Gen17 Education Report Final Sep 2020
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GEN17 AUSTRALIAN JEWISH COMMUNITY SURVEY JEWISH EDUCATION IN MELBOURNE ANDREW MARKUS, MIRIAM MUNZ AND TANYA MUNZ Jewish Education in Melbourne Funding Partners Gen17 Research Partners Gen17 Funding Partners All rights reserved © Andrew Markus, Miriam Munz and Tanya Munz First published 2020 Australian Centre for Jewish Civilisation Faculty of Arts Monash University Victoria 3800 https://arts.monash.edu/acjc ISBN: 978-0-9945960-9-3 The images on the cover of this report have been used with written permission from the owners. This work is copyright. Apart for any use permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part of it may be reproduced by any process without written permission from the publisher. Requests and inquiries concerning reproduction rights should be directed to the publisher. GEN17 AUSTRALIAN JEWISH COMMUNITY SURVEY JEWISH EDUCATION IN MELBOURNE ANDREW MARKUS, MIRIAM MUNZ AND TANYA MUNZ AUTHORS Andrew Markus is Emeritus Professor at the Australian Centre for Jewish Civilisation. He was formerly the Director of the Centre, is a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia and has published extensively in the fields of Australian race relations, immigration history and community attitudes. Andrew was the lead researcher on the Gen08 Jewish community survey and heads the Scanlon Foundation social cohesion research program, which has conducted twelve national surveys since 2007. His recent publications include Australians Today: The Australia@2015 Scanlon Foundation Survey, Mapping Social Cohesion: The Scanlon Foundation Surveys 2019 and (co-authored with Dr Margaret Taft) A Second Chance: The Making of Yiddish Melbourne (2018). Dr Miriam Munz has been a Research Associate at Monash University for the past 19 years. Her Doctorate is in Education and her main interest and involvement has been in Jewish education in Australian Jewish day schools. Currently she is the Education chair on the Zionist Federation of Australia and is on the Board of Yeshivah-Beth Rivkah College. Tanya Munz is a Research Associate at the Australian Centre for Jewish Civilisation at Monash University. She has worked with Professor Markus for the past 12 years assisting in producing over 25 published reports including the Gen08 and Gen17 Preliminary Findings, Jewish Continuity Report, Census reports for 2006, 2011 and the soon to be released 2016 report, as well as the Scanlon Foundation Mapping Social Cohesion annual reports from 2009. Tanya coordinated the roll out, administration and promotion of both the Gen08 and Gen17 surveys and took a leading role in data analysis and design of this report. CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ................................................................................................................................................... 1 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ..................................................................................................................................................... 2 PART 1 THE JEWISH SCHOOLS OF MELBOURNE ....................................................................................................................... 12 JEWISH EDUCATIONAL PROVISION IN 2019 ................................................................................................................. 15 SUPPLEMENTARY JEWISH EDUCATION ......................................................................................................... 18 SCHOOL FEES .................................................................................................................................................. 19 EDUCATIONAL ACHIEVMENT ......................................................................................................................... 22 CHALLENGES FACING JEWISH DAY SCHOOLS .............................................................................................................. 25 PARENTS’ PERCEPTIONS OF JEWISH SCHOOLING ........................................................................................................ 28 PART 2 SCHOOLS ANALYSED ...................................................................................................................................................... 36 SCHOOLS AND HOME ENVIRONMENT .......................................................................................................................... 37 PREFERENCE FOR JEWISH LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS ............................................................................................... 39 PLANNING FOR A JEWISH SCHOOL EDUCATION .......................................................................................................... 41 INTERMARRIED COUPLES ............................................................................................................................... 42 MELBOURNE AND SYDNEY COMPARED ........................................................................................................................ 44 COSTS AND AFFORDABILITY OF JEWISH EDUCATION ................................................................................................... 46 HOW ARE SCHOOL FEES PAID? ...................................................................................................................... 48 PERCEIVED ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF A JEWISH DAY SCHOOL EDUCATION ....................................... 50 ADVANTAGES ................................................................................................................................................. 51 DISADVANTAGES ............................................................................................................................................ 52 NON-SCHOOL EXPERIENCES .......................................................................................................................................... 54 RELIGIOUS IDENTIFICATION .......................................................................................................................................... 56 HEBREW LANGUAGE ACQUISITION .............................................................................................................................. 60 JEWISH VALUES ............................................................................................................................................................. 61 SENSE OF BEING JEWISH ................................................................................................................................ 61 JEWISH IDENTITY ............................................................................................................................................ 63 JEWISH PEOPLEHOOD .................................................................................................................................... 68 CHARITABLE GIVING ...................................................................................................................................................... 70 RELIGIOUS PRACTICE ..................................................................................................................................................... 73 ATTITUDES TOWARDS INTERMARRIAGE ...................................................................................................................... 76 CONNECTEDNESS AND FRIENDSHIPS ............................................................................................................................ 80 ANTISEMITISM ............................................................................................................................................................... 84 A PROBLEM IN AUSTRALIA? ........................................................................................................................... 84 EXPERIENCE OF ANTISEMITISM ..................................................................................................................... 85 ANTISEMITISM ON SOCIAL MEDIA ................................................................................................................ 87 CONNECTION AND ATTITUDES TO ISRAEL .................................................................................................................... 90 ZIONISM ......................................................................................................................................................... 90 VISITING ISRAEL .............................................................................................................................................. 92 LENGTH OF TIME IN ISRAEL AND PERSONAL CONNECTIONS ....................................................................... 94 INVOLVEMENT WITH ISRAEL ......................................................................................................................... 95 VIEW OF ISRAELI SOCIETY: PEACE AND POLITICS .......................................................................................... 98 FINANCIAL SUPPORT FOR ISRAEL ................................................................................................................ 101 PLANS FOR ALIYAH ....................................................................................................................................... 102 APPENDIX 1: METHODOLOGY ..................................................................................................................................... 103 LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Proportion of Jewish students attending a Government primary school, by age, 2006 and 2016 13 Table 2: