Two prominent rabbis urged here today that community federations and welfare funds assume the responsibility for all “programs, services or institutions which meet a specifically Jewish need,” primarily Jewish education but also a wide range of activities including problems that arise from the decline or deterioration of Jewish neighborhoods and funerals and burials, “with all profits accruing to Jewish education.”
The end of the traditional non-support by federations of denominational and congregational activities was called for by Rabbi Saul Teplitz, of Congregation Sons of Israel, Woodmere, N.Y. and Rabbi Samuel H. Dresner of the North Suburban Synagogue Beth El, Highland Park, III. They spoke at the 75th anniversary convention of the Rabbinical Assembly, the rabbinic branch of Conservative Judaism, at the Grossinger Hotel.
Rabbi Dresner, a vice-president of the Synagogue Council of America, declared that “Jewish education should be communally supported, that is, free to parents and decentralized. If the public school is free, supported by taxes not related to user’s fees, then why not the education of Jews? If it means withdrawing funds from other agencies, including Israel, then so be it.”
Rabbi Teplitz said “The time has come for the federation and synagogue to collapse the barriers of separation that have not allowed each to wholly benefit the other. As the synagogue member is called upon to support the community center, so the federation must stand ready to support the Jewish ventures of education and worship. The federation, community and the synagogue should function for the benefit of both.”
HISTORIC PRECEDENT CITED
Both rabbis noted that an historic precedent for this could be found in the old Jewish communities of Europe, the only difference being that the money is raised voluntarily by the federations rather than by the system of taxes that served the Jewish communities of Europe before the rise of Hitler.
The two rabbis suggested that Jewish education be funded on a per capita basis or voucher system whereby each child would receive an amount in accordance with the type of school attended: Sunday, afternoon or all-day. They agreed that Jewish education should be centralized and the federation support should not mean uniformity but accept differing intellectual and philosophical points of view.
A resolution calling on federations and welfare funds to give greater support to Jewish education in the U.S. was expected to be adopted today by the 1100 delegates attending the convention. Another resolution expected to be adopted today urges federations and Jewish welfare funds generally to take “greater pains to achieve strict accountability. Those who contribute must have a greater voice in decisions concerning disbursement.”
Rabbi Mordecai Waxman of Temple Israel Congregation, Great Neck, N.Y., was re-elected president of the Rabbinical Assembly.
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