Milton Gottesman Jewish Day School is the only Jewish day school within the city limits of Washington, and it has a lot at stake amid accelerating layoffs of government employees in the nation’s capital.  

Half of the school’s families have at least one parent who is either employed by the federal government or a federally funded agency. Administrators at Milton, a pre-K-8 school, have special plans for government shutdowns or furloughs of federal workers, to allow them to delay tuition payments as needed. But they have never before had to prepare for the situation in which the Washington workforce now finds itself.

Milton’s administrators are already seeing an increase in the number of families requesting financial aid and seeking higher amounts of aid. Families are also facing a deadline this month to decide whether to send their kids to Milton and other area day schools next fall, a question that becomes much more complicated when massive economic uncertainty hangs over the region.

“It’s day schools, it’s camps, it’s early childhood, JCC [Jewish Community Center] memberships,” said Gil Preuss, CEO of the Jewish Federation of Greater Washington. “All these things that are now having a ripple effect through the community because of the insecurity they have. They may never lose their job, but they may still make different decisions about where they spend their money because of fear of what might happen.”

“I’ve just been reading the financial aid appeals, and they’re heart-wrenching,” said Deborah Skolnick-Einhorn, Milton’s head of school. “They’re like, ‘We love this school. We want this so badly for our children, and we’re really scared to make a commitment that we might not be able to follow through on because we’re not sure we’ll have a job.’”

The Washington Jewish community is bracing for impact. Local schools, synagogues and social service agencies are making plans to support laid-off community members and their families — and preparing for headwinds themselves, as fewer enrolled students or fewer dues-paying synagogue members could affect their bottom lines, too. 

“It’s day schools, it’s camps, it’s early childhood, JCC [Jewish Community Center] memberships,” said Gil Preuss, CEO of the Jewish Federation of Greater Washington. “All these things that are now having a ripple effect through the community because of the insecurity they have. They may never lose their job, but they may still make different decisions about where they spend their money because of fear of what might happen.”

The firing of probationary workers throughout the federal government and the elimination of thousands of positions at agencies like USAID and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau have federal employees worried that more upheaval is on the way. The Department of Education is expected to begin laying off half of its 4,400 employees on Wednesday. Before President Donald Trump took office, there were roughly 400,000 federal employees in the Washington area, amounting to 20% of the entire federal workforce. 

“There’s going to be people for whom either both spouses or one spouse has a federal job, and they are dependent on it, and they’re living check to check, or month to month, and their health insurance is not there anymore, and they have to get a job,” said Ron Halber, CEO of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington. “I think the first immediate thing we’re going to see, based on past experiences, is the need for emergency cash.”

“The feeling is unprecedented, and I think the feeling on the whole is a feeling of anxiety that’s caused by deep, deep, deep uncertainty,” said Rabbi Daniel Zemel, who has been the rabbi at Temple Micah, in Northwest Washington, for 42 years. “We’ve responded in ways that are very, for us, extraordinary. We’ve begun offering classes on how to look for a job, how to figure out what your resume might be, how to gauge your skills.” 

The Jewish federation is planning to make funds available for rabbis to disburse direct cash assistance to congregants in need, offering up to $1,500 a family. So far, only about 10 requests have come in. But local leaders expect that number to grow significantly. The idea to offer direct assistance came from a program the federation offered during the COVID-19 pandemic, when it distributed $750,000 to Jewish families in need.

Jewish leaders who have long served the community say they have never before faced a situation like this, particularly given the speed with which the Trump administration began instituting cuts. 

“The feeling is unprecedented, and I think the feeling on the whole is a feeling of anxiety that’s caused by deep, deep, deep uncertainty,” said Rabbi Daniel Zemel, who has been the rabbi at Temple Micah, in Northwest Washington, for 42 years. “We’ve responded in ways that are very, for us, extraordinary. We’ve begun offering classes on how to look for a job, how to figure out what your resume might be, how to gauge your skills.” 

Temple Micah has never offered these kinds of real-life, finance-oriented classes before. The Reform synagogue also created a LinkedIn group for people to network and share job opportunities. 

Everyone is pitching in where they can: An employment lawyer who is a parent at Milton met with federal employees to help them understand their rights, and an HR professional at the school has helped parents work on interview skills and resume-writing. 

Jewish organizations are increasing fundraising to meet the expected increase in need, though they are aware that a local economic downturn could make fundraising harder, too.

“The DNA of our community is very resilient, and we will raise the funds, and we will step up to help our families get through this period of time,” said Skolnick-Einhorn. 

Zemel and his colleagues are also preparing to offer financial assistance of their own. He called the director of Camp Harlam, the regional Union for Reform Judaism camp, to make sure that financial insecurity doesn’t keep any Micah families from sending their kids back this summer. 

“It’s moved like a lightning bolt,” Ron Halber, CEO of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington, said. “We have a moral and ethical responsibility, not just to advocate against these cuts, not only to advocate against draconian cuts, but to ensure the people who are hurt by them are OK.”

“We will work out scholarship assistance for any family, because we don’t want anybody to lose any part of their greater Jewish life because of this federal government upheaval,” Zemel said. 

The priorities of the D.C. JCRC, which works with government leaders in Washington, Maryland and Virginia to advance Jewish priorities, have been “dominated” by the “repercussions” of the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attacks for the last year and a half. The organization has fundamentally realigned its priorities in recent weeks to handle the federal employment and spending cuts.

“It’s moved like a lightning bolt,” Halber said. “We have a moral and ethical responsibility, not just to advocate against these cuts, not only to advocate against draconian cuts, but to ensure the people who are hurt by them are OK.”