Jewish education-“the informal variety for adults as much as the classroom for children”–is a first priority for the cultural growth of American Jewry. B’nai B’rith president Philip M, Klutznick said last night.
“Failure to stress adult education ignores the fact that the power structure that guides the destiny of the Jewish community is composed of adults, not their children,” he warned. Mr. Klutznick addressed a banquet audience of 500, one of the largest turnouts in the history of this city’s Jewish community, marking the 80th anniversary of B’nai B’rith’s Charlotte Lodge.
He dismissed as “astigmatic pessimism’ any belief that the physical survival of Jewry is threatened by its emancipated status in the free world. “The Jewish community will persist, ” he said, “if only because of its unique habit of being nourished by its own problems. The really vital question is the character of its existence. A Jewry illiterate of its own Jewishness handicaps the community’s creative efforts,” Mr. Klutznick added.
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