A delegation of principals of Jewish schools in France was scheduled to meet today with Minister of Education Alain Savary to stress the need to preserve schools with specific Jewish identities in spite of the Socialist government’s plan in favor of the public school system. The government plan provides for a serious cut in state subsidies to private and religious schools in order to obtain a standardization of the public school system.
There are over 50 Jewish schools in France with over 9,000 students and classes go from elementary to senior high and even institutes of university standards. Most of the high schools are situated in Paris and Marseilles.
All, however, depend to a large extent on state subsidies which are now jeopardized by the government’s new educational program. Most of the Jewish schools use the regular state curriculum supplemented by traditional Jewish subjects and Hebrew classes.
The Chief Rabbi’s adviser for education. Dr. Daniel Kahn, said today that it is imperative for the preservation of Judaism to maintain some form of Jewish education and Jewish oriented schools. Though the school population represents less than 0.5 percent of the 700,000-member Jewish community, most communal workers, rabbis and educators are themselves graduates of Jewish schools.
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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.
