Fridays at Mizel Jewish Community Day School in Tulsa are full of singing, food and community. Students make challah bread to celebrate Shabbat, the Jewish day of rest.
While instructing students to twist the dough, teacher Shira Sacks leads young students in singing “Hayom Yom Shishi,” or “Today is Friday.”
Sacks said the students experience Jewish traditions through hands-on activities and stories.
“We just celebrated Passover, so we had a lot of Passover songs. And they got really into it, and they keep asking me, ‘Can we sing about Passover?’ And I said, ‘But Passover is over.’” Sacks said. “So they go, ‘Okay, what’s the next holiday?’ They’re excited. They want to do more. They want to learn more.”
Mizel is a private school that provides students in pre-kindergarten through fifth grade of all faiths with an education grounded in Jewish values. It is the only Jewish day school in Oklahoma, located within the Jewish Federation of Tulsa’s campus.
The school is a faith-based option for Oklahoma’s Jewish population, estimated to be under 9,000 people or around 0.2% of the state.
But a push to expand Oklahoma’s Jewish education options has drawn criticism from members of the same community it intends to serve.
That push comes from the proposed Ben Gamla Jewish Charter School, a would-be virtual school serving K-12 students that is seeking establishment in Oklahoma.
St. Isidore case sets the stage
In 2023, the then-Statewide Virtual Charter School Board — which later became the Statewide Charter School Board — was considering an application from the St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School. St. Isidore would have been the nation’s first publicly funded religious school.
The Statewide Charter School Board later approved St. Isidore’s application, setting the stage for a legal battle that culminated in the case reaching the U.S. Supreme Court. The high court landed on a split 4-4 ruling, which let the Oklahoma Supreme Court’s decision siding against St. Isidore stand.
At issue in the St. Isidore case is a section of the Oklahoma Constitution that specifies public schools shall be “free from sectarian control,” and that no public money shall ever be used, directly or indirectly, to support any “sect, church, denomination, or system of religion, or sectarian institution.” In Oklahoma, charter schools are public schools.
Additionally, Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond cited the Oklahoma Charter Schools Act, which prescribes that charter schools “shall be nonsectarian in its programs, admission policies, employment practices, and all other operations.” It also says a charter school sponsor may not authorize a charter school affiliated with a nonpublic sectarian school or religious institution.
Drummond also argued the board violated the Establishment Clause of the U.S. Constitution and that Oklahoma could lose its ability to receive federal education dollars. To receive federal funds, states submit a plan saying they will comply with all applicable laws and regulations. One of those laws, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, states a charter school must be nonsectarian.
Lawyers representing St. Isidore argued the school’s creation was lawful through the Constitution’s Free Exercise Clause. The Oklahoma Supreme Court disagreed.
“What St. Isidore requests from this Court is beyond the fair treatment of a private religious institution in receiving a generally available benefit, implicating the Free Exercise Clause,” the court wrote in its majority opinion. “It is about the State’s creation and funding of the new religious institution violating the Establishment Clause. Even if St. Isidore could assert Free Exercise rights, those rights would not override the legal prohibition under the Establishment Clause.”
Ben Gamla tries to do what St. Isidore could not
In January, former U.S. Rep. Peter Deutsch, D-Fla, defended a proposal to the Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board for a Jewish charter school, saying there were “very few opportunities for Jewish education in the state.”
Deutsch is the spearhead of Ben Gamla, the proposed virtual charter school the board rejected in February and again in March. If approved, it would be the nation’s first publicly funded religious school.
While they are separate entities, Deutsch founded the Ben Gamla Charter School in Florida in 2007. It is a multi-campus English-Hebrew charter school located in South Florida.
The school’s namesake, Joshua ben Gamla, was a high priest who oversaw Jewish education for young children in Jerusalem in the mid-first century.
The Florida school teaches Hebrew, but it is a secular school. In Oklahoma, Ben Gamla would provide students with online “Jewish religious learning” that is “deeply rooted in Jewish knowledge, values and lived tradition,” according to its application.
Deutsch has been interested in establishing a Jewish charter school in Oklahoma since at least January 2023, when he reportedly visited the state to meet with Jewish leaders. He told the board in March he had spoken with about 10 Jewish parents before filing the application in Oklahoma.
In February, the board rejected an application from Ben Gamla, with members lamenting that its hands were tied by the Supreme Court decision.
At the time, there were other concerns about the school’s application, despite the denial’s focus being placed on the court’s decision. This included non-compliance with the Oklahoma Open Meeting Act and some of Ben Gamla’s board members living out of state, despite Oklahoma law mandating otherwise.
The board pursued private legal representation through the conservative Christian First Liberty Institute, rather than using the board’s counsel, Thomas Schneider, from the attorney general’s office. The board was at odds with Attorney General Gentner Drummond when he brought suit against it for its decision to approve St. Isidore’s application.
“I think there are political issues at work here,” Board chair Brian Shellem said at the Feb. 9 meeting. “Our current attorney general is running for governor, and Mr. Schneider works for our attorney general. And we know that this board was in conflict with our attorney general before. Any attorney that would represent this board would have to defend our decision.”
The office of the attorney general declined an interview for this story.
The board found itself again at odds with the attorney general when it voted in March to reject Ben Gamla’s amended application. At the meeting, the board’s rejection was narrowed to only the issue of Ben Gamla’s religious instruction violating the Supreme Court ruling.
Ferrate said there was a “meaningfully large” number of board members who did not want to vote against the school, but did so to stay in line with the St. Isidore decision.
“We have been told by the Oklahoma Supreme Court that we cannot approve this application for a religious charter school,” Ferrate said. “We are being told to discriminate by the Oklahoma Supreme Court.”
