Digest of Public Opinion on Jewish Matters

[The purpose of the Digest is informative: Preference is given to papers not generally accessible to our readers. Quotation does indicate approval.–Editor.]

Two different opinions on the decision of Supreme Court Justice Staley, permitting school boards to release pupils for certain periods each week for religious instruction outside of the schools, in churches to be selected by the parents, are expressed by the “Day” and the “Jewish Morning Journal.”

The “Day” (Apr. 27) sees the decision as a blow to the principle of religious freedom. While it is not an actual permission to teach religion in the schools, the paper contends, “it opens the door wide for such an eventuality.”

The children in the schools, we are told, will have to fill out special questionnaires asking them if they desire religious instruction and if not — why not? Moreover religious missions will spring up in the vicinity of the vicinity of the schools, so that.

“In effect, the decision of Judge Staley means an actual approximation between church and school, between religious and secular education, which is replete with numerous dangers. For the Jewish pupils, who form a large percentage in the New York schools, this practice would present many obnoxious possibilities. A field would be opened for various sectarian interferences and quarrels–things which everywhere in the course of centuries have caused suffering for the Jewish population.”

The “Jewish Morning Journal” (Apr. 27), though not welcoming Judge Staley’s decision, thinks it may prove to be beneficial for the Jewish as well as for non-Jewish children in giving t hem an opportunity to receive religious instruction. Pointing out that the religious teaching would be given in churches and synagogues chosen by the parents and only half to one hour a week would be devoted for the purpose, the paper observes: Thousands of Jewish parents would no doubt endorse such an arrangement and many would perhaps demand more than half an hour a week.”