Yehuda Kurtzer tackles the question: ‘What does it mean to provide our children with a Jewish education?’

Yehuda Kurtzer, president of the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America, in an interview with Bonjour Chai.

Last week, the hosts of Bonjour Chai, The CJN’s weekly current-affairs podcast, convened a panel to discuss the role and effectiveness of Jewish day schools in 2022. The response to that episode was huge and overwhelmingly positive—so we wanted to do a follow-up. This week, Avi sits down with Yehuda Kurtzer, president of the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America, to discuss what qualifies as success and how much social differentiation we really want.

Plus, David reports on Pride Shabbat in B’nai Tikvah in Calgary, including a drag performance and the intersection between drag and Judaism.

Also: we’re kicking off our first-ever Canada-wide Sermon Slam! We want to feature rabbis doing what they do best—the High Holiday sermon. Over the next several episodes, we’ll be devoting space to rabbis their best four-minute excerpt of a past sermon, culminating in a final round in October. Email us at [email protected] if you are a rabbi who wants to participate, or you want to nominate your rabbi.

Credits

Bonjour Chai is hosted by Avi Finegold, Ilana Zackon and David Sklar. Zachary Kauffman is the producer and editor. Michael Fraiman is the executive producer. Our theme music is by Socalled. The show is a co-production from The Jewish Learning Lab and The CJN, and is distributed by The CJN Podcast Network. To learn how to support the show by subscribing to this podcast, please watch this video.