Are schools bad for shuls?

The seemingly unstoppable rise in the number of Jewish schools is widely regarded as one of the most positive features of British Jewry.

But not everyone agrees. Here is a dissenting opinion from an unusual source – the United Synagogue.

In an article on its website, Helena Cramer of Woodside Park argues why day schools are not always a good thing: “With this continued growth in number of Jewish schools comes the inevitable demise of the shul cheder and I believe there is for some children a knock-on effect of a fall in shul attendance,” she writes.