JUDAICA - Wisdom In Torah

EDUCATION, JEWISH
The institution schools (operated by orphan asylums and social
work agencies – often sponsored by German-Jewish-supported
charitable groups) – had the benefit of good pedagogy
and materials, but lacked the confidence of the population
it aimed to serve, “because they do not regard it as Jewish
enough insofar as it makes Hebrew only secondary.” The congregational
school, holding sessions three or more times per
week, was typically sponsored by a Conservative or Orthodox
synagogue. Here, “the work covered is not very extensive,
and is usually confined to the reading and translation of
the prayers, and of a few passages in the Bible, with a smattering
of a few rules of grammar.” Sunday schools, reported
the survey, engaged a cadre of public school teachers, mostly
women, many of whom volunteered their services. However,
these teachers lacked “the knowledge necessary for a Jewish
school,” and carried out “a vague kind of curriculum….”
As to the ḥeder, the researchers described it in the following,
critical terms:
A cheder is a school conducted by one, two or three men, for
the sole purpose of eking out some kind of livelihood which
they failed to obtain by any other means. It generally meets in
a room or two, in the basement or upper floor of some old dilapidated
building where the rent is at a minimum….The instruction,
which seldom goes beyond the reading of the prayer
book, and the teaching of a few blessings by rote, is carried on
only in Yiddish. The method of instruction is quite unique. It
consists of about fifteen minutes of individual instruction, with
seldom or never any class work. Each pupil, not knowing when
he is needed, straggles in at random, and waits for his turn to
come, in the meantime entertaining himself with all sorts of
mischief. When his turn comes and the teacher has given him
the fifteen minutes, he runs off. There is hardly an ideal aim in
the mind of the teacher, except in some cases it is the training
for the Bar Mitzvah feat of reading the Haftorah.
The survey could not gauge the number of students who might
have been receiving private tutoring, nor did the tally include
the handful of day schools and their several hundred students.
It was estimated that 21–24% of 200,000 Jewish children of
school age were in the talmud torah, institutional, congregational
and Sunday schools, and the various ḥadarim.
Ready to undertake communal action to address these
challenges, the Kehillah of New York initiated a response
which was to be replicated in the decades ahead in scores of
American Jewish communities. It established a Bureau of Jewish
Education. The Bureau was to provide educational guidance
and service, and organize and coordinate activities beyond
the capacity of any one school unit to conduct. In the
ensuing generation, the concept of community responsibility
in the domain of Jewish education was to be embraced by federations
and central Jewish philanthropies in cities across the
country. The BJE, launched through a $50,000 contribution
from Jacob Schiff and $25,000 from the New York Foundation,
was, initially, to perform the following specific functions:
1. To study sympathetically and at close range all the Jewish
educational forces in New York City, including alike those that
restrict themselves to religious instruction and those that look
primarily to the Americanization of our youth, with a view to
cooperation and the elimination of waste and overlapping.
2. To become intimately acquainted with the best teachers and
workers who are the mainstay of these institutions, and organize
them for both their material and their spiritual advancement.
3. To make propaganda through the Jewish press and otherwise,
in order to acquaint parents with the problem before them and
with the means for solving it.
4. To operate one or two model schools for elementary pupils,
for the purpose of working out the various phases of primary
education, these schools to act also as concrete examples and
guides to now existing Hebrew schools, which will undoubtedly
avail themselves of the textbooks, methods, appliances, etc.
worked out in the model schools….
Dr. Samson *Benderly, of Baltimore, who had served as a consultant
to the Kehillah on the Kaplan-Cronson survey and its
analysis, was engaged as director of the new Bureau. Having
worked with the Kehillah’s education committee for a year,
Benderly’s educational and ideological positions were clear to
Judah Magnes and to the Board which hired him. Benderly’s
ideas were to shape the work of the New York Bureau and influence
scores of Jewish educators summoned to leadership
in communities throughout the country.
Samson Benderly (1876–1944) was born and raised in
Safed. At age 15, he traveled to Beirut to study at the American
University. After completing a B.A., he began medical studies.
In 1898, Dr. Aaron Friedenwald, professor of ophthalmology
in Baltimore, visited Beirut, and encouraged Benderly’s interest
in coming to the United States. By September 1898 Benderly
had moved to Baltimore, where he completed his medical
studies at the College of Physicians and Surgeons (he earned
his degree and began residency, in June 1900). Concurrently,
he undertook to teach Hebrew and direct a Jewish school.
Having, because of the demands of time, to choose between
medicine and Jewish education, Benderly chose the latter.
His Hebrew immersion program (Ivrit be-Ivrit) included
not only Hebrew language, but also Bible, holidays, history,
and activities designed to nurture strong connection to Israel.
In 1905, he initiated a youth group called “Herzl’s children.” He
used visual aids and incorporated music, dance, and drama
as instructional tools.
Though having begun his Baltimore career at a synagogue
school, Benderly left, early on, to head the “Hebrew
Free School for Poor and Orphaned Children.” Interestingly,
early in his Baltimore stay, Benderly served as Hebrew tutor
to his “patron” Dr. *Friedenwald’s son, Harry, then in his thirties,
who was to become president of the Federation of Zionists
in America – later known as the Zionist Organization of
America. At the same time, he tutored Henrietta *Szold (also
an adult learner) who was soon (1912) to found Hadassah.
Benderly’s “Zionist-nationalist” bent was not unknown
to the Kehillah committee that enlisted him. His pedagogic
approach, centering on children and the development of a
school-based society, was rooted in the progressive education
ideals of John Dewey. For Benderly, as for Dewey, all human
194 ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 6