By ELANA WARREN / Assistant Editor
Small class sizes may have been a benefit during the pandemic, but just a few years later, they are a part of the reason the Talmud Torah of St. Paul Newman School closed just before the 2023-2024 school year was set to begin (AJW, July 2023).
Now in March of the same school year, the Talmud Torah (TTSP) has announced it will close its George Kaplan Afternoon School at the end of the school term. TTSP will continue to run its high school (Midrasha) and adult (Hineni) education programs.
The Newman School was a K-5 day school, while the Afternoon School offers supplementary Jewish education for grades 2-7. The day school had 12 students enrolled in 2022-2023, with eight expected for the next year. The Afternoon School serves 10 students online, with just three who come to monthly in-person events.
“Those numbers speak for themselves, right? Like, if we’re using all these resources to serve such a sliver of the community, we’re not living our mission well,” TTSP Executive Director Liz Palmer told the Jewish World.
“We operate on the goodwill and generosity of donors, so we have to be really committed to thoughtful stewardship of those resources if we’re going to actually be a true communal institution. And in doing that — assessing numbers and listening to what parents were saying and synagogues were saying — we assessed that the Afternoon School was no longer serving the community with the greatest impact possible,” she said.
In 1956, Mount Zion Temple, Sons of Jacob Synagogue (now Beth Jacob Congregation) and Temple of Aaron established the Talmud Torah of St. Paul for community learning, but now Mount Zion and Temple of Aaron offer their own Hebrew and Judaic education programs. Needs have changed, so TTSP is shifting too.
The Talmud Torah is working closely with Beth Jacob to develop an education program that the synagogue can offer for its congregation’s children. It is also enriching Midrasha, partnering with Gratz College and offering Hebrew courses for college credit.
And to fill the gap and prepare students to transition into high school studies and college Hebrew, Talmud Torah will offer Pre-Midrasha for middle school students. The program will include Hebrew, and TTSP hopes to add more courses like history and tradition.
In addition to this coursework, Talmud Torah will facilitate community between the three synagogues and around St. Paul. While classes are currently virtual and another school uses some space in the TTSP building, Talmud Torah has retained classroom and office space to use as flex spaces to bring people together.
“We really believe, especially post-pandemic, that kids are yearning for community, you know, peer community, and that’s hard to achieve fully virtually,” Palmer said. “So, our hope is to offer things that will fit into kids’ complicated schedules but give them that face-to-face time with peers and with teachers — they need mentors to see them and know them and be that tangible resource — so our building will allow for that.”
One community-building goal for TTSP is to form partnerships — with Minnesota Hillel, so high school students can connect with mentors and see what Jewish organizations offer, and local Jewish business owners who can show students how they live Jewish in their jobs and stay true to their faith and excel in their professions.
Palmer said she expects enrollment to rise in Talmud Torah’s programs as “we really focus in and connect families to opportunities” to get college credits, access scholarships, connect with the community — TTSP is still reaching out to community members and organizations to find out what existing programs it can support and what new opportunities it can provide.
With the closing of the Newman School, the only thing missing is the option for Jewish day school.
“Heilicher [Minneapolis Jewish Day School] is Minnesota’s only community day school now,” Heilicher Head of School Dan Ahlstrom said. “We are seeing increased interest from St. Paul, and we are really enthusiastic about outreach and community building on both sides of the river.”
It’s clear Talmud Torah and other community organizations want to meet the needs of the community as a whole, and the TTSP board and staff believe evolving is the best way to support the community.
“Talmud Torah of St. Paul is a part of so many people’s history,” Palmer said. “We want to make sure to honor that but at the same time, we want to try to help to ignite some hope and some excitement about what’s coming.
“Talmud Torah of St. Paul is not going away. It is just trying to meet the needs of today in a mindful, strategic way. And we’re hoping that people will … sort of pay attention and tune in and have that feeling of community again, that is sorely needed, especially with the current landscape.”
(Editor’s note: In the interest of full disclosure, Elana Warren works at both the American Jewish World and Heilicher Minneapolis Jewish Day School.)
(American Jewish World, April 2024)
