Head of Jewish Day Care Center Vows to Fight Attempts to Close It

The Agency for Child Development was denounced today by Rabbi Schmuel M. Butman, the director of the Mosdoth Day Care Center in the Crown Heights the section of Brooklyn, the only day care center for the Jewish poor in that area, who charged that the agency was threatening to close the center on Jan. 29. Rabbi Butman told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that the threat would be met by action. “We will go to City Hall and we will organize protest demonstrations if we have to in order to keep the center open,” he said. If that doesn’t work, he added, “we will go to the courts to seek an injunction against the closing to prevent the center from being closed.”

The center was the scene of a racial clash Nov. 17 by Black and Puerto Rican demonstrators who charged that only hasidic children had been accepted by the center. A rabbi who emerged from. the center to talk to the demonstrators was greeted with shouts of “That’s why Hitler took care of your people,” and “They knew how to do it to you. in Germany and that’s what we’re going to do to you here.” Rabbi Butman told the JTA that Mrs. Eleanor Holmes Norton, chairman of the city’s Human Rights Commission, issued a statement the same day assailing the anti-Semitic outburst of the demonstrators.

At a press conference last Thursday in City. Hall attended by representatives of the Crown Heights Jewish Community Council, 25 Crown Heights rabbis, and their City Councilman, Theodore Silverman, Rabbi Butman stated that “we are totally distressed over the actions, attitudes and conduct of the child development agency” toward the day care center. He told the JTA today that after the press conference he asked for an immediate meeting with Mayor John V. Lindsay or one of his representatives but was informed by a spokesman for the mayor that everyone was too busy to meet with him.

IN LINE WITH HEW PRINCIPLE

Rabbi Butman said that the center had an enrollment of 110 children for a program funded by federal and city funds and admission was on a first-come, first-served basis. Since the center was only one of two among the 400 day care centers in the city with a bi-lingual Yiddish-English program, hasidic parents throughout Crown Heights had registered their children first, filling all available places.

Rabbi Butman asserted that the center was “the only one that meets the needs of Jewish children” in the hasidic community, adding that its functions were “completely in line with the statement of principle for day care centers prepared by the Department of Health, Education and Welfare office of child development.

He quoted the principle as declaring that “continuing with the child’s cultural background, the day care program should incorporate prominent elements of continuity with the cultural background of the families being served, including furnishings, food and customs. When children come from a non-English-speaking background, there must be staff members who can converse in the child’s own language and, whenever possible, that language should be utilized throughout segments of the program.”

CENTER NOT RELIGIOUSLY ORIENTED

Rabbi Butman said that the English Yiddish program at the center was necessary because “most hasidic children speak only Yiddish.” He added that this type of program was “similar to facilities provided in areas where the enrollees” in similar care centers “speak mainly or mostly Spanish.” He noted that the center provides only kosher food and provides a program to acquaint children with the Jewish heritage and culture–“not religion”–including history, customs, songs and dances “of the Jewish people.” This type of program “is featured in many other centers where, for example. African culture and history is taught.” Rabbi Butman said.

He also assailed a criticism from the child development agency that the center did not have any five-year-olds. He said the needs of the Jewish poor in Crown Heights “are for children of the ages of two, three and four. When the child reaches the age of five, he or she is accepted into the hasidic yeshivos or girls’ schools.”

In addition, he said the child development agency “continues to maliciously maintain there are only 54 children in our center,” which he said currently had an enrollment of 110, after Georgia McMurray, commissioner for the child development agency, sent representatives to count the number of children in attendance. “Despite the cold weather, they found 90 children attending,” Rabbi Butman said, adding, the others were absent for illness and colds. “It is well-known that absentee rates for pre-school children are very high.”