Educator Urges Tripling of Jewish Community Funds for Jewish Schools

A leader in Jewish education today urged Jewish communities to triple their allocations for Jewish schools to at least 30 percent of the funds expended for all Jewish communal purposes.

In an address to the opening session of the 38th annual conference of the National Council for Jewish Education, Dr. Elazar Goelman, president of the organization and dean of Gratz College in Philadelphia, cited data showing that allocations by Jewish federations for Jewish education had been about nine and one-half percent of the total funds received by local Jewish agencies from federations and community chest allocations during the past five years. He said the latest data showed that the budget for public schools represented well over 40 percent of public expenditures in communities throughout the United States.

In a report on the enrollment in Jewish schools in the Greater New York area during the 1963-64 academic year, Dr. Azriel Eisenberg, executive vice-president of the Jewish Education Committee of New York, said that total enrolment in all types of Jewish schools in the area had increased to 144,876, as compared with 144,342 during the previous academic year. He said the overall figure did not include an estimated 10,000 children attending released time classes.

He noted that past experience had indicated that enrollment patterns in Jewish schools in New York City tended to be paralleled by enrolment in Jewish schools throughout the United States, He deplored the fact that “everyone gives lip service to the school, yet it is the weakest, most defenseless, most neglected organism, a convenient target of criticising and attack for our failures at home, in the synagogue and in the community.”