When our kids were 7 and 8 years old, my wife and I realized that our family’s Jewish life, which had always been centered around Shabbat tables and shul, needed a third piece: a Jewish day school.

As a family deeply committed to our Jewish and Korean American identities (ask anyone who has tasted my kalbi jjim on Rosh Hashana), we wanted our kids to have peers and teachers who reflected the broad diversity of New York City.

Our son and daughter had been attending a nonsectarian independent school, and we thought that with enough weekly religious schooling, private tutoring, Jewish camps and practice at home we could build a robust Jewish foundation for our kids.

Yet when we thought about what we really wanted for our kids — to be able to follow the prayers in any synagogue, to be

See Full Page