H EADLINES
Hebrew Schools Struggle to Find Teachers
L OCA L
JARRAD SAFFREN | JE STAFF
DURING THIS YEAR back
in person at local Hebrew
schools, teachers have been a
little tougher to fi nd, according
to school leaders.

But that doesn’t mean that
schools have faced shortfalls or
failed to fi ll the gaps.

Most Philadelphia-area
Hebrew programs are running
smoothly in 2021-’22. If
anything, due to pandem-
ic-induced hesitancy about
returning to social life, it just
took them a bit longer in the
summer to fi ll their teaching
staff .

“I’ve never had a harder
time than I had this summer,”
said Beverly Socher-Lerner, the
founding director of the Makom
Community, an aft er-school
Beverly Socher-Lerner, front, with Makom Community students during
an after-school session.

Courtesy of the Makom Community
program for Jewish youth. “We
saw fewer applicants, and they
came in later this summer.”
Socher-Lerner saw about
30% fewer candidates than she
did in a normal summer. But
she was still able to fi ll her staff
by the end of August.

Th e director just needed to
raise part-time pay by $5 an
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hour and full-time, entry-level
pay by $4,000 per year. She used
Makom’s federal CARES Act
money and asked its board of
trustees to dip into the commu-
nity’s reserve fund to make the
upgrades. But it was worth it, Socher-
Lerner said.

“It’s clear that the quality
of our program sits on the
educators we have for our kids,”
she added.

Makom, though, is diff erent
from other area religious
programs. It’s available fi ve days
a week aft er school.

Other Hebrew schools are
more traditional in the sense
that they off er programming a
couple of times a week and don’t
need full-time educators. But
aft er a 2020-’21 year of mostly
virtual learning, they, too, had a
little more trouble hiring.

Gabby Kaplan-Mayer
helps run the Jewish Learning
Venture, a nonprofi t that off ers
professional development to
education directors as part
of its mission. Th e organiza-
tion works with about 50 area
Hebrew programs.

Most, according to Kaplan-
Mayer, had one or two teachers
who didn’t come back and
couldn’t fi ll those gaps until
right before the new year
started. Th e chief program offi cer
attributed the sluggish fi eld to
three factors.

First and foremost, teachers
over 60 were hesitant to return
JEWISH EXPONENT
Makom Community has found enough staff members to keep
programming going this year, but it hasn’t been easy.

Courtesy of the Makom Community
to the classroom when students
weren’t vaccinated yet.

“Th ese are people doing it as
a part-time gig,” Kaplan-Mayer
said. S e c ond ly, du r i ng t he
pandemic, a lot of new
part-time work emerged online.

Th ere were more ways to make
extra money without driving
somewhere. “A lot of teachers might do
online tutoring now,” Kaplan-
Mayer said.

Finally, local education direc-
tors haven’t targeted younger
people as potential teachers. In
other regions, Hebrew schools
work with college Hillels to fi nd
younger, engaged Jews.

“Th ey’re really nurturing
people to step in,” she said.

Kaplan-Mayer thinks it will
benefi t area Hebrew schools
to begin recruiting new talent.

Jewish Learning Venture is
in the process of developing
a program for helping them
do that.

Local Hebrew schools will
need those younger teachers
when the older teachers stop
coming back. But for now, those
older instructors are enough
for many synagogue-based
religious schools.

“Most of our teachers have
been with us for several years,”
said Rabbi David Glanzberg-
Krainin of Beth Sholom
Congregation in Elkins Park.

“Th e ones we’ve had have been
willing to come back.”
Other rabbis echoed
Glanzberg-Krainin. Some
maintained staff consis-
tency well enough during the
pandemic to even grow their
student bodies.

Ohev Shalom of Bucks
County has 135 students, which
Rabbi Eliott Perlstein described
as “a little bit more than last
year.” Congregation Brothers of
Israel in Newtown has more
than 30 students now, up from
22 or 23 before the pandemic.

Due to its own increase,
Ohev Shalom hired one more
teacher for the 2021-’22 year.

Perlstein called hiring “a little
bit more challenging than in
past years.” But the synagogue
got it done in time.

Programs that have fallen
short of that goal have made
it work.

Abigail Weinberg, the
education director of the
Germantown Jewish Centre,
had to teach a class herself for
the fi rst fi ve weeks of the year.

Th e GJC was one staff member
short but eventually found one.

Congregation Beth Solomon,
also in the city, has three rabbis
who share Hebrew teaching
duties, and two contracted
COVID-19 at diff erent points.

In each case, the school just
rotated in another rabbi, Rabbi
Solomon Isaacson said.

“No interruption,” he said.

“It wasn’t diffi cult at all. It went
very smoothly.” ●
jsaff ren@jewishexponent.com;
215-832-0740 JEWISHEXPONENT.COM



H eadlines
New Nonprofit Offers Security Training
JARRAD SAFFREN | JE STAFF
remembers them, were illustra-
tions of the “terrible things the
Nazis did.”
“My deep thought was,
‘Never again,’” Rakhman said.

“Never again that they will
slaughter Jews like animals.”
The Bucks County resident’s
historical memory reminded
him that Jews could always
be blamed. And this modern
era of turbulent events, like
COVID-19, reminded him
that they could be again, at
any time, for any traumatic
incident. “We know what’s happened
in Egypt, Babylon, Spain,
France, Russia, Poland,”
Rakhman said. “Sometimes the
young generation can forget it.”
According to Rakhman,
though, remembering is not
enough. Jewish communities
also need to act.

JEPP’s guiding principle
is that Jews should assume
that antisemitic incidents will
happen. Therefore, taking
precautions on a perennial
basis is necessary.

As Savett explained, no
one can know exactly when
such attacks will occur. But if
a community has structures
in place to handle crises, its
See Security, Page 7
M LE
OO LAB
DR AI
BE V
2 TS A
I UN
U PPE R DU BL I N
! SECURITY HAS BECOME a
priority for the Jewish commu-
nity in recent years.

In October, the Jewish
Federations of North America
announced a $54 million effort
to help local Jewish commu-
nities secure their buildings.

JFNA President and CEO Eric
Fingerhut called it “a perma-
nent new cost to the Jewish
community.” But security, according to
a new Philadelphia nonprofit,
the Jewish
Emergency Preparedness Project, goes
deeper than cameras, locks
and other equipment to protect
buildings. Security, at its
deepest level, means people
who are prepared to defend
themselves. Rakhman and Savett want
Jews to be ready for severe
storms, overt antisemitism,
missing persons, active shooters
and riots, among other poten-
tially dangerous events.

Yoni Ari, JEPP’s interim
CEO, recommends
that organizations start with a risk
assessment and the develop-
ment of an emergency protocol.

Savett believes that, to stay
ready, Jewish communities
should organize two training
sessions per year.

JEPP is ready to offer
security experts who can help
with both.

“This is an ongoing thing,”
Ari said. “To help the Jewish
community build resiliency.”
Recent tragedies, like the
2018 Tree of Life synagogue
complex shooting in Pittsburgh
and the 2019 Poway synagogue
shooting in
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That’s why two area residents
and Jewish Federation of
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Vitaly Rakhman and Sherrie
Savett are starting JEPP. The
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The Jewish Federation is a
partner in the effort.

JEWISHEXPONENT.COM reinforced that need in the
consciousness of American
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But the idea for JEPP
came from the life experience
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immigrant’s great-grand-
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Nazi-perpetrated Babi Yar
massacre of more than 30,000
Jews in Ukraine.

His childhood books, as he
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5