Rabbi Harold Englander, who protested last week to the Board of Education that the Christmas story and Christmas carols were being taught in Kingston public schools in violation of the rule against religious training, filed his resignation yesterday with the board of directors of his synagogue, Congregation Ahavath Israel. The resignation climaxed a row which has aroused the entire community.
Following up a verbal complaint to the Board of Education, Rabbi Englander wrote that the child of one of his congregants had been taught the story of “Joseph and Mary and the Star of Bethlehem in the kindergarten class.” He added that some of the hymns, especially the Christmas carols, found in the school hymnals “are definitely of a sectarian character.” He also pointed out that “it was the opinion of the other two rabbis of Kingston that the principle of separation of church and state, which is one of the bulwarks of our democracy, should at all times be strictly adhered to and that nothing of a religious character should enter our public school system.”
The Board of Education appointed a non-sectarian committee to study the protest. Meanwhile, word of Rabbi Englander’s objections reached members of his synagogue. In a letter to a Kingston newspaper, Nathan Badian, president of the board of directors, said he was authorized by the congregation to disavow the expression of Rabbi Englander. Saying that Rabbi Englander’s letter to the Board of Education was not written at the direction of his congregation, Mr. Badian stated that the objections “definitely were not the views of the congregation nor are they the views of Kingston’s Jewry as a whole”
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.
