At the Melton Center we believe that it is extremely important that current issues relating to Jewish education be part of our discourse. We expose our students to various spheres of content by raising questions and discussing the issues, thereby enabling each of them to think about how to respond to the challenges they face in their respective contexts.

With this in mind, we interviewed a former student of the Melton Master's in Jewish Education, Rabbi Craig Kacev. He has had a very interesting journey, and we wanted to hear his perspective on the reality of Jewish education in the world. We also asked him about his experience in the Melton Master’s program, what he regarded as its most significant elements, and how he views the importance of doing a program like this.

Prior to making Aliyah two years ago, Rabbi Kacev was director of the South African Board of Jewish Education and of the King David Schools in Johannesburg. He also served as Director of Education for UnitEd, a project of the Israeli Ministry for Diaspora Affairs serving Jewish day schools around the globe. He is currently the Director of Education for the Pincus Fund. These various roles have brought him into contact with Jewish institutions in many parts of the world, allowing him to learn about different realities, challenges, and projects.

To start off with, perhaps you could tell us a bit about your current position.

Currently I'm the Director of Education for the Pincus Fund, an educational fund set up around 50 years ago. Its purpose is to support innovative projects to develop educators throughout the Jewish world, except for Israel and America, for formal and informal Jewish education. The projects have to be innovative projects that serve to attract educators into the field, or to retain educators and provide further professionalization. The Fund provides support for the project’s first two years and sometimes the third year; after that it needs to be sustainable and to stand on its own feet. So, it's like an educational start-up fund, helping projects specifically aimed at educators.

How does the process work? Does the school or program apply to the Fund, or do or you look for them and propose a project?

Most often, schools or organizations – working in formal or informal education - will submit an application or proposal to us. Our involvement goes beyond just funding their project. Part of the role of the Fund, and of myself as the Director of Education, is to receive a project and to be able to understand it in its local context, and then work with the applicants to make it more sustainable. People have great ideas and dream big, and we see ourselves as advisors and mentors to help realize the projects in the most optimal way. 

You are in contact with a great many institutions and educators in different countries, so you understand something of the situation in each of them. Can you share what you see and some of the challenges they face?

Two years ago I made Aliyah from South Africa where I was head of the South African Board of Jewish Education and the King David School system, which comprises 11 schools with a total of over 3,000 students. What I've learned over the last two years, working with schools and institutions around the world, is that every space has its own challenges and unique opportunities. You see certain countries where the percentage of Jewish children in Jewish schools is dropping, and you see other countries where it's climbing. The beauty of being able to look at the bigger picture, with the aim of serving Jewish education more broadly,  is that you can say "Wait! That country is doing something that’s working; could that be applied to another country?” and then share those ideas across different places.

The other thing is that one does see certain trends across different countries: kids leaving Jewish day schools, or a weakening of Jewish identity, even among families that are in Jewish schools, and how schools are responding to that.

There are some big challenges that are the same throughout the world – first and foremost, a shortage of highly qualified Jewish and Hebrew educators. There's no country that has enough educators; even Israel has a shortage of teachers. I would add that there is also a tremendous shortage of Jewish educational leadership around the world.

I think there's also a shortage of high-quality content. I'm not suggesting that there should be one overarching curriculum for the whole world; there just aren’t enough people sharing good quality content. Some people have got good materials, but it’s limited to the local community or institutions. There's probably enough available around the world, collecting dust, that if everyone would share, there would be no need to spend the same money to develop almost the same thing over and over again.

Jewish educators are lonely, whether as an objective reality or in the sense that they don’t feel like they are part of a big network. There are schools or institutions where there is only one Jewish educator, or only two or three, but they are actually part of a group of thousands of Jewish educators around the globe. The knowledge that they are part of something big and can reach out and get information, materials or help from other educators elsewhere is what they need. That is a problem that needs to be solved.

Another challenge is that the world of Jewish Education is made up of many people who are teaching, be it formally or informally, and not getting enough ongoing professional development, or even lacking any degree in education.

These last two issues are interrelated: the content needs to go hand-in-hand with instructional pedagogy. Content alone or professional development divorced from context and content is not effective. 

I think this is the big picture, at least from what I've seen. It seems that wherever you look, you are going to find some element of these challenges.

That makes sense. Sometimes we think that what's happening, is only happening where we live, while actually that's not the case. Given the situation you mention regarding educators, what would be the best way to face this challenge? What are the things that you're already doing?

There's a lot being done. People are worrying about Jewish Education both locally, in their own countries, and here in Israel. The Fund is supporting many innovative initiatives, and while some solutions can be generic, others are designed for specific regions. Beyond our Fund, there are dozens of other bodies that are also attempting to address these challenges, and at times we are doing this work collaboratively.

The shortage of educators can be due to a number of different reasons. Some people would say that low salaries are the problem. Others say it's the conditions at work. Other people say, "There's no prestige... If my daughter or my son becomes a lawyer or a doctor, that's something."

In this new post-COVID era, teaching is a very inflexible profession. After COVID most people can work a few days in the office and a few days at home. Teachers always have to teach in the classroom. So from being a profession that was so attractive - "I only have to work from 7 o'clock until 2 o'clock and then I can go home, I get school holidays...” – it’s become less attractive, relatively speaking, because I have to be in class. Also, the demands on teachers have become so much greater.

So, some of these are local problems, but if local communities don't see the importance of attracting Jewish educators, paying better salaries, and caring for their other needs, or don't speak about or don't celebrate Jewish educators - having something like a “Jewish educators day/week” celebrating the profession, and awards for our educators so people see that it’s a big thing and that it's important for the future of our communities and the Jewish people - it's very difficult for someone from Israel to be able to solve that problem.

