Sufrin - Harkham Hillel Hebrew Academy
Rabbi Aharon Wilk - Gindi Maimonides Academy

 
Dear Yeshiva Day School Families,

We hope that this email finds you and your families well at this time. 

The events of the last month have certainly brought a lot of angst and concern to each of our homes. More than ever, we are aware of Hashem’s complete control over us and the world at large. In essence, Hashem has peeled back the veneer of everyday life and forced us to acknowledge the eternal truth - that we are, as always, very much in Hashem’s hands. In this way, we will try to use the upcoming months as a time to strengthen our Emunah and Bitachon and be Mechazek each other - as we lean on each other with care and compassion.

We are in touch with local Rabbanim and community organizations. Am Yisrael is a nation of compassion. As a Kehilla, we are all responsible for one another. We ask that anyone who is struggling or has the means to help struggling families in our community during this time to please be in touch with us. These are very challenging times but they are also times for great opportunity - most notably, acts of Chesed for families who are under great distress at this time. Please reach out if you need help, or if you can help in a significant way.  We will endeavor to maintain confidentiality, but try to help people get the resources they need.

One of the ways that, unfortunately, we cannot assist with, is to grant mid-year discounts at this time. We are writing to you this note today to give you an understanding of our own tremendous challenge that we are facing. In no way, do we want to seem cavalier about any individual family's struggle. On the contrary, our greatest pride is the ability to raise monies each year - to offer scholarships to families in need.  

Our challenges are now greatly exacerbated as we are continuing to employ and pay our teachers and staff, while our expenses are not expected to diminish in any material way. Regrettably, a number of our community schools will be unable to run necessary fundraising functions that will undoubtedly hurt our revenue as well. Day Schools and Yeshivot always operate under financial pressure and the events of the past month have made our struggle that much more dire. We will, once again, be reliant on tremendous Siyata Dishmaya to navigate the current challenge we are facing - and we are hopeful that the generous support of our donors will be able to mitigate some of the difficulties that we are experiencing as well.

The events of the last month - and most notably the massive changes we have endured these past few weeks - are still new to us. We will continue to speak to professionals and research any new possibilities for relief that we can then pass on to families in need. If any of these conversations bear fruit then we will notify you right away.

Baruch Hashem, our schools have experienced unprecedented Achdut over the past few weeks. We feel that this has been one of the shining lights amidst this crisis. With incredible speed, we began to operate our schools using various online platforms and creativity. We have appreciated the amazing support and feedback that we have received from you - our parents. We pray that this Tzara will be over soon and that Hashem showers us with tremendous Shefa of health and Parnasa Tova over the months ahead.

We want to take this opportunity to thank our amazing teachers - who have in a very short time, risen to the challenge. They have learned new skills, broadened their creativity and, once again, have shown why their collective hearts are the inspired pulse of this city. They are leading us by example.

Our sages teach us “Yeshuat Hashem K’heraf Ayin - Hakadosh Baruch Hu’s salvation comes in the blink of an eye.” We are davening for the quickest possible end to this pandemic and all the suffering it has caused.

To say this letter is sickening and disturbing is an understatement.

1. The administrators of EIGHT different schools, with all their collective access to manpower, creativity and financial resources, collaborated NOT to help economically devastated families; NOT to help families with Coronavirus-stricken members; NOT to help with shopping for our elderly who can't leave their homes. At a time when we most need our leaders and educators to band together to strengthen us as a community, they band together to protect their finances. 
2. Families in Los Angeles are in a state of complete financial devastation, with many of us completely uncertain of not only our financial future, but how we are going to cover our daily expenses.  They cynically abuse our fundamental value of Emunah to tell us that WE must survive on pure Emunah, while in the same breath they demand payment from us since THEY are in no way relying on Emunah to help with their financials; only an economic certainty will do for them.
3. CEOs and employees of for-profit companies around the world directly affected by the crisis are either not being paid or, if they are lucky enough, taking a huge pay cut. It is beyond outrageous that a non-profit community resource such as our schools thinks that they are so above that to the point where "...our expenses are not expected to diminish in any material way". While the salaries of our cherished teachers and administrators are well deserved, they should not be exempt from the reality that the rest of us are facing. To maintain a $400k+ salary for an administrator and demand that parents scrape together tuition scandalous. 
4. This email was sent on the eve of a 2 Trillion Dollar stimulus package that includes a BILLIONS for businesses that continue to pay their employees as well as money for employees that were laid off. You couldn't wait until it was released to see if there was any possibility of easing the burden for your community?
5. Finally, and perhaps most tragically, you could have just asked. We are a strong and supportive community. You could have called upon us and we would have worked with you to come up with creative solutions. A GoFundMe for the teachers we lay off perhaps. Maybe a payment plan. Whatever the outcome, we would have found a sensitive way to make everyone happy. But you didn't do that. You separated yourselves aloofly from your communities and banded together to save yourselves in the easiest way possible for you. Some even report that you threatened to kick out a child if their parents didn't pay. We cannot verify that, and you will deny it vociferously, but it would certainly fall within the spirit and tone of your letter. The bottom line is, our government leaders are fighting tooth and nail to help us manage, while our communal leaders are fighting for our money. Shame on you!

My dear friends. Some will have more criticism to add, while many will defend. We  write to you from a place of despair and sadness, with the hope that it will at the very least open a conversation  and bring awareness to what we see as an issue.Here are some of the questions we could use to help us better approach this issue:

1. Are our arguments and assertions right or wrong? How so?
2. How would you have done it differently?
3. If we are right, where does that leave our administrators? Do we really want them at the helm of our schools?
4. What can we do to take back our schools from the hands of their boards and turn them in to a resource that is run by the community and FOR the community?
5. What does Halacha say about this? Do we really owe tuition to a school that is closed? What about our Hashkafa? Our leaders and Rabbis must step up and give us clarity.

We have created a Facebook page for discussion here: https://bit.ly/33OY6IZ

You can submit your experience with a Jewish school here in LA (positive or negative) anonymously to the following email address and we will publish it anonymously: ShameOnYouLA@gmail.com . You can either create a fake email address so that we don't know who you are, but please make sure to omit any personally identifying information if you wish to remain anonymous.