Apparently this is my week to be kvetching about tzedaka fundraising letters. The following was part of a letter sent out by someone chosen to be honored by a yeshiva. The purpose of the letter was for people to financially support the yeshiva, particularly by coming to the school dinner, although it wasn't necessarily so clear until the last line of a small-type full page letter.
"Years ago, much of personal chinuch took place at home. This is certainly still true to some degree, however since we as parents don't have the time, we now pass on our obligations, and give over our sacred duty to our schools. The role of our schools is to transmit our mesorah to our children, as our schools serving [sic] as the bastion of our faith, carrying on the traditions of our parents and grandparents."
To put it in the vernacular, this letter pissed me off. I'll leave it up to you, the readers, to figure out why. [Hint: there is a huge difference between giving something to someone and having them grab that something from you.] And yes, the rest of the letter was pretty much in the same vein as the quoted section above. So, how would you respond to a fundraising letter written as this one was?
11 comments:
Is this some new fad? Insulting the people you are asking for money? I;m reading this as you aren't doing your job and we are so pay up. Sheesh!
They may have asked some older person to donate to the yeshiva to which the old person replied, "my grandfather taught me and I am a good Jew so what do we need with your school?" The obvious answer is that if grandparents were willing, able or lived near the kids, we wouldn't need their school. Guilt works a certain percentage of the time.
I have a harder time with fundraisers to whom you state, "I can't pledge over the phone until I discuss it with my husband" and they come back with a line "it is also a mitzvah to give as an individual".
Makes you wonder if anyone in the school read over this letter before it was sent out. Funny but I don't remember passing on my obligations to my kids. I agree with Tovah that this sounds like I owe the school for doing what I should have been doing but I'm not doing. What would I do if I got this? Not give a donation in the honorees honor!
Does it really matter what the letter says? I'm surprised you read it closely enough to get insulted by it. If it's you kids' yeshiva you're going to be giving no matter what the letter says. If it's not your kids' yeshiva but you're good friends with the honoree then you are probably going to send something no matter what the letter says. If it's not your kids' yeshiva and you don't really know the honoree then you probably aren't going to send anything and what the letter says won't make a difference.
I sure as heck haven't given over my duties to any school period. (!)
It's got to be this person's money that got him honored because I don't think it's his brains. How do you write something like this to parents?!!!
That's one school that I would "blacklist" and never support in any whatsoever. Hopefully the school puts out a letter immediately repudiating what the honoree said, and hopefully they carefully review all future such letters to avoid such mistakes.
I feel sorry for people in that community if it is their only reasonable option for a yeshiva education.
Mark
I know ProfK isn't home so she won't catch this comment until later. I got the same letter she did. What she didn't tell you is that this honoree is also the rabbi of one of the congregations in the area. Makes it a political mess if you complain to the yeshiva. Certainly not going to get him any points with those who daven in his shul. He usually doesn't make such a mess out of his writing.
If I got a letter like this, I think we would do everything we could to start homeschooling right away. (But wait, we already do!! :) :) :)) I've read more than one book about chinuch where the whole first chapter sounds like a "we should all homeschool" essay. Then it goes into why we should send our kids to school...
OY Oy oy!!! Everyone relax. If you want to give, give. If you don't want to give , don't. I would suggest a little Java, maybe a cookie (hamantash?) or chocolate, your feet up and read the comics from your newspaper or do a little soduko or the crossword puzzle. Take a deep breath and then exhale. Life is too short to sweat the small stuff.
In this case, maybe someone close to the Yeshiva should let someone with authority know that the letter was out of line and was offensive. But, if it's not anyplace that you care about, then don't get offended either.
I'd respond the way I did when my daughter's principal said almost the exact same thing at a school dinner: I put her in another school.
I will not abdicate my parental rights and responsibilities. If the school expects me to hand over my daughter like that, it's not the school for us.
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