Call Issued for National Emergency Conference on Jewish Education

Reaffirming its support “for the funding of all Jewish education by the American Jewish community without seeking or soliciting financial support in the public sector,” the National Women’s Division of the American Jewish Congress called today for the adoption of a “national voluntary tithe to create and fund an agency devoted entirely to Jewish education and culture” in the United States. The recommendation was contained in a resolution adopted at the closing session of the organization’s biennial convention here. The resolution also called for a national emergency conference on Jewish education to which representatives of Jewish youth groups would be invited, to deal with “the crucial problems and concerns of Jewish education.” The resolution said that the American Jewish community has “the obligation to challenge and examine the quality and content of our Jewish education curricula; analyze Jewish pedagogy and problems relating to teacher recruitment, training, placement and salaries.” The resolution admonished Jewish groups seeking public support for Jewish education to “look to the responsibility of the Jewish community to adequately support its own educational institutions.” Other resolutions adopted today called on the Nixon administration to continue to support Israel’s right to negotiate “secure and defensible borders” with her neighbors and to intervene with Egypt, Syria and Iraq to end persecution of their Jewish citizens and allow those who so wish to leave. A similar resolution called on the Soviet Union to accord its Jewish citizens all religious, cultural and civil rights including the right to emigrate to countries of their choice.