It wasn’t a concession after all.
It was a point-blank refusal that was made to read like a concession by a typographical error on the part of a stenographer in the Board of Education.
That’s the explanation of yesterday’s story that appeared in the Bulletin relating that the school authorities had decided to split the difference with the Jewish Sabbath Alliance in the matter of its request that school opening be deferred until September 12 because the Jewish New Year falls on the tenth and eleventh.
While Dr. Campbell’s letter to William Rosenberg, executive secretary of the Alliance stated that school would be opened September 11, which would have meant a concession had been granted, the letter should have read, according to the office of Superintendent of Schools Harold G. Campbell, September 10, which is the date originally scheduled.
In the meantime, officers of the Alliance having been misled by the error, a letter was dispatched yesterday to Dr. Campbell protesting that the supposed concession granted was not sufficient.
PROTEST AGAINST “CONCESSION”
“This concession,” the Alliance wrote, “is practically without value inasmuch as, according to the precepts of the orthodox Jewish faith both the tenth and eleventh of September are observed as holy time and are equally obligatory.” The letter then demands that “out of consideration to the religious sentiment of Jewish pupils and teachers,” the board reconsider its action.
When informed yesterday by the Bulletin that the Alliance’s partial victory was in reality a complete defeat, Rosenberg stated the organization would carry the fight for a postponed school opening to Mayor LaGuardia and Governor Lehman. This course of action was decided upon at a conference yesterday between Rosenberg and Dr. Bernard Drachman, president of the Alliance.
In addition to appeals to the Mayor and Governor, Rosenberg said, the Alliance would go through with its original intention of appealing to parents of Jewish school children not to permit them to attend school on either the tenth or eleventh of September under any circumstances.
Dr. Campbell could not be reached yesterday for an explanation of the Board’s stand in refusing to defer the opening date.
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