Nearly a decade ago, Chicago’s Jewish United Fund and the local Jewish day school community knew there had to be a better way to meet the schools’ critical funding needs. So they invented one-a breakthrough that has been felt by nearly every day school student and family ever since.

The innovation-a new way of funding a communal endowment that provides a perpetual stream of support for the schools-has generated nearly $14 million since then, a rare and constant source of financial stability that helped them through very unstable times. The recently-announced annual distribution by the Jewish Day School Guaranty Trust Fund totals $1,692,754, to be shared by 16 participating schools.

“Day schools are vital to the continuity of our people and the Jewish community,” said JUF President Steven B. Nasatir. “The beauty of this program is that the community is helping assure the continuity of these schools. The hope we had when this was created has become reality.”

The Trust Fund’s annual distribution to each school is based on enrollment, and is in addition to a wide range of other support JUF provides. That includes more than $3 million in allocations each year, administrative and educational training in best practices, security seminars and planning, legislative and regulatory advocacy, JUF Right Start preschool tuition assistance, and more than $60 million in loan guarantees for expanded facilities at individual schools.

” Pirkei Avot ( Ethics of the Fathers ) teaches us: ‘Without flour (sustenance) there is no Torah and without Torah there is no flour’,” said Judy Finkelstein-Taff, head of school at Chicago Jewish Day School. “No other quotation more beautifully describes the relationship between education and the need for financial support. Thank you to JUF and the visionary leaders who learned from our tradition and established the Jewish Day School Guaranty Trust Fund, which ensures this generation and the next.”

“The Day School Trust Fund is one of several critical ways JUF helps our students, our families, our community,” said Yosef Meystel, board member and parent at Joan Dachs Bais Yaakov/Yeshivas Tiferes Tzvi. “Without JUF’s support, both the scope of the educational program we offer and the number of students we serve would be challenged.”

Schools receiving support from the Jewish Day School Guaranty Trust Fund are Akiba-Schechter Jewish Day School; Arie Crown Hebrew Day School; Bais Yaakov Girls High School; Chicago Jewish Day School; Chicagoland Jewish High School; Fasman Yeshiva High School (HTC); Hannah Sacks Bais Yaakov Girls High School; Hillel Torah North Suburban Day School; Ida Crown Jewish Academy; Jewish Therapeutic Day School of Jewish Child & Family Services; Joan Dachs Bais Yaakov/Yeshivas Tiferes Tzvi; Keshet Day School; Seymour J. Abrams Cheder Lubavitch Hebrew Day School; Lubavitch Girls High School; Solomon Schechter Day School; Telshe Yeshiva High School Program; and Yeshiva Ohr Baruch-The Veitzener Cheder.

Gifts to the Trust Fund, including testamentary gifts, are part of JUF’s Centennial Campaign and are over and above the donors’ annual gifts to the Jewish United Fund Annual Campaign and to the individual schools.

For details on the program, contact JUF’s Legacies and Endowments Department at (312) 357-4853 or [email protected].