New Educational Methods Being Tried out in J.D.C. Schools in Eastern Europe and Jewish Agency School

The newest trends in educational thought and endeavor are now being tried out in war torn Europe, as well as in Palestine, according to a statement issued yesterday by David M. Bressler, one of the national co-chairmen of the Allied Jewish Campaign.

In the areas of Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Czecho-Slovakia, Hungary, Austria, Transylvania, and Palestine there have been subsidized by the Joint Distribution Committee, he said, no less than 2,031 schools with 245,835 students. This committee is the instrumentality, through which funds contributed by the Jews of America for the reconstructive relief of their coreligionists overseas are administered. It is one of the beneficiaries of the Allied Jewish Campaign which is raising $6,000,000 from American Jewry for the continuance of the Joint Distribution Committee work, and for the economic program of the Jewish Agency for Palestine.

THREE TYPES OF J.D.C. SCHOOLS

These schools which dot the various parts of Eastern Europe and Palestine are of three distinct types, Talmud Torah schools, schools for girls and trade schools.

Of the three types, the trade schools present the most interesting experiment, Mr. Bressler said, as in these schools cultural courses combined with instruction in manual training, to enable the graduates to integrate themselves into the changing industrial order of Eastern Europe.

“One of the most unique schools subventioned by the Joint Distribution Committee is in Sighet-Mamoresch, a town in Sub-Carpathia, where the age old Talmudic study-traditions of the Jews are carried on, alongside with tuition in the modern crafts of the present industrial era,” Mr. Bressler said. “Here the young men and boys wearing the biblical fringed garment, called the ‘Arba Kanfoth’ (four corners) and their heads covered with skull caps, study the Talmud in the morning, and do knitting, weaving, and brush-making or carpentry in the afternoon.

6,000 IN TRADE SCHOOLS

“Almost 6,000 young men and women are receiving manual training in the trade schools. Girls, too, have been taught to do their share in the rebuilding of Eastern Europe. And, it is no unusual sight to see girls standing on top of threshing machines, feeding grain into the hopper, and young men driving their tractors throughout the country.

“The World War practically destroyed, in fact virtually obliterated, all of the systems of Jewish cultural and religious training, and one of the most notable achievements of the Joint Distribution Committee was the revivification and restoration of elementary, middle and higher systems of learning among the Jews. The effort has been made.” Mr. Bressler stated, “to maintain in all countries not alone elementary and intermediate schools, but all the higher types of Jewish institutional schools of learning, such as theological schools, seminaries, and teachers’ colleges.”

COMPLETE HEBREW SYSTEM IN PALESTINE

In Palestine, Mr. Bressler declared, there is one of the most complete Hebrew educational systems in the world, ranging all the way from the kindergarten to the Hebrew University on Mount Scopus. The Jewish pioneers there regard schools for their children indispensable as bread. And, a village having as few as ten children, has a kindergarten, at least. It was in 1903 that the first Hebrew Kindergarten was established in Palestine, along Froebel lines. Since that time, however, the kindergartens have been influenced by the Montessori system, and now have a synthetic program of work and play. A delightful, homelike atmosphere prevails in the Palestinian kindergarten, where hot meals are furnished to the children at a very low charge, as part of the child welfare program of Hadassah, the women’s Zionist Organization of America.

TEACHING OF HEBREW SONGS

Excellent results have been achieved in recent years by the kindergartens in the teaching of Hebrew songs, said Mr. Bressler. The youngsters are taught to form and conduct choirs of their own. The Hebrew language, long reckoned, like Latin and Greek, among the classical, but “dead” languages, has taken new life and has become the living, every day language of the people.

“This renaissance of the Hebrew language can be directly traced to the influence of the public school system in Palestine, beginning with the kindergarten where the little tot is taught to prattle his numbers and nursery rhymes in Hebrew,” he said.

“Indeed, modern Palestine has a most striking educational system with its village schools, the great gymnasium at Tel Aviv, the Technicum at Haifa, where artisans and engineers are trained, the “Co-Ed” farm school at Mikveh, the girls’ farm school at Nahalal, and at the apex of the whole system, the Hebrew University.”

28,000 IN AGENCY SCHOOLS

Mr. Bressler said that 28,000 children attend 227 schools under the jurisdiction of the Jewish Agency for Palestine, divided as follows: 117 kindergartens: 95 elementary schools; 8 secondary schools and seminaries; and 7 vocational schools. The educational system is so far reaching that notwithstanding there is no compulsory education law in Palestine, almost every Jewish child receives some schooling. To the upkeep of this unique system of education, the government of Palestine gives 20,000 pounds; the municipalities and colonies 16,165 pounds; the parents pay about 8 per cent in fees, and the remainder comes from the funds of the Jewish Agency for Palestine, which is the other beneficiary of the Allied Jewish Campaign.