Drummond asked an Oklahoma County district judge to order the board to provide a new rejection letter that covers more than just the school’s religious nature, alleging the board had engineered its rejection to benefit the school’s court case.
Drummond argues Deutsch originally gave a 40-student estimate for its projected enrollment, serving high school students only. But the formal application estimates 400 K-12 students.
AJ Ferrate, an attorney representing the board, said the shift in attendance numbers is an issue “commonly dealt with in the contracting phase.” StateImpact and Public Radio Tulsa were referred to Ferrate after requesting interviews with board members.
The attorney general also points to the inclusion of Brett Farley, executive director of the Catholic Conference of Oklahoma, as one of the board members. State law requires one of the charter school board members to be a parent of a student.
According to reporting from Oklahoma Voice, Farley said he “would definitely” consider enrolling his daughter at the school.
Eric Baxter, an attorney from the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty representing Peter Deutsch and Ben Gamla’s board, said any suspicion about Farley’s involvement as a parent being disingenuous “reflects people’s unawareness of people’s interest in these types of schools.”
StateImpact and Public Radio Tulsa were referred to Baxter after requesting an interview with Farley.
“A lot of Christians also have an affinity for the Jewish faith, and an understanding of their traditions,” Baxter said. “And so, it’s not at all inconsistent that a Catholic or a Christian of another stripe would be interested in a school like this.”
The National Ben Gamla Jewish Charter School Foundation, which is the nonprofit that filed the school’s application, and Peter Deutsch filed a federal lawsuit in March against Drummond and the board for the rejection.
The lawsuit argues that under the First Amendment’s Free Exercise Clause, governments are not allowed to “discriminate against religious institutions in the provision of public benefits.” The Oklahoma Charter Schools Act, it said, is therefore discriminatory in nature. In doing so, the suit argues, the Act also violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
“This is therefore a simple case — can Oklahoma arbitrarily exclude religious people from a charter school program?” The lawsuit asks. “The constitution says no.”
The federal case continues to work its way through the court. A hearing has not yet been set.
Pushback from the Jewish community and charter advocates
Members of the Jewish community say Deutsch did not consult with enough of the community to understand its needs.
Joe Roberts is the executive director of the Jewish Federation of Tulsa. He said Jewish students have extracurricular options in addition to private school, such as programs at synagogues and communal organizations.
“That is not to say that there’s not more growth to be had or more options for Jewish education,” Roberts said. “We would welcome that, but doing it in consultation with the community is really important so we can actually fill the needs that the community has.”
Roberts and four other Jewish leaders issued a statement in January, saying they were “deeply concerned” about the lack of involvement with Oklahoma Jews.
“We live, work, raise our families, and build our Jewish lives in Oklahoma,” the statement said. “To bypass community consultation in favor of an externally driven initiative is a serious error.”
Roberts said in conversations with Jewish leadership, there was a “lot of concern” expressed about what the Ben Gamla school could mean for the separation of church and state.
“One of our core mandate items in our advocacy work is religious freedom,” Roberts said. “So there’s a lot of questions about how this plays into that. And a lot of questions about how that would impact our community, should this pass.”
Rachel Johnson, executive director of the Jewish Federation of Greater Oklahoma City, said conversations about more Jewish education options in Oklahoma City would be welcome if they were about private schools.
“Everybody I’ve heard from so far does not want public funding for any religious school, be it Jewish, Catholic, Muslim, any of the religions,” Johnson said. “That protects our religious freedom.”
“Because that’s not a place for government.”
In April, a group of Oklahoma families, teachers and clergy filed a motion to intervene in Ben Gamla’s lawsuit against the board. Of the seven proposed intervenors, one is a rabbi and four more are Jewish. They argue that a ruling in favor of the charter school could divert limited funds from secular schools to a religious school with discriminatory practices.
Americans United for Separation of Church and State, the ACLU, Oklahoma Appleseed, the Education Law Center and the Freedom From Religion Foundation represent the intervenors.
“Our clients are seeking to vindicate the age-old, basic constitutional principle that religious schools can’t be public schools, and public schools can’t be religious,” said Daniel Mach, director of the ACLU Program on Freedom of Religion and Belief, in a news release. “That vital protection, guaranteed by both Oklahoma and federal law, helps ensure that public education remains available to all students, free from religious pressure or discrimination.”
Charter school advocates are also sounding alarms over Ben Gamla. The National Alliance for Public Charter Schools issued an April 20 statement, saying if the school is eventually approved, it would jeopardize state and federal funding by redefining public schools.
“Charter schools are public schools. They are open to all students, funded by public dollars and required to be nonsectarian,” the statement reads. “Supporting this application would destabilize the very foundations charter schools have relied on for decades.”
The NACPS opposed St. Isidore for similar reasons.
Baxter said Florida’s Ben Gamla school received similar resistance, but its performance speaks for itself.
“A lot of people in the Jewish community said they didn’t want these schools,” Baxter said. “A lot of people didn’t want them. They thought they wouldn’t succeed. These are now very highly ranked charter schools in Florida.”
At Mizel Jewish Community Day School, executive director Amanda Anderson said she chafes at the insinuation that Oklahoma’s Jewish education is lacking.
“We do have a strong Jewish day school. We do educate our kids,” Anderson said. “And so being able to hear that that’s not happening in Oklahoma — here we are.”
Whether students are learning to speak Hebrew, making challah, learning traditional songs or other Jewish values, Anderson is proud of the education Mizel provides.
“We might be a small community,” Anderson said. “But we’re definitely mighty.”
StateImpact Oklahoma is a partnership of Oklahoma’s public radio stations which relies on contributions from readers and listeners to fulfill its mission of public service to Oklahoma and beyond. Donate online.
