A Committee on Federation Planning for Jewish Education has been established by the Council of Jewish Federations and Welfare Funds, it was announced today by Lewis H. Weinstein, CJFWF president.
The committee will be concerned with community responsibilities for strengthening the quality of Jewish education to make it most helpful to the children and adults served and to the community as a whole. Formation of the committee was recommended by delegates to the annual General Assembly of the Council of Jewish Federations and Welfare Funds, which had been held in Montreal.
The Council and the American Association for Jewish Education are cooperating closely in the work of the committee, whose chairman is Mandell Berman of Detroit. Mr. Berman is a leader of the Jewish Welfare Federation and of Jewish education in Detroit. He is a national vice-president of the AAJE. Lavy M. Becker, past president of the Montreal Federation and a board member of the CJFWF, is vice-chairman. Maurice Bernstein, director of community planning for the CJFWF, is committee secretary. The committee is addressing itself to the following questions:
1. What responsibilities are most appropriate for Jewish Federations in the field of Jewish education?
2. What criteria should guide Jewish Federations in supporting Jewish education?
3. What should be the relationship between Federations and such central instruments as Bureaus of Jewish Education, Jewish education committees, United Hebrew Schools, Associated Talmud Torahs?
4. What should be the relationship of Jewish Federations with "communal schools" and synagogue schools?
5. What should be the financial and planning relationship of these Jewish Federations to the different types of Jewish schools?
6. How can the major problems in Jewish education be overcome? What can be done about indifference in the community, fragmentation in Jewish education, quality of teacher training, curriculum with inadequate student impact, limitation of most Jewish education to elementary years, the need for top-level lay leadership in Jewish education, and the present inadequate status of Jewish education generally?
The committee will also examine how Jewish education can be related to other communal responsibilities through the community planning process. Committee members include a number of Jewish Federation leaders throughout North America, chairmen of community planning committees on Jewish education, chairmen and directors of Bureaus of Jewish Education, executive directors of Federations, and educational leaders in the Orthodox, Conservative and Reform congregational movements.
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