For the first time in the Jewish history of Indianapolis and for the first time since the establishment of the local Hebrew School system twenty years ago by the sainted Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Neustadt, Indianapolis Jewry celebrated a Hebrew School graduation, Sunday, March 30. An unusually large crowd attended the exercises which were conducted mostly in Hebrew. After the invocation by Rabbi Benjamin Cohen, the graduates who have studied six years, gave Hebrew recitations. Addresses were delivered by Rabbis S. A. Katz and Milton Steinberg, the former speaking Hebrew.
“This is not just a graduation,” Rabbi Steinberg declared. “This event is to us Jews in America generally and in Indianapolis particularly a symbol rich in meaning. Today’s graduation represents a milestone in the struggle against Jewish ignorance. Never before in our history has the Jewish people been so crushed because of racial ignorance. The work of this graduation represents a turning point,” he asserted.
Meyer Gallin, superintendent of the schools, presented the diplomas after a Hebrew address to the students. Each of the graduates received a volume of Chaim Bialik’s poems, presented by the Ladies’ Auxiliary of the Rabbi Neustadt Talmud Torah and Lillian Sacks, honor student, received the valedictory prize, the complete works of Bialik, which was the gift of the Council of Jewish Women. All of the graduates expressed a desire to take post graduate courses and arrangements are being made to institute a Hebrew High School.
The Jewish Educational Association operates the Neustadt School and its branch, the Ezra School. Nineteen classes including a kindergarten, are held daily and on Sunday.
Following the graduation exercises the annual meeting of the educational association was held and eleven new directors were elected.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
