I appreciate both the sentiments in the Clarion Call and in Jonathan Woocher's Can We Afford it. As the Chairperson of the Supplementary Principals Council, I am working with colleagues to pick up the pieces and advocate for a central agency since the Centre for Enhancement or Jewish Education was largely closed at the end of March with the exception of a skeleton staff in place until the end of June. We are advocating for the grants we receive to support special programs, family education and special education as well as for consultants to work with us. While the supplementary community has been assured that the funding for grants are in place for the comng school year, the lack of consultants to work with means that some schools will find the application process that much more difficult if not impossible. The consultants are the ones who make it possible for all of us from across the denomination spectrum to sit at a table, to study together and to work collaboratively. It is not only the loss of the consultants who work closely with our very large communtiy, it is also the potential loss of working together as a community. Decisions in various communities to cut central agencies of Jewish education may save dollars in the short run but harms the future of the community in the long run.

I read with disbelief the recent emails from Combined Jewish Philanthropies of Greater Boston regarding the recommendation of an ad hoc task force and subsequent decision of CJP's board to suspend funding of the Bureau of Jewish Education of Greater Boston as of the end of July. This effectively shuts down the BJE, as CJP had been its major funding source.

Although I do not doubt that the delivery of education services can be restructured in a way that is more cost-effective, the closure of this agency that has been serving our community with distinction for 90 years and has a proud history of accomplishment is a step that is ill-advised and will have negative repercussions for years to come. Once implemented, it will be all but irreversible, and the existence of a local organization dedicated solely to the growth and improvement of Jewish educational institutions and Jewish educators in our area will no longer exist.

Combined Jewish Philanthropies does a lot of things well, but I believe our community would be better off with independent organizations that serve critical needs, rather than a centralized federation that tries to do everything itself and then must make decisions based on short-term funding and vision. Parceling out pieces of the BJE's service agenda to a variety of other agencies also will not serve Jewish education well in the long-term.

JESNA's Clarion Call for responsible management and funding of centralized Jewish education organizations reminds us all of the value of a strong infrastructure for Jewish education and compels us to act to both maintain and continuously improve this infrastructure.

Thank you for your comment. We are in fact planning to send this out to the Jewish media over the next couple of days. JTA has already posted a blog titled "Don't cut Jewish education" on their site this past Friday. We hope to send this out to federation leadership as well. We encourage all to use the "email this" icon at the end of the article and forward this message to people on their lists who might be interested in this topic.

Thank you very much for taking the lead in standing up for the central agencies. Central agencies are too valuable a resource to be lost. I hope that that JESNA's "Clarion Call" will also be sent directly to Federation leadership as well as to Jewish news publications across the country. Jeffrey Lasday, former Executive Director, CAJE