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October 15, 2004/Tishri 30 5765, Vol. 57, No. 7
Boston day schools get $45 million gift
URIEL HEILMAN
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
NEW YORK - Jewish educators hope one of the largest gifts ever for Jewish education in America will prompt other philanthropists to follow suit.
The $45 million donation from a group of anonymous families is intended to improve Jewish day school education in Boston. The money will be spent over five years, with $30 million divided equally among three schools and the remaining $15 million designated for a tuition scholarship fund and grants for innovative edu-cational projects.
Jewish community profes-sionals hailed the move, announced Oct. 11 as a historic investment. Jewish educators say they hope other philanthropists will now step up to transform day school education across the country.
"We've been dreaming about days like this," Barry Schrage, president of the Combined Jewish Phil-anthropies, said at a news conference Oct. 11 in Boston. "The grant truly represents a change in the way the American Jewish community understands education."
The pledge, called CJP's Peerless Excellence Project, was announced at the annual conference of the Partnership for Excellence in Jewish Education, held in Boston from Oct. 10-Oct. 12.
The gift's primary bene-ficiaries will be the Solomon Schechter Day School of Greater Boston, The Rashi School and Maimonides School. They are the Boston area's three largest Jewish day schools, representing the Conservative, Reform and Orthodox movements, re-spectively.
"It's not merely a gift; it's an investment," said Lisa Rosenbaum, a member of Maimonides' executive com-mittee.
Maimonides, the oldest and largest of Boston's Jewish day schools, with approximately 625 students, is in the process of coming up with a plan to spend its $10 million - an amount equal to the school's annual budget.
The executive director of the Partnership for Ex-cellence in Jewish Education, Rabbi Joshua Elkin, said the $10 million grants constituted the largest gift for operational use in day-school education. The $45 million total dwarfed even capital gifts and day-school endowments, he said.
"It presents an unprece-dented opportunity that I believe will be something that encourages other com-munities and other donors to think about ways to invest in their day schools," he added.
The money comes with some strings attached: Funds are not to be spent on capital improvements, and the goal is to use the money to institute permanent improvements at the schools, not merely to give them a five-year boost, according to Gil Preuss, director of the Excellence Project.
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