Saving American Jewry Begins In The Classroom

A woman who had emigrated from the Soviet Union cleaned the Garbers’ home while rebuilding her life in America. She wanted her children to learn about Judaism, an opportunity largely denied to her growing up. Rabbi Avraham Dovid Garber and his wife, Susie, suggested Yeshiva of Central Queens. The mother wanted to enroll her children but could not afford tuition. The Garbers offered to help.

Several years later, the woman’s sister arrived from the former Soviet Union and faced the same obstacle. Again, the Garbers provided assistance. One sister would eventually have two sons learning in kollel in Lakewood; the other had daughters who married and established Torah-observant homes. Their children’s education had changed the course of both families.

These encounters became the beginnings of Our Jewish Children, the tuition-assistance organization Rabbi Garber founded around 2008. On Chazaq’s Torah Talks, Rabbi Garber told host Rabbi Yaniv Meirov why the future of American Jewry depends, in large measure, on helping more families make the same decision.

Rabbi Garber’s commitment to Jewish outreach began nearly five decades earlier. As a student, Rabbi Garber helped establish the Jewish Flame, which brought Torah classes and Shabbat programs to Columbia University and later to other campuses across New York and the country. Summer classes at New York University offered another opportunity for Jewish learning. Rabbi Garber continued teaching for the organization long after college.

After graduating from Columbia Law School, Rabbi Garber practiced law but found the work unfulfilling. An encounter with Rabbi Elyakim Rosenblatt zt”l, the founding Rosh haYeshivah of Yeshiva Kesser Torah in Kew Gardens Hills, led Rabbi Garber to study there and began a relationship with the Rosenblatt family lasting more than four decades. Rabbi Garber later ran a software company for approximately 25 years and taught computer science and mathematics in public schools for 13 years, all while remaining active in kiruv. Rabbi Garber also serves as Rav of Yeshiva Kesser Torah.

The question driving much of that work was how to preserve Jewish identity in the face of assimilation. Rabbi Garber presented findings from Pew Research Center’s 2020 survey of Jewish Americans. Among Jewish respondents whose current marriages began in 2010 or later, 61 percent had non-Jewish spouses. Among married Orthodox Jews, the figure was 2 percent. Rabbi Garber also discussed lower birthrates in some Jewish communities and the pressures of antisemitism, diminishing religious commitment, and the ease with which lashon hara spreads through social media.

Rabbi Garber wanted to know which intervention could make the greatest difference. His answer was full-time Jewish education.

Drawing on research about Jewish adults in the Chicago community, Rabbi Garber contrasted those who had attended Jewish day schools with those who had not. Among day school alumni, 65 percent felt very emotionally attached to Israel, compared with 27 percent of non-alumni. Fifty-seven percent said being Jewish was very much part of daily life, compared with 29 percent. And 71 percent were classified as highly engaged in Jewish life, compared with 39 percent of those without a day school education. Day school graduates were also more likely to report that most of their friends were Jewish: 66 percent versus 39 percent.

The comparisons do not prove that schooling alone produced those differences; families choosing Jewish schools may already be more engaged in Jewish life. Still, Rabbi Garber regarded the findings as powerful support for full-time education, where Torah learning and Jewish friendships become part of a child’s daily experience rather than an occasional activity.

For many families, the obstacle is financial. A school may offer a substantial scholarship and still leave a tuition balance that parents cannot meet. Rabbi Garber described Our Jewish Children’s role as the final “hammer blow”: a targeted contribution that makes enrollment possible after other assistance has been exhausted.

The organization’s informal beginnings gained structure after Rabbi Yaakov Lonner, longtime executive director of Yeshiva of Central Queens, encouraged the Garbers to establish a formal organization. By the December 2024 interview, Our Jewish Children had assisted more than 1,000 students. Its subsequently published figures report more than 1,500 children helped at 149 yeshivot across North America, with an all-volunteer staff.

Chazaq addresses another part of the challenge through its Public School to Yeshiva division, helping families explore schools and navigate transfers. During the interview, Rabbi Meirov reported approximately 1,800 placements; the organization’s cumulative count exceeded 2,000 by early 2026. Families reached by Chazaq are among those referred to Our Jewish Children for tuition assistance. The figures represent the organizations’ respective work, not separate totals to be added together.

But financial support is only useful when families learn it exists. Rabbi Garber recalled Eugene Hurewitz, a longtime Queens community member who spent years encouraging a mother to consider Jewish schooling for her children. Each time, she answered that tuition was beyond her means. Hurewitz continued the conversation until she agreed to enroll one child, and Our Jewish Children stepped in. Eventually, all her children received Jewish educations.

Hurewitz was not acting as a professional outreach worker. Rabbi Garber offered the story to show what any concerned neighbor, colleague, or relative can accomplish. A simple question about where a child attends school may reveal that the parents want a Jewish education but do not know whom to contact or how to pay for it.

There are other ways to help. Rabbi Garber encouraged financial support for tuition assistance and personal learning partnerships through groups such as Partners in Torah and TorahMates. Rabbi Meirov raised the idea of setting aside ma’aser of one’s time for others, noting that the person teaching often learns as much from the preparation and questions as the student does.

Rabbi Garber closed with a dvar Torah that explained what is at stake in passing Jewish values to another generation. When Lot warned his sons-in-law that Sodom would be destroyed, they dismissed the warning as a joke. The Torah describes them not only as sons-in-law but also as men who had “taken his daughters.” Why repeat what their marriages already established?

Citing Rav Samson Raphael Hirsch, Rabbi Garber explained that the sons-in-law had drawn Lot’s daughters into Sodom’s values. They belonged to his family through marriage but had adopted a worldview so different from his that his warning meant nothing to them. Avraham Avinu, by contrast, insisted that Eliezer find a suitable wife for Yitzchak, mindful of the principles upon which the next generation’s home would be built.

Rav Hirsch applied the lesson to assimilation in nineteenth-century Germany. Rabbi Garber saw the same danger in contemporary American life: Parents cannot assume that the Torah values they cherish will pass intact to children immersed in a different set of priorities. Those values require an environment in which they are taught and lived.

For the two immigrant sisters, that environment began with a Jewish school they could not afford on their own. The Garbers’ assistance made it possible, giving their children an education whose influence would extend to their grandchildren.

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Rabbi Yaniv Meirov is the mara d’atra of Kehilat Charm Circle in Kew Gardens Hills and serves as Chief Executive Officer of Chazaq. Now 222 episodes strong, Chazaq Torah Talks continues to inspire by showing that Jewish growth and survival are shaped through lived experience, commitment, and connection.