Convention of Communal Workers Opens; Aid for All-day Schools Urged

The 64th annual meeting of the National Conference of Jewish Communal Service, attended by 2,000 Jewish communal and social workers from throughout the United States and Canada, opened here today with a session of the National Council for Jewish Education which comprises educators on all levels and of every ideology.

The 200 leaders of Jewish education attending the NCJE conference adopted a resolution urging community support for the all-day Jewish schools following the submission and general discussion of a report on this subject. The survey, which took six months to prepare, noted that there are today 251 all-day schools in 25 states in the U.S. and 19 schools in six communities in Canada. The total enrollment numbers 50,000 or about 10 percent of the total number of children enrolled in Jewish schools. The majority of children attend either week-day afternoon schools or Sunday schools.

The rapid development was attributed by the survey to a number of reasons, including the relatively heavy influx of orthodox immigrants and a desire by a growing number of people to give their children a Jewish as well as a secular education. “The staggering rise in the cost of education, the need for new construction, remodeling and repair, and the inability of many parents to pay the full tuition fee are sources of daily anxiety for day school leadership,” the report stated. “The by-products of the financial predicament of day schools are very often severe,” pointing to the difficulties encountered in retaining teachers and in attracting new ones.

“Probably the most crucial problem created by the lack of funds is that of adequate space and proper facilities,” the report continued, adding that a survey made six years ago found that a minimal remodeling program for the New York City schools would require at least $12,500,000. “This figure probably would come to more than $20,000,000 today,” the report said. “The burden of financing day schools, clearly beyond the capacity of the individual schools to bear, can be solved only by increased support from central communal agencies.”

EVERY PHASE OF JEWISH COMMUNAL LIFE TO BE DISCUSSED AT 143 SESSIONS

The sessions of the National Council of Jewish Education will continue through Sunday, while the National Conference of Jewish Communal Service will continue its meetings through June 6. Social tensions, domestic and world issues and problems of the atomic age as they affect Jewish life will come under intensive scrutiny of the NCJCS. The sessions will cover every phase of child care, care of the aged, family service, hospital and health care, vocational counseling, recreation, Jewish education, community relations, migration and refugee aid, as well as central community planning, budgeting and administration, it was announced here today by Donald B. Hurwitz, NCJCS president.

Subjects to be considered by the conferees, Mr. Hurwitz said, will also include implications of extreme rightist activity for Jewish communities, church-state relationships, religion in the public schools, worldwide Jewish-Catholic relationships, delinquency among middle-class adolescents, changes in metropolitan areas, segregation in the North, the relationship between public and voluntary services, and the effect of public funds on voluntary services.

These are among the topics to be discussed by more than 350 speakers, experts in every phase of health, welfare, education, and community planning and administration, addressing 143 sessions of the conference and the preliminary meetings which started today.

The National Conference of Jewish Communal Service is the organization of professional workers serving the Jewish communities of the United States and Canada in the fields of health, social welfare, recreation, cultural activities, and community planning and administration. Its membership includes 300 organizations and agencies in these fields, and approximately 2,000 individual members.

The first national gathering of the Jewish Library Association also was held here today in conjunction with the NCJCS. The conference dealt with the role of the Jewish library in the community, standards for a Jewish library, technical problems involved in maintaining a Jewish library and the status of the Jewish book in general.

A special conference of a joint committee of the national organizations of Jewish educators held here last night was told that a substantial fund should be created to provide scholarships, pension funds and chairs at universities, particularly in Jewish teacher training schools. The joint committee is an affiliate of the National Council for Jewish Education.

The proposal for the fund was made by Rabbi Heiman Chanover, director of the Teachers Welfare Department of the National Council. He proposed that the funds should be sought from the Jewish communities.

Harry Woll, director of Principal and Teachers Licensing and Activities of the Jewish Education Committee of New York City, proposed that such a program should be suggested as a project on a global basis for the World Conference on Jewish Education scheduled for July in Jerusalem.