Proposals for a “religious culturism,” a central fund for Jewish institutions of higher education and wider use of the Anglo-Jewish press arose today from the Second Annual Seminary Conference on Jewish Affairs, held at the Jewish Theological Seminary and attended by about 300 persons.
With Edward M.M. Warburg presiding, rabbi Milton Steinberg delivered the principal address this afternoon. His speech was followed by ten round table discussions on “The Future of Judaism in America,” and the chairmen of the various round tables reported to a dinner tonight, at which Lewis S. Strauss was scheduled to preside.
Rabbi Steinberg urged a culture based on religion. This religious culturism, he said, would cause Judaism to “take on enhanced meaning and significance for the American Jew” and aid him to “bring into the general fund of American resources his enhanced personality and cultural wealth of which he is possessed.”
A central fund for Jewish higher education, which might develop into a Jewish university in the United States, was urged by Dr. Maurice J. Karpf, director of the Graduate School for Jewish Social Work, addressing one of the round table discussions. He said the need for such a fund had become more urgent in the past few years because of the problems faced by educational institutions in maintaining themselves.
The fund would maintain such institutions as the Seminary, Dropsie College, Hebrew Union College, the Jewish Institute of Religion and the Graduate School. Dr. Karpf said that Jacob H. Schiff, Louis Marshall, Julius Rosenwald and Felix M. Warburg had been interested in such a fund and the possibility that it might develop into a Jewish university, and Dr. Cyrus Adler has sponsored the idea for more than a quarter of a century.
Pointing out that the depression had hit Jewish educational institutions and that the Jewish public had been conditioned to respond to appeals for the hungry, persecuted and afflicted, Dr. Karpf asserted that welfare funds were most responsive to overseas needs while education got “the leavings and frequently not even that.”
The central fund, functioning as “a sort of holding company” for the institutions it represented, would enhance the standing of the schools, assure a minimum amount of permanence and security and free the administrators of these institutions from fund-raising efforts, Dr. Karpf said. He cited precedents in other fields for such a fund, and pointed out that it would have the additional function of research which would and the institutions’ work.
Joseph G. Brin, publisher of the Boston Jewish Advocate, urged increased use of the Anglo-Jewish press. He described it as “a purveyor of news, a responsible community agency and mouthpiece, and a medium for integration of elements in the Jewish community with each other, and of the whole community with the greater neighborhood in which we live.”
Other speakers were Dr. Max Arzt of Scranton, Pa.; Rabbi Albert I. Gordon of Minneapolis; Arthur Oppenheimer, Rabbi Morris Silverman, Israel S. Chipkin, Max Harzfeld, Dr. Israel H. Levinthal, Dr. Samuel Dinin, Dr. Solomon Grayzel, Mrs. Moses P. Epstein, president of Hadassah; Elihu D. Stone of Boston, Rabbi Armond E. Cohen, Dr. Solomon Lowenstein, Harry L. Lurie, Dr. Robert Gordis, Joseph C. Hyman, and Dr. Jonah B. Wise.
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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.
