Rabbi Abraham B. Hecht, newly elected president of the Rabbinical Alliance of America, called on the American Jewish community to “make a genuine and sincere effort” to improve employment conditions for Jewish educators. Rabbi Hecht is spiritual leader of the Sephardic Shaare Zion Congregation in Brooklyn.
Addressing the midsummer conference of the Orthodox rabbinical group, Rabbi Hecht deplored the lack of trained teachers in Hebrew day schools and afternoon schools. Unless efforts are made to provide decent salaries and fringe benefits to Jewish educators, he declared, “the finest and most talented young men will just not enter the Hebrew teaching profession. They will follow the pattern of giving their best talents to other pursuits and professions.”
Among the resolutions adopted at the conference was one calling upon the Jewish community and lay leadership to increase the salary scale of Hebrew teachers and principals. The conference also urged the American Jewish community to return from vacation resorts to the synagogues in their local neighborhoods, to spend the High Holy Days “in an atmosphere of sanctity and religious warmth which is generated in the synagogue edifice.”
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.
