The importance of convincing parents that it is their duty to share in the expense involved in the Jewish education of their children was stressed yesterday at a meeting attended by seventy-five members of the boards of directors and local committees of the constituent schools of the Associated Talmud Torahs, where the work done by this institution during the past year was reviewed.
The Associated Talmud Torahs is the largest agency engaged in providing intensive Jewish education in the community, maintaining a chain of schools in practically every section of the city. There are in active attendance 2,351 pupils, distributed in 102 classes and taught by forty-two teachers. The chain of schools is distributed as follows:
Ten elementary schools, offering a five-year program of studies with sessions from three to five times a week; Hebrew high school, conducted in cooperation with Gratz College, and offering a four-year course for qualified graduates of Talmud Torahs and congregational schools; Jewish extension classes offering a three-year course for boys and girls of high school age who have had no previous instruction.
In addition to the conduct of its own schools, the Associated Talmud Torahs maintains an educational service through which it renders direct and indirect assistance to congregational and other types of schools in and around Philadelphia; it also supervises the educational programs of several schools which are not constituents; it recommends teachers for placement in schools; it provides texts and educational syllabi; it provides propaganda literature and makes statistical studies. While all these activities were instituted primarily to meet the needs of the schools under the jurisdiction of the Associated Talmud Torahs, they have been of service to many other schools as well.
Reports showed that from February 1 to June 30 a total of $5,400 had been contributed toward the scholarship fund. This money was raised by the parents’ associations of the constituent schools through a series of functions conducted during the five-month period, and from contributions made by members of the board of directors.
Judge William M. Lewis, president of the association, expressed enthusiasm over the response made by the local committees and voiced the hope that the full quota of $8,000, allotted for the current year, will be raised.
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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.
