An empty classroom. Photo: Wiki Commons.

I have just returned from a very moving and memorable reunion of pupils of the Jewish Boarding school Carmel College, which my father founded in 1948. The school closed in 1997.

It was often called the Jewish Eton. Those who attended the reunion ranged from its very first year, to its last. I experienced Carmel as a rebellious pupil, and years later as its headmaster and principal. We all agreed that Carmel had a profound impact on our lives in one way or another.

The reunion included a debate in which I participated — “That Carmel College was a failed Jewish educational experiment.”

The motion was overwhelmingly defeated because nearly everyone there looked back on their Carmel experience with affection and gratitude, even if some did not at the time.

But the question was whether Carmel could be considered a model for Jewish education or whether it was just a unique child of its time.

When my father started Carmel College in 1948, it was at a time when the British Empire still existed, and Britain was a haven for refugees escaping the horrors of European Jew hatred. But even in Britain, antisemitism was manifest and this encouraged many Jews to assimilate or hide their identities.

The idea of Jewish education horrified many as an impediment to integration. Opposition to the project was fierce. My father argued that Jewish students in non-Jewish schools would always feel like outsiders. In Carmel, they would have the confidence of being insiders and better adjusted when eventually they did go out into the world.

My father persevered and Carmel grew under his charismatic leadership. Its success looked like being an example of how to educate young Jews to be confident in their identity, academically successful, and familiar with Judaism and its rituals. The beauty of its campus and its riverside location were amongst its greatest attractions.

But my father’s intentions for the school were very different to the school that emerged. Originally, he hoped there would be a balance between the Jewish and the secular. But the Jewish side was always the orphan. Jewish teachers were less academic though they compensated by offering hospitality and warmth. Most of the pupils came from homes that were not religious, and didn’t care for a Jewish education. Many parents effectively undermined the Jewish ethos.

There were a few who came from religious backgrounds who did care, and those who wanted to, could find teachers on the campus to help them thrive both religiously and in Jewish studies. But for the majority, it was difficult having to keep Shabbat and Kashrut.

My father was a tolerant, open-minded man, and he came to accept the reality, but he gloried in those few who went on to become rabbis and scholars.

Carmel was always a very expensive option. Its financial burden was all the greater because it had to fund the extra Jewish curriculum and because it offered so many scholarships and reductions. And because it was independent and was not seen as part of the community, it was always a problem to raise funds.

In the last days of his life, my father — who was a passionate, religious Zionist and convinced of Israel’s future — had already made plans for the future by establishing a Carmel school in Israel. With the help of Nachum Goldman, the head of the World Jewish Congress, he acquired land in Zichron Yaakov and produced a prospectus. Unfortunately, his premature death at the age of 48 in 1962, put paid to the scheme. Carmel carried on after his death until it closed in 1997.

But its history does raise the issue of whether it was the ideal form of Jewish education. Jewish education in the Diaspora has exploded since those days, primarily in the form of day schools from across the whole spectrum of Jewish life. Many are not that successful in producing religiously committed young men and women — and often, they can have a negative effect. Yet there are examples, mainly in the US, where excellence in both areas prove that at least it is possible to get the best of both worlds.

There is much debate as to whether Jewish schools should be spending more time teaching non-religious subjects like Jewish history, to give young men and women the tools to fight back against antisemitism and have a sense of where they come from. In Israel, of course, there are different issues. From the start of the State of Israel, religious and secular provided opposing cultures. But today, there are many more schools that try to offer both.

The Carmel example was successful in bringing young Jewish boys (and then at a later stage girls), from all different backgrounds, countries, and cultures together in one educational space, where they could also taste a Jewish life, something that most of them did not see at home.

There is no perfect solution to the challenge of Jewish education. We continue to struggle with the issues of how to pass on our Jewish identity to the next generation. But it’s becoming clearer that the pressures of society and peer groups challenge religious observance. It is the home that is the most determining factor of whether someone will live a Jewish life or not — although even then, there are no guarantees.

The only area in Jewish life where there is exponential growth is in the Charedi world, and even then, there are dropouts. There are no guarantees. And, sadly, as a reaction to Jew hatred, many are finding their way back to the Jewish world. Perhaps most importantly, there are other tools for Jewish survival that did not exist 50 years ago, from Jewish evangelicals to organized visits to Israel.

There are no golden bullets. Whatever works. So, to end with an example of Athens and Jerusalem, Shakespeare said “Good wombs have borne bad sons” (The Tempest Act 1, Scene 2). But the Mishnah says, “You do not have to finish the work, but neither can you give up” (Ethics Chapter 2.21).

The author is a writer and rabbi, currently based in New York.