What mum knew about Jewish education – and why it matters now

“Mrs Dale changed my life. She was utterly brilliant. I owe her so much.” That was what Claudia Winkleman told me last week when I interviewed her or the third instalment of our “Lessons in Leadership” series to raise funds for The Lira Winston Fellowship. Developing transformative teachers, like Mrs Dale, whose influence lasts a lifetime, is what the work of the Lira Winston Fellowship is all about.

My mum, Lady Lira Winston, who passed away in December 2021, had a talent for making things look effortless, when in fact, they were anything but. She dedicated her career to Jewish education, supporting teachers and educators without needing – or ever seeking – credit for it. Over the years, through her work with UJIA, Jewish Continuity, or PaJeS, I understood how much she cared about it. Now with two young children of my own, I understand it even more.

As a family, we wanted to do something in mum’s memory, and established the Lira Winston Fellowships in partnership with PaJeS. The principle behind the Fellowship is simple: if you want a Jewish community in which education thrives, you need to invest not just in buildings or curriculum resources, but in the ongoing development of the people doing the teaching.

Last week, that principle produced something tangible. Just before our fundraising event with Claudia, another event happened. The first cohort of Lira Winston Fellows graduated. From an idea 3 years ago, to watching fourteen teachers – from Liverpool to Stamford Hill, almost all of them middle or senior leaders in Jewish primary and secondary schools – complete the programme was, for me, was an incredibly moving moment. Hearing October Wright, deputy head of King David School in Liverpool, speak about how the programme had been “life changing and truly transformative” made me feel like my mum would have been proud. Not of us (Jewish mothers are always proud of their kids), not of her name being used (something she would be mortified to see), but of the teachers themselves who carry out the ultimate task that truly impacts our community’s future.

Our first cohort of Fellows are gifted, committed individuals who chose to invest in their own development and who have grown because of that decision. Talking with them, what struck me most was not just the skills and knowledge they had gained, but the confidence – the sense that their vocation was worth taking seriously, and that others thought so too.

That is something mum instinctively understood, and that is why, beyond the Fellowship itself, there is a broader point worth making. Jewish continuity is not self-sustaining. It requires active, ongoing investment and people who understand why that investment matters. The sad news about the closure of Immanuel College is a reminder, if one were needed, of how much depends on that kind of commitment to Jewish education and the people who give their lives to it.

Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks spent a lifetime making the case that Jewish identity is passed on through education – through the patient work of one generation showing the next who they are and why it matters. The Fellows graduating this year are exactly the kind of people that argument calls for.

What the first cohort proves is that when you invest seriously in the teachers in our Jewish schools – giving them genuine professional development, mentorship, and experience they wouldn’t ordinarily get such, talented people step forward. And as our recently recruited second cohort has shown, they always will.

Now the Lira Winston Fellowships is truly up and running, mum would encourage us to measure success by outcomes, not recognition. The question she would have asked is not how the graduation went, but what happens next. For the Fellows: how do they take what they have learnt and use it to push themselves and inspire those they teach? And for the Fellowship itself, how does our programme continue to grow? Those are the right questions, and we intend to keep asking them.

Education has always depended on people who care enough to make it their life’s work. Mum was one of those people. The Lira Winston Fellows – the fourteen who graduated last week, and the new cohort now following them – have shown that they are too. She would not have wanted a Fellowship in her name. But she would have wanted exactly this. Teachers, in classrooms, carrying the work of Jewish continuity forward.