Orthodox Jews Appeal to Federations for Support of All-day Schools

Orthodox leaders renewed their appeal today for Jewish communal support of all-day Jewish schools with a warning that they might otherwise have to seek government aid.

Participating in the appeal to Jewish federations and welfare funds were Rabbi A. N. Av Rutick, president of the Rabbinical Council of America, Morris Morgenstern, head of the Morgenstern Foundation, and Dr. Joseph Kaminetsky, director of Torah Umesorah, an association for such schools. An estimated 54,000 children attend 275 all-day schools throughout the United States, most of them under Orthodox sponsorship.

Rabbi AvRutick said the growth of the day school movement had been accompanied by a deficit that threatened “the very existence of these schools, ” Mr. Morgenstern asked the Federation of Jewish Philanthropies to give “maximum financial support” to day schools in the New York area. Present support was called “nominal” by Dr. Kaminetsky, who said that the Federation annually allocated $750, 000 to the Jewish Education Committee, of which $50, 000 goes to the day schools with 39, 000 pupils in New York City. Declaring that there are 179 Orthodox day schools in New York, he said they were struggling with budgets aggregating $11,000,000.

Dr. Azrial Eisenberg, head of the JEC, said that $65, 000 goes to day schools from $100,000 of the annual Federation grant which is spent on Jewish schools of all types. He added, however, that this was “only a fraction” of what the JEC did for day schools. He said the JEC provides a revolving loan fund without interest to day schools, screens educational personnel, publishes textbooks and channels more than $2, 000, 000 in cash subventions, surplus government food, milk subsidies and transportation for day schodpupils.