Convention of Conservative Rabbis Discusses Jewish Education; Criticizes Sunday Schools

Plans for expanded Jewish education in the United States were presented today at the convention of the Rabbinical Assembly of America by Dr. Robert Gordis in his presidential address. He also called for a re-evaluation of Conservative Judaism’s relationship to Zionism.

The whole attitude toward the Sunday school needs “rethinking,” said Dr. Gordis. Both Protestantism and Reform, which initiated the Sunday school movement, are beginning to have serious doubts about it. He recommended instead a Jewish day school for children between the ages of 5 and 8, after which they could return to the public school system and continue in the afternoon Hebrew school. He said that he believed the Jewish day school or Yeshivah had proved a most efficient and significant agency for Jewish education.

Dr. Gordis criticized the Jewish centers as they operate at present. “It is not adult Jewish education to have lecturers speak on penguins in Tasmania or mules in Patagonia, or even the independence of China or the glories of the Soviet Union,” he said. “It should instead teach Judaism, Jewish history, Jewish customs and philosophy.” He called for the creation of new congregations, particularly labor synagogues, through which the laboring groups could be reached. He also urged the creation of a national youth camp for Conservative Judaism where young men and women could be sent on a scholarship basis for Jewish study and Jewish living.

He warned the members of the Rabbinical Assembly that they could no longer give their loyalty to one or another of the existing Zionist parties by “deciding which is least uncongenial,” and urged them to reconsider their conception of Zionism and reappraise their relationship to the Zionist movement. He recommended that the Zionist Committee and Executive Council prepare a pronouncement on Zionism as well as a program for implementing their position.