VIDEO: Ronald Lauder: Only Ten Percent Of Jewish Children Attend A Jewish School

(VIDEO IN EXTENDED ARTICLE)

In an interview with Ron Lauder, former US ambassador to Austria who has established dozens of Jewish schools around the world, he presented a painful statistic: “Before the Holocaust, almost every Jewish child went to a Jewish school, because they couldn’t go anywhere else. Today… only ten percent of Jewish children go to Jewish schools. We have to change that”.

In the interview, Lauder also presented a solution to the intermarriage problem which threatens the Jews of the Diaspora. He claimed: “Jewish education is our future, and what I’ve seen more and more is that in those schools where we have real Jewish education, the intermarriage rate is very low.”

In 1986, the President of the United States Ronald Reagan appointed Lauder American ambassador to Austria. When his term ended, Lauder’s philanthropic work began with the establishment of the fund that bears his name, supporting Jewish education in Central and Eastern Europe. Today, the Lauder Foundation has 62 projects in 15 countries, including schools and kindergartens. In addition, Lauder founded, supports, contributes and serves as a trustee in another long line of philanthropic organizations, Jewish and non-Jewish, around the world.

Lauder is an untypical philanthropist, since he invests in the subject of Jewish education. “In our schools, we teach the children what “being proud to be Jewish” means. That’s critical. And the fact is that many philanthropists don’t want to get involved in education because it’s too difficult. It’s much easier to give money to other causes, such as hospitals or dance groups. Dealing with children’s education is very difficult. And also, very often, it’s not my choice if they want to establish a Reform or secular Jewish school, or an Orthodox one, in a certain city. It’s the local Jewish community’s choice”.

The interview with Lauder was conducted as part of the ‘Kikar Global’ project of the Kikar Shabbos News. The interviewer is Rabbi Benjamin Goldschmidt, Community Rabbi of Park East Manhattan. They tell, “This project was established with the aim of introducing the Jewish diaspora to the Israeli Haredi sector. “Religious Jews are a symbol of mutual responsibility and a desire to help each other, which is wonderful, but diaspora Jewry was stigmatized as not really being Jewish”, they say on ‘Kikar Shabbos. “But the truth is, of course, diaspora Jewry is a part of us. They are our brothers and sisters, and we have to know the challenges they are facing”.