Establishment of parallel courses in both the English and Hebrew languages in Jewish educational institutions was proposed here today by Dr. Solomon Grayzel, editor of the Jewish Publication Society.
Addressing the education committee of the Federation of Jewish Agencies, Dr. Grayzel said that “somewhere along the line, our schools fail to transmit something valuable, that intangible something that should bind the subjects studied to the personality of the pupil.”
Emphasizing that he was in complete agreement with the importance of the Hebrew language to Jewish religion and culture, he said, however, that teaching of some subjects in Hebrew only was not always practical. While he saw “enormous progress” in Hebrew teaching, he held that achievements are at times limited by the difficulty of the student’s comprehension of Hebrew.
“Some people,” he said, “are not linguistically gifted. Such pupils, if they do not drop out, are a drag on the more gifted ones. Other studies are also affected, and the entire scale of achievement is lowered. The solution,” he proposed, “is not to eliminate Hebrew or reduce its objectives. A more sensible solution would be to establish parallel courses for the Hebraic and the less Hebraic pupil.”
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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.
