Establishment of a University of Judaism, which would admit Conservative, Reform and Orthodox students, was urged by Dr. Mordecai Kaplan, dean of the Teachers Institute of the Jewish Theological Seminary, addressing the biennial convention here of the United Synagogue of America. Dr. Kaplan expressed the belief that the Jewish Theological Seminary was best suited to become the nucleus of the projected university.
“American Jewish life calls for rabbis, teachers, administrators, communal functionaries, social service workers and creative artists,” Dr. Mordecai said. “All these callings require the establishment of various graduate schools which need to be integrated into a University of Judaism.”
Dr. Solomon Goldman of Chicago told the convention that if the synagogues, as constituted in American today, are allowed to maintain their status quo for another generation they will completely deteriorate, and their influence, together with that of the rabbis, will be altogether expunged from the American Jewish community. “They may,” he added, “even cease to exist except in insignificant numbers.”
He advocated the creation of a national synagogue to replace the synagogues as they exist today. He proposed the organization, in the larger communities where there is more than one Conservative synagogue, of “a synagogue association to which those who are adherents to Conservative Judaism will join as members. This association will maintain the synagogues now in existence and build others whenever and wherever considered necessary and feasible. Synagogues now existing in smaller communities should become a part of four of five regional synagogue associations, and communities where there are no synagogues at present should become the responsibility of the association as to the erection of new synagogues.”
Dr. Louis Finkelstein, president of the Jewish Theological Seminary, said that the unprecedented crisis in Judaism and the equally unprecedented crisis in civilization which confront us today are inter-related. “The most significant contribution we Jews can make to the establishment of a peaceful and just world is to bring about that spiritual re-orientation of our own people which may lead to an equally profound spiritual re-orientation of the world,” he stated.
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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.
