A new government order issued here grants the right to Jewish parents to keep their children from attending school on the Sabbath. The Board of the Free Federation for the Interests of Orthodox Jewry issued a circular to all German rabbis calling their attention to the order.
“If parents do not avail themselves of the alternative and the youngsters attend school on the Sabbath,” says the circular, “they will become accustomed from early youth to the complete desecration of the Sabbath.
“The formulation of the government order suggests that it expects Jewish parents in whose life religion plays any part at all, to make use of the right to keep their children away from school on the Sabbath.
“We would quote as an example of what should be done the attitude adopted in a middling town in Hessen where the Jewish population is overwhelmingly liberal. The town consented to keep the children from school. We should urge that the community arrange for supplementary classes for those children who fall back in their school work because of regular absence on the Sabbath.”
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.