And yet, to offer just one suggestion - there's a lot of talk currently about how we should be thinking about Jewish education very differently. Most people work in a job for a few years and then leave for another job, and then on to another. Why don't we think about Jewish Education like this as well? Why don't we try to attract people for short-term engagement so they don't think, "If I start with education, I'm stuck in education"? Some mindsets have to change, to get people to come in for shorter periods of time and have more people. Just something to think about…

You have a lot of experience surrounding curriculum. Is there anything that you think we should change in this area of Jewish education that could transform the situation and generate positive impact?

From what I've seen, there are some important changes in Jewish studies that are happening. Many schools are moving to the understanding that content has to be relevant to people's modern contemporary lives, and has to bring about a deeper sense of spirituality, as well as an opportunity to debate and talk about deeper issues. Jewish topics aren't supposed to be just about sharing content. There are a lot of initiatives in both formal and informal educational spheres in these areas.

You see, for example, even in the United Kingdom, Pikuach have moved to focus much more on spirituality than on content. Content is still very important; I'm not saying it's not. But, do we want our children to go through a process of learning that is deep and engaging, or do we want them to learn that there's a lot of information?

I think that it is an important thing that schools realize that students are in a process and they're helping this process of self-development and growth. I also know that in the past many schools did not give sufficient textual learning to students, so they always got summaries of things but didn't get to read the actual text. A lot more schools are moving to authentic content so that Jewish children learn texts and value this as part of their library of knowledge; it's their heritage.

Another interesting trend I've noticed across the world is the change in the number of hours devoted to Hebrew. Whereas in the past schools may have given 8 hours a week, it’s gone down to 6 hours. In some schools Hebrew is receiving 2 hours a week or less. Parents want more English and more science and technology, due to a slew of other pressures such as university entrance, to the point that we are seeing schools really compromising the essence of who they are.

To learn a language with less than 3 or 4 hours a week is tremendously difficult. How can we expect somebody to do that? Especially if they're not in an environment where they hear the language around them. And so that is becoming a challenge, and then people are looking for different methodologies. But methodologies won't necessarily make up for the lack of time that one needs to learn a language. I'm seeing that as a tremendous challenge coming up around the world as Hebrew becomes less important for the next generation of parents. Students say, “Well, I can go to Israel and speak in English, so why do I need it?”

Most schools are not clarifying their vision and telling the parents why it's so important. I think that's a critically important change: you can't assume that the generation that sends their kids to school today has the same priorities as a previous generation. Schools need to be more proactive in asking generative questions and communicating their purpose and mission.

In many instances it is informal education activities that are providing Jewish education for kids whose families decide not to send them to Jewish schools. What do you see happening in informal education?

In the United Kingdom, because so many kids are going to Jewish schools, parents are saying, “I don't need to take my kids to the synagogue or to a youth movement.” And then you have other places where youth movements are not as strong as they used to be because when students finish school, they go to University and they haven't got time for youth movements. With all these challenges, informal opportunities are critically important, especially longer-term engagements such as camps or Israel trips and the like. Schools alone will have a big impact on Jewish identity - but not big enough, unless you've got continuity in all areas of life, formal and informal. So what we are seeing is a huge growth of supplementary schools, schools attached to synagogues, or Sunday schools. Across America there are hundreds of them, and you've got online schools for students who go to public schools to be able to learn Hebrew or Judaism in the afternoon. We're also seeing a lot more investment in people getting Masters degrees in informal Jewish Education, for schools and also outside of schools in Jewish community centers.  Informal education is being taught as a proper degree to study so that people are more effective at it.

One of the things that that I've noticed is that in most countries people don't see the big picture of the continuity of Jewish life for the individual.  So, if a child attends my synagogue and comes to the informal school at my synagogue, I don't link the child or the parents up with the local school or other organization, because I'm scared they'll leave me and my school, where I'm earning money from them coming. I don't see the child's life as a bigger picture that says we all need to be working together for this family or this child, so it's okay if they leave me to get something stronger. Our communities need much more of an abundance model rather than the scarcity of the economic model.

I do think that in the future, more countries are going to have to think about the Jewish journey of a child from birth until old age. Over the course of that journey there should be a variety of formal and informal educational opportunities.

There’s a very big trend of Jews, especially those who didn't go to Jewish schools, who reach the age of 20 to 40 and aren’t interested in being part of the Jewish community structures, but still want to remain connected. There have been hundreds of grassroots initiatives around the world for networking and ‘community building’ by organizations that bring such people together in smaller communities, informal communities, or in bespoke learning opportunities.

They are really getting involved in their Jewish identity, and that is an important trend which is growing all the time.

How was your experience in the Melton Master’s program in Jewish Education? What added value do you think it offers, taking into account the ideas we’ve discussed?

I personally thrived on the Melton Masters program. It is important for a number of reasons. First of all, most people in schools are just worrying about what's happening today and tomorrow. They’re caught up in “Run School Run” mode, to borrow terminology from Roland Barth. Very seldom do educators stop and consider what they are doing on a deeper level. So for me, starting the Masters was a huge opportunity after being an educator for many years to be able to stop and reflect, and be able to raise questions with professors and get into discussions with colleagues from around the world who are dealing with the same issues.

Secondly, we know that Israel education today isn’t simple; it's not just about designing curriculum and teaching. It's about young students who really have tough questions about Israel and want to be able to talk about them. What was special about the Melton Masters program, compared to the others that I looked at, was that it had a lot about Israel education built into it. Not to mention the added benefit of spending six weeks in Israel as part of the degree. So that element was something that was important to me.

If someone is considering a master's program, at Melton it's not just about learning information. It's also about the experience that one has in Israel with other educators and how they think about Israel.