Special Interview a Man for All Reasons

Arthur Brody, the Watchung, N.J. business executive who is scheduled to be elected president of the American Association for Jewish Education (AAJE) Sunday, believes that the most “crucial issue” facing the American Jewish community is the need to provide every child with an adequate Jewish education. “This should be our number one priority,” he said in an interview with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

Brody, who succeeds Robert H. Arnow, who was AAJE president for seven-and-a-half years, stressed that at a time when intermarriage is increasing and a large segment of the Jewish population is not committed to communal activities Jewish education is essential for survival.

The 50-year-old Brody has demonstrated his own commitment both on the local and national scene. He is serving his third term as president of the Jewish Community Federation of Metropolitan New Jersey, has been vice-president of the Jewish Education Association of Metropolitan New Jersey and general chairman of the United Jewish Appeal and is involved in numerous other activities.

Nationally, he serves on the boards of the UJA, Council of Jewish Federations and Welfare Funds, Council for Economic Growth in Israel, the Hebrew Arts School and the Tarbuth Foundation.

A QUESTION OF TACHLIS

Brody noted that Jewish lay leaders, deeply involved in fund-raising and other important tasks, have not devoted as much attention to education as he believes they should. But, he asserted, “we are dealing with the question of survival.” For, he stressed, without adequate Jewish education there will not be any Jewish survival and without survival there will not be any need for federations, the UJA or other Jewish organizations. “This is our tachlis,” he said.

The incoming AAJE president said his major goal is to involve Jewish lay leaders in the organization’s work. The AAJE, which was founded in 1939, is a service agency for coordination, promotion and research in American Jewish education aiding the 18 national organizations and nearly 50 local educational agencies in the United States and Canada that are its constituent members.

The AAJE wants to help each local Jewish school, school board or federation to provide a better education in its community, Brody said. To accomplish this it works in several fields. One is in the area of teachers. The AAJE is attempting to encourage more qualified teachers to enter the field and schools to hire them. It has urged that they receive better salaries.

The organization also is helping develop curricula for Jewish schools and is a “cultural clearinghouse” in which one community can learn about programs, textbooks and teaching methods used in another community, Brody explained. The AAJE also receives numerous queries from local schools on problems which it tries to help them solve, he said.

OUTLINES SPECIAL PROJECTS

A major task of the AAJE is collecting statistics, according to Brody. He said the organization is presently conducting a nationwide survey of funding of day schools by local federations since, as Brody pointed out, one quarter of the children receiving Jewish education today go to day schools rather than congregational schools. The AAJE has found that day school enrollment has risen from 70,000 in 1970 to 92,000 today while the number of pupils in congregation schools has dropped from 430,000 to 320,000.

The AAJE is also studying its own methods, programs and structure to see how it can best serve the local communities, Brody said. The special study is being conducted by Herbert Millman, former executive director of the Jewish Welfare Board.

Another special AAJE project is to promote family education. Brody was chairman of a conference in Washington last June attended by almost 300 communal leaders in which various ways of providing continuous family education were described and discussed.

Brody said the AAJE is striving to bring its work closer to the communities rather than to have everything emanate from New York. To accomplish this, regional conferences were held recently in Cleveland, Chicago and Hartford, he said. He has participated in all three and is scheduled to go to San Diego for the next one, Feb. 19-20.

Although Brody talked of the problems of ensuring Jewish survival, he said he finds the increasing enrollment in Jewish day schools a hopeful sign. He said this is a trend across the country, in large communities and small ones. “Young Jews are seeking a return to the basic values of their forefathers.” He said more and more young Jewish parents want their children to get a Jewish education. Perhaps, he noted, it is the old American Jewish cliche, the grandchildren want to relearn what their grandparents knew and their parents forgot.

Brody said his own Jewish education was primarily in a congregational school and noted that it was inadequate. Perhaps, he suggested, that is why he is so involved in seeing that this situation will be improved.