Dr. William Chomsky, faculty chairman of the Gratz College of Philadelphia, asserted here today that only 53 percent of American Jewish children attend some Jewish school and that more than half of them attend only Sunday school.
Speaking at the 40th anniversary convention of the National Council for Jewish Education of the United States, which is attended by 168 American Jewish educators, Dr. Chomsky added that in spite of the low percentage, the number of young people attending Jewish high schools and Jewish teachers institutes or studying Judaica and Hebrew was increasing in the United States. He said this was “a sign that in the hearts of American Jews there still whispers the ember of Jewish consciousness.”
The American Jewish educator also asserted that American Jewry was paying only “lip service” to Jewish education. “Amid all their fine talk about the value of Jewish education, ” he charged, “the Jewish federations continue to support it stingily to the extent of only 10 percent of their total expenditure.”
The convention which opened this weekend is scheduled to last two weeks. Its theme is “50 Years of Jewish Education in the United States — Retrospect and Prospect.”
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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.
