Public school officials and teachers in Detroit were urged by Superintendent S.M. Brownell to remember “that the religious sensibilities” of Jewish as well as Christian students “must be kept in mind” in any preparations “for our traditional attention to the Christmas season in the schools.”
Dr. Brownell raised the question in “Detroit Schools,” the official publication of the Detroit public schools. He cited with approval a statement from the California Journal of Elementary Education to that effect.
The statement he endorsed also added that “as educators, we would seem bound to give priority to the principle of avoiding violation of any student’s individual conscience in the selection of program material or specific events which might be interpreted as sectarian or so presented as to cause a child to feel set apart from his fellow students in an embarrassing way.”
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.
