Rza Calls on CJF to Allocate $100m to Ensure Survival of Judaism in U.S.

Rabbi Bernard Bergman, president of the National Council for Torah Education, citing “great financial hardships” resulting from “adverse rulings” by the United States Supreme Court, proposed that the Council of Jewish Federations and Welfare Funds allocate $100 million for Jewish education he said was needed to ensure the survival of Judaism in the US.

“We are justified in accusing the (CJF) of failing to grasp the vital significance of Jewish education as a major factor in sustaining the viability of the Jewish community,” Rabbi Bergman told 500 delegates last night at the 62nd annual convention of the Religious Zionists of America (Mizrachi-Hapoel Hamizrachi).

The CJF General Assembly at its Toronto opening Nov. 8, must “reorder its basic economic priorities and provide for more thorough and all-encompassing programs for the furtherance of Jewish education,” Rabbi Bergman said. “The 420 all-day Jewish schools,” he continued, “are confronted with a severe monetary crisis and must secure immediate help if they are not to sharply curtail or possibly discontinue their operations.” The schools have an enrollment of some 80,000. In New York, there are 181 schools with an enrollment of approximately 53,000.

CJF PRIORITIES ASKEW

While “an increasingly large number of school teachers are being drawn away from these religious all-day schools due to the more attractive salary scales of the public school system,” the CJF member organizations are “spending the bulk of their budgets” on social-service institutions that “are increasingly being aided by the appropriations of governmental bodies and do not need to rely on Jewish federation funds for their fundamental sustenance,” Rabbi Bergman asserted.

He warned that if they are not aided “the (teacher) exodus will grow to alarming proportions and threaten the existence of the entire day school movement.” Rabbi Bergman also urged the American Jewish Congress to “desist from its attacks on aid to parochial schools,” charging that “These legal and constitutional battles in the courts and else where constitute a grave disservice to the development of a more creative Jewish educational system.”

YOUNG RABBIS SHOULD WORK ON CAMPUS

Rabbi Bernard A. Poupko, president of the RZA, told the convention today that the country’s rabbinical organizations and yeshivas should initiate compulsory two-year terms of service for all newly ordained on-campus Orthodox rabbis. “We still have a chance to salvage spiritually a substantial segment of our 350,000 young men and young women attending our colleges and universities,” Rabbi Poupko explained.

“This rescue effort can and will succeed only if a maximum number of qualified and dedicated young rabbis will move into the campus area and will bring the message of Torah and Jewish living to our alienated youth.” These youth, he said, “are hungry for guidance and for meaning as they are experiencing their identity crisis.”

Rabbi Poupko also asserted “vigorous” opposition to “the signing of any trade pact with the USSR unless the Kremlin will remove this primitive and savages ransom ukase.” He said it will be “tragic…if world Jewry will not respond to this singular and unique historic opportunity to make it possible for our wronged and isolated brethren languishing in the shadow of the Kremlin in this finest hour of their history to achieve their freedom.”