Tag: Jewish Federation of Ottawa

Ottawa school closes

Ottawa Jewish Community School’s high school program will be phased out by 2017. (photo from cjnews.com)

A unanimous decision by the Ottawa Jewish Community School’s board of directors will see the city’s only Jewish high school program phased out by 2017.

“An extensive examination by OJCS leadership, which included a study by the school’s sustainability committee, has determined that the high school is not financially viable,” Aaron Smith, OJCS board president, said in a Feb. 10 letter to parents about the decision to close the high school. “Put simply, not enough families are choosing to send their children to grades 9 through 12. This has been a challenge in the high school over [its] 20-year existence.”

In 2006, Ottawa’s Jewish elementary school, Hillel Academy, amalgamated with Yitzhak Rabin High School and the new school was renamed OJCS. Despite having both schools under one roof, the high school continued to struggle to sustain itself. Smith said it would require a minimum annual community subsidy of $250,000, on top of regular operating costs, to avoid a deficit.

“We require a minimum of 50 students to be sustainable given our current cost structure. This year, we have 24 students and, next year, at best, we expect 20 students total enrolled,” Smith said.

Tuition for the high school program for the coming year is about $14,000. Andrea Freedman, president and chief executive officer of the Jewish Federation of Ottawa, said the challenge with the deficit is that it’s ongoing.

“This is not a short-term infusion of cash that is required to save the school. It is an ongoing minimum deficit of $250,000 each and every year. So that means that for every incoming Grade 9 class, to see them through to graduation is $1 million. And there is no obvious source for these funds, despite peoples’ good intentions,” she said. “It was a decision of the school board to close it, but it is a broader community decision to not provide additional deficit funding for the school.”

Smith said OJCS will begin to phase out the high school program next fall. “We are committed to providing the existing Grade 10 and 11 classes with the ability to finish their high school studies and graduate from OJCS,” he said.

The elementary school currently has a student body of about 200.

David Roytenberg, the father of one OJCS graduate and one current OJCS student, hopes he can galvanize Ottawa’s Jewish community to raise the funds necessary to sustain the high school.

He started a Facebook group called Supporters of the Ottawa Jewish Community High School, and has managed to raise more than $5,000 in just two days.

“We are trying to raise money to reverse the decision. But they’ve presented it as a fait accompli,” Roytenberg said. “Obviously, we would have some work to do to increase the enrolment…. There wasn’t really a Grade 9 class this year, which was part of the problem. They had one kid come in this past fall, so that leaves a big hole in the school…. But personally I just find it unthinkable that we would close the high school. It is like the cornerstone of the community.”

He added that there are seven OJCS eighth graders who are signed up for Grade 9 next year, and their parents are now faced with a choice about where to send them.

Freedman said the decision to close the school is not one that anyone wanted to make. “The basic challenge is that not enough parents are making the decision to send their child to Jewish day school in general and the high school in particular,” she said, adding that there are about 900 high school-aged Jews in Ottawa, and fewer than two dozen were planning to enrol in the OJCS next year.

“We have a responsibility to meet the needs not only of the 20 students who are projected to enrol in the school next year, but to the 880 other teens in our community,” she said.

Reflecting on why there has been such a significant drop in enrolment from Grade 8 to Grade 9, Freedman said, “I think finances comes into play, but I think it is a priorities question in part, and I think it is a question of socialization. Parents are understandably concerned about sending their child to such a small school.”

Freedman added that although “extraordinarily painful,” it was a decision that had to be made. “We avoided it for as long as possible but, ultimately for the greater good of the community, it is a difficult decision that had to be made.”

Roytenberg said that he’s joined a task force that was set up at an emotional Feb. 12 community meeting at Ottawa’s JCC about the school’s closing.

He added that he’ll keep trying to raise money for a “rescue fund” to save OJCS.

“I’m hopeful that we can raise some significant money and maybe that will help to change their minds,” he said. “Ottawa has about 14,000 Jews. We ought to be able to sustain a high school. We ought to be able to raise the money to keep it going.”

– For more national Jewish news, visit cjnews.com.

Rehab Nazzal exhibit slammed

Canada’s Israeli embassy and the Jewish Federation of Ottawa say that an art exhibit on display at Ottawa City Hall’s Karsh-Masson Gallery glorifies Palestinian terrorism and have urged the city to review its policy on how exhibits are approved.

The exhibit, Invisible, by Palestinian-born, Toronto-based artist Rehab Nazzal, includes photographs of some of the most notorious Palestinian terrorists, including Abu Iyad, who was responsible for the 1972 Munich Games massacre, and Khalid Nazzal, the artist’s brother-in-law, who was the mastermind behind the Ma’alot school massacre that killed 22 children and three adults 40 years ago.

Eitan Weiss, spokesperson and head of public diplomacy for the Israeli embassy in Canada, said the embassy was moved to contact Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson when it learned that the city was “endorsing it and, not only that, but paying for it. They are funding a lot of this with taxpayers’ money.”

Artists are paid about $1,800 to have their work displayed at the gallery.

“The artist is portraying these people as innocent Palestinians, authors, writers, cartoonists, politicians who were assassinated by Israel,” Weiss said. “We’re talking about terrorists with blood on their hands.”

Ottawa Federation president and chief executive officer Andrea Freedman said, “It’s a hurtful exhibit in the fact that it glorifies Palestinian terrorists, so it’s highly problematic that it is funded by taxpayers’ dollars and it has no place in City Hall.”

She said Federation has called on the city to shut down the exhibit, which is scheduled to run until June 22.

In an email statement to the CJN, deputy city manager Steve Kanellakos explained that the exhibit is in line with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and that it won’t be taken down prematurely.

All exhibits at the gallery are selected by an independent jury and the themes of each exhibit do not represent the views of the City of Ottawa, he said.

“To exhibit a work of art is not to endorse the work or the vision, ideas and opinions of the artist. It is to uphold the right of all to experience diverse visions and views.”

However, following meetings with Ottawa Federation and Israeli Ambassador Rafael Barak, the mayor agreed to review the policy governing the selection process of the gallery’s artwork, which has been in place since 1993.

Nazzal told the Ottawa Citizen that the decision by the city to review the policy has her “concerned about the future of artists showing work of significance.”

Although Freedman said she’s disappointed the exhibit remains open, “the main thing from our perspective is that the city … will be reviewing and revising their policies so that in the future, no other community will have to experience this.”

Weiss said the purpose of the meeting between the ambassador and the mayor was not to shut down the exhibit.

“We understand their constraints because, at the end of the day, they are aware of the fact that this is a problematic exhibition, and they claim that their hands are tied due to legal constraints in terms of taking it down,” he said.

“We’re just trying to expose reality and expose the truth and use this moment as a teaching moment and tell the Canadian audience that if you want to know why Israelis and Palestinians haven’t reached a peace agreement, this is the reason why. Palestinians enshrine terrorists, they commemorate and glorify them, and this is something that is unacceptable. Imagine what people would have said if the pictures of the 9/11 terrorists would have been there,” Weiss said. “It’s a good opportunity for us to showcase the Palestinian propaganda and how they tend to twist the reality and change the truth to suit their narrative, which is completely false in this case. This is our objective in this.”

– For more national Jewish news, visit cjnews.com.