Differences on Jewish Education in South Africa Bridged at Conference

A joint statement by Chief Rabbi Bernard Casper and Rabbi Isaac Goss, director of the South African Board of Jewish Education, expressed broad agreement on the religious content of Jewish education, following differences between moderates and extremists that threatened for a time to deadlock the national conference of the S. A. Board of Jewish Education. Attending the conference, at which Louis Sachs was unanimously reelected chairman, were 370 delegates from all parts of the country. Max Greenstein, a Board of Deputies leader, was elected president.

Chief Rabbi Casper, who is also honorary president of the Board of Jewish Education, and Rabbi Goss agreed, in their joint statement, that the curricula of Jewish studies at the day schools run by the Board should be so arranged so as to deepen the existing program of religious studies, Rabbi Casper, who introduced the joint statement, assured the conference that “nothing is going to be forced. We don’t intend any violence upon the children, nor even upon the teachers.” Rabbi Goss said they must remember that the purpose of Jewish education was to induct children into a way of life — not coerce them. The religious content of studies at the Board’s Jewish day schools was already significant, it was a question of working out a practical pedagogical program for deepening it, he said.

The S.A. Rabbinical Association, the Federation of Synagogues and the Mizrachi withdrew resolutions demanding more school time for religious education, more rabbis on the Board’s council’s, and that Jewish studies be taught only by religiously observant teachers, on the assurance that the incoming executive would give the Casper-Goss declaration “urgent and sympathetic consideration.”

The Board’s chairman, Mr. Sachs, reviewed, in his address, the outstanding progress made by the Board in all branches of its work, and especially in the Jewish day schools, since the previous conference three years ago. He said 5, 500 children were now attending Jewish day schools in South Africa, and a further 6, 000 the afternoon schools (Chedorim) and Hebrew nursery schools supervised by the Board. The Board was also deepening the Zionist content of Jewish education and its Ulpan scheme, which took a number of Jewish day school pupils each year on a three-months’ study tour, was being extended. But withdrawal of a Jewish Agency subsidy of 36, 000 pounds from the end of 1968, owing to Israel’s exigencies, would require the mobilization of increased financial resources, and a 1, 000, 000 pounds national Jewish education fund-raising campaign would have to be launched next year.