Jonah Goldstein in Radio Address Pleads for Attitude of Communal Responsibility Toward Jewish Religi

Speaking Sunday to a radio audience over Station WEAF, attorney Jonah J. Goldstein, noted New York Jewish communal leader, discussed “Jewish Education-A Communal Responsibility.” In the course of his remarks, Mr. Goldstein said:

“I plead for a new attitude towards religious education, the attitude that such education is a communal responsibility. I do not exempt the individual parent from his or her responsibility for the religious education of their children. Religious education, like charity, should begin at home. But just like charity, it should not stop there. The first responsibility rests upon the parents. I speak from an intimate acquaintance with the problems of Jewish education when I tell you that there are certain fundamental aspects of it that cannot be solved unless we regard such education as a communal responsibility.

“The problem of the teacher is basic to the whole structure of Jewish education. Educators will tell you that any system of schools is as good as its teachers. The children must have religious teachers who are worthy representatives of the culture and idealism which they are to acquire from them.

“The solution undertaken by the Jewish Education Association in the creation of a Board of License to pass on the qualifications of teachers approaches the problem fundamentally. This step could be undertaken only by a communal organization having the confidence of the community behind it.

“The Jewish Education Association of New York has regarded it as its first duty to arouse the conscience of Jewish parents in the matter of giving their children a Jewish education. It has utilized every available medium for this purpose. This is clearly a task which only a community agency can undertake.

“The Jews of America must come to realize that the Jew who is Jewishly illiterate is an insult and an injury to them as a community. It is their duty, as Jews and as Americans, to give their youth a Jewish education.”