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City Changes School-opening Time So Students Can Attend Talmud Torah

November 22, 1968
See Original Daily Bulletin From This Date
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Superintendent of Schools Bernard Donovan today ordered New York City public schools to open 45 minutes earlier in the morning to make up time lost by students and teacher pay losses resulting from the New York City teachers’ strike that ended this week. Dr. Donovan acted at the request of Brooklyn Jewish community leaders who complained that the extension of the school day by 45 minutes beyond the 3 p.m. closing time originally ordered created a problem for more than 50,000 Jewish students who attend religious classes in Talmud Torahs after school hours.

The matter was brought to the attention of Deputy Mayor Robert W. Sweet who was visited at City Hall yesterday by a committee representing the Brooklyn Jewish Community Council. The committee also expressed concern over the “anti-Semitic climate engendered by the school strike” and asked the city administration to help the Council carry on a continuous dialogue with black community leaders to bring about better relations between Jews and Negroes. The 34-day teachers’ strike centered on a dispute between the mainly Negro and Puerto Rican Ocean Hill-Brownsville experimental school district and the predominantly Jewish United Federation of Teachers.

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