JUDAICA - Wisdom In Torah

association – and most assuredly, the intentional constructs
of schools – were educative, ensuring cultural continuity.
The executive committee to which Benderly reported in New
York consisted of five individuals, four of whom were Zionists
(Israel *Friedlaender, Judah L. Magnes, Mordecai Kaplan,
and Henrietta Szold). The fifth, Louis Marshall, was close to
Jacob Schiff, and was likely keeping a watchful eye on the
project for Schiff.
Modern Zionism had, already, expressed itself in two
“aliy yot” to Palestine, several Zionist Congresses, and numerous
Zionist ideologies. For Benderly and his committee,
it was the cultural Zionism of *Aḥad Ha-Am combined with
a commitment to Americanism, which shaped an emerging
approach to Jewish education. In the modern era, the Zionist
center (Palestine) would, it was supposed, serve as a spiritual
hub of renewed Jewish cultural creativity, nurturing Jewish life
in the Diaspora. Consistent with the findings of the Kaplan-
Cronson report, the vehicle which Benderly and his supporters
saw as best suited to furthering Jewish consciousness and
commitment to Jewish ideals was the talmud torah school.
Institutional Development, 1910–1945
The New York BJE, created as a mechanism for improving and
expanding Jewish education in a burgeoning community, undertook
a vigorous program of federating and supporting talmud
torah schools, providing in-service professional training
to educators, writing modern textbooks, and recruiting pupils.
Talmud torah curricula – typically, Hebrew-based (consistent
with cultural Zionist nationalism) – included Hebrew
language and literature, Bible, festivals, Palestine (as the source
of Jewish creativity), selections from Midrash and the Talmud,
Jewish history, and some degree of synagogue ritual familiarity
(customs and ceremonies). Among the curricular innovations
of the BJE was the use of arts and crafts and of music and
dramatics in the instructional program. The BJE also gathered
together graduates of the various talmud torahs and organized
a Hebrew High School. A Board of Teachers’ License and a
Hebrew Principals’ Association were organized; a summer
camp was opened; the League of Jewish Youth was organized.
Benderly successfully encouraged a group of young American
Jews to study both Judaica and education, in preparation for
professional careers in Jewish education.
Bureau-supported communal talmud torah schools had
a decidedly Hebraic-Zionist emphasis, with much of the instructional
program conducted Ivrit be-Ivrit (in Hebrew).
Communal sponsorship and the Hebrew language emphasis (a
cultural unifier) established the talmud torah as a community,
“non-denominational” program. With few exceptions, talmud
torah schools operated on a coeducational basis, consistent
with the prevailing practice in public schools and Sabbath
schools. As in Sabbath schools and public schools, women
were well represented in the teaching force.
Yiddish (secular) schools offered a significant alternative.
Starting in 1908, in Brownsville, New York – an area with a
large, working class population noted for socialist leanings –
EDUCATION, JEWISH
Yiddish schools of various kinds were founded in every major
locus of Jewish settlement. Among the larger networks of
Yiddish schools were those of the Arbeiter Ring (Workmen’s
Circle), grounded in secularism and radicalism. Such schools
were essential, their sponsors believed, both because the public
schools were largely controlled by capitalists and because
education in “Yiddishkeit,” the culture of the immigrant generation,
would bridge the disaffection between immigrant
parents and their American-born and educated children. By
the mid-1920s, the peak period of Yiddish secular education,
10,000 to 12,000 children attended folkshuln which centered
on the study of Yiddish. At the other end of the spectrum, Orthodox
day schools continued to be established in the early
decades of the 20th century, though at a slow pace. In 1928,
4,290 students were enrolled in 17 such schools. Immigration
restrictions, implemented in 1925, put an end to the massive
influx of immigrants; by that time, more than 4 million Jews
called America home.
A noteworthy structural opportunity for part-time Jewish
study presented itself, beginning 1913, with the spread of
the “Gary Plan” initiated in Gary, Indiana. The “Gary Plan,”
among other innovations, authorized release time during the
school day for religious instruction, off campus. In New York,
the plan was supported by the Reform movement and opposed
by supporters of the talmud torah system. Reform educators
were finding Sunday-only instruction insufficient to meet their
Jewish educational goals. Release time might have represented
a “slot” for additional instructional time. The Gary Plan, on
the other hand, lengthened the school day. Supporters of the 5days-per-week
talmud torah, which drew children from multiple
public schools, were concerned about negative impact on
scheduling and enrollment in the established, more intensive
Jewish educational programs. While the Gary Plan did not
long survive, it evoked varying pronouncements within the
Jewish community on church-state considerations relating
to education. Discussions of “strict separation” of church and
state were to become a matter of considerable debate later in
the 20th century surrounding the issue of public funding in
support of education in non-public schools.
Non-Formal Education
In 1913, many of the country’s YMHAs and YWHAs (which had
come into being starting in 1888) organized to form the Council
of Young Men’s Hebrew and Kindred Associations. The Y’s
cooperated with the Jewish Welfare Board, established in 1917,
to provide Jewish chaplains and support services (starting with
meeting religious needs) for Jews serving in the armed forces.
In 1921, the Council of Young Men’s Hebrew and Kindred Associations
merged with JWB. Many mergers of YMHAs and
YWHAs ensued, with most of the “new” institutions taking
the name Jewish Community Center. In 1990, the JWB itself
was to be renamed the Jewish Community Centers Association
of North America. From their inception, the centers inherited
from the Y’s a culture of Americanizing Russian Jewish
newcomers.
ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 6 195