JUDAICA - Wisdom In Torah

Ner Israel of Baltimore (1934), and the Jewish Institute of Religion,
organized in New York, in 1922 (JIR, founded by Stephen
S. Wise, was to become part of HUC in 1950). JIR, a liberal
rabbinical seminary, was – unlike HUC – pro-Zionist and
welcoming of the immigrant East European Jews. Through a
bequest of Moses Aaron Dropsie, *Dropsie College, an independent,
non-theological institution dedicated to research in
Jewish studies and related branches of learning, was established
in Philadelphia in 1909.
In 1928, the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary
(RIETS) opened a College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, alongside
its rabbinical school. Yeshiva President Bernard Revel
recruited Rabbi Moses *Soloveitchik, scion of a world-renowned
rabbinic family, to head the RIETS faculty in 1929. On
the death of Rabbi Soloveitchik (1941), his son, Rabbi Joseph
*Soloveitchik, talmudic scholar and Ph.D. in philosophy from
the University of Berlin, became head of the RIETS Talmud
faculty. The “Rav,” as Soloveitchik came to be known, was to
emerge as the “towering ideologue” of American Orthodoxy
in the 1940s and beyond.
At Hebrew Union College, Kaufman *Kohler served as
president in 1903–21. Kohler, whose religious ideology was expressed
in the Pittsburgh Platform of 1885, expanded the faculty,
brooking no tolerance of Zionist leanings. He was succeeded
as president by Julian *Morgenstern, an HUC alumnus,
and professor of Bible. During Morgenstern’s tenure (1921–47),
a dozen European Jewish scholars found a haven at the College,
largely through his efforts.
At the Jewish Theological Seminary, Solomon Schechter
was succeeded as president by Cyrus *Adler, who served until
his death in 1940. Adler, an American-born, Hopkins-trained
semiticist, took part in founding the Jewish Publication Society
of America (1888), was a founder of the American Jewish
Historical Society (1892), served on the staff of the Smithsonian
Institution, played a leading role in the reorganization of
the Seminary and its engagement of Solomon Schechter, was
President of Dropsie College, and edited numerous publications,
including the first seven volumes of the American Jewish
Yearbook and the Jewish Quarterly Review (1916–40). Consistent
with Adler’s personal interests, it was during his tenure
that JTS developed a pre-eminent library collection. Adler’s
successor was Louis *Finkelstein, a JTS alumnus. Both HUC
and JTS had thus succeeded in educating leaders who could
carry forward the spiritual-religious mission articulated by
these institutions’ founders.
Between 1917 and 1939, four “progressive” Jewish day
schools were established; these schools aimed to synthesize
progressive and Jewish education. Limited time was devoted
to Hebrew studies. Three of these schools closed their doors
after brief periods of operation for lack of pupils and financial
support. The fourth of the progressive schools (Brandeis
“bi-cultural” school) eventually affiliated with the Conservative
movement.
In 1937, the Ramaz School in Manhattan and Maimonides
School in Boston were established. These Orthodox
EDUCATION, JEWISH
day schools aimed at providing outstanding general education
alongside excellent, classical Jewish education. Each of
these schools was to grow and develop (continuing into the
21st century), serving as a model to future generations of modern
Orthodox day schools. In 1939, an experiment in Jewish
pre-school education was initiated in New York, with the establishment
of Beth Hayeled (House of the Child) School.
Children entered the program at the age of three, remained at
Beth Hayeled five years, and transferred to public school (and
a neighborhood talmud torah) in third grade. Soon after this
program began, additional such early childhood “foundation”
schools were established.
Though, by the beginning of World War II, there were
7,000 students in 30 day schools (almost all of which were in
New York), most Orthodox leaders shared the view that, when
it came to formal Jewish schooling, the congregationally sponsored
talmud torah was to be the primary institutional framework
for religious education. In 1942, the Union of Orthodox
Jewish Congregations published a curriculum guide for talmud
torah education. The curriculum was designed, ideally,
for a ten-hours-per-week school. Interestingly, as in the educational
programs developed and promoted by Samson Benderly
and his protégés, the Orthodox “Model Program” called for
Ivrit be-Ivrit (Hebrew-based) instruction. Though influenced
by the pedagogic approach of the Benderly “school,” the UOJC
manual made it clear that it brooked no tolerance for deviation
from traditional Jewish belief and practice.
With the relocation of several leading personalities of
Jewish educational life from Europe to the United States before
and during World War II, a number of new institutions
appeared on the American scene. These included Lubavitcher
schools, established with the arrival of the Lubavitcher Rebbe
in 1940, the creation of Bais Yaakov (*Beth Jacob) girls schools
in the early 1940s, and the establishment, in 1941, of the Telshe
Yeshiva in Cleveland and, in 1943, the Beth Medrash Govoha
in Lakewood, New Jersey. In 1944, under the impetus of Shraga
Feivel Mendlowitz, an immigrant from Austria-Hungary,
who had studied with noted European rabbinic scholars and
significantly expanded Brooklyn’s Torah V’daath yeshiva, an
ambitious Orthodox day school initiative was launched.
Mendlowitz, who had devoted himself to Jewish education
in the U.S. since his arrival in 1913, aimed to “jump
start” and unite a national network of (Orthodox) yeshivah
day schools. Towards that end, Mendlowitz enlisted Samuel
*Feuerstein, a successful business executive, to serve as president
of the “Torah Umesorah Society for the Establishment
of Torah Schools.” The articles of incorporation of the society
firmly established the ideological authority of a body of
Orthodox rabbis in all matters of religious life appertaining
to its functions; indeed, the Rabbinical Supervisory Council
would determine the very scope of its jurisdiction, since it
would decide what constituted a religious matter. A group of
Orthodox rabbinical leaders was enlisted, and Torah Umesorah
launched into the work of advocating the establishment
of hundreds of Jewish day schools, nationwide.
ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 6 197