Rabbi Gary A. Glickstein

This summer, Joanie and I were able to spend time in Los Angeles visiting family. We spent time with my mother and sisters. We met our new great nephew and renewed acquaintances with aunts and cousins as well as old friends.

At a baby shower for my first cousin, once removed, who is expecting a girl very soon, I found out that the expectant mother works as the assistant principal at one of the most prestigious Jewish day schools in the country. I asked her if she will send her own child to that school. She told me that staff only gets a 15% discount and that she would not be able to afford tuition. I asked what that tuition would run. Her answer astounded and shocked me: $20,000 a year for elementary school, $26,000 a year for middle school and a whopping $28,500 a year for high school.

It costs a lot to be a Jew.

In America today there are synagogue dues, assessments and special campaigns, Bar/Bat Mitzvah expenses, summer camp, JCC membership, trips to Israel, and Jewish day school tuitions, among many other expenses. This does not even begin to address the myriad of Jewish charitable organizations that solicit us endlessly. And of course, we are pressured to invest in Israel Bonds by our Rabbi.

It costs a lot more to be a Jew in Israel.

It is true that Jewish day school is included in Israeli citizenship. College is first rate and very affordable. Synagogue dues are nonexistent in Orthodox shuls and very reasonable in non-orthodox congregations. There, JCCs are community based. Bar and Bat Mitzvah expenses unfortunately have begun to mimic our traditions and have risen notably in the past few years. Increasingly, Israelis are being solicited for all manner of charities and responding positively.

In Israel the bill is paid in stress and blood.

This summer our Israeli brothers and sisters bled. They paid an enormous price. One million Jews in the North were displaced. Most of them were generously welcomed into the homes of Israeli citizens living in safer cities and towns. For now the killing and destruction is on hiatus. The stress continues. It has been the one constant throughout the history of the Jewish State. Fifty-eight years after Israel’s establishment as a state, hostile voices in the Arab world, in Europe, and even in America continue to question her right to exist. She remains vigilant and steadfast. She had better. It is the only way Israel will continue to survive and thrive.

And you and I better pay our part of the bill as well. For her future and for ours, we must rise to the call and write the checks. During the High Holidays we will be asked to make a special gift to the United Jewish Communities Emergency Fund through our own Greater Miami Jewish Federation. We will also be given the opportunity to use our investment dollars to purchase Israel Bonds and help in the effort to raise emergency dollars to rebuild the damaged infrastructure, particularly in the north of Israel.

This year, let’s admit our gratitude that money is all that is asked of us. Let us thank our Israeli brothers and sisters for all that is demanded of them and for how valiantly they have already responded.

L’ Shana Tova Tikatayvu,

Rabbi Gary Glickstein