Progress of Hebrew Day Schools in U.S. Reported at National Parley

The 13th annual convention of the National Association of Hebrew Day School Parent-Teacher Associations opened here last night with 400 delegates from 150 Hebrew all-day schools, representing 20,000 members in PTA groups.

Rabbi Benjamin Kamenetzky reported there were 35, 000 students in 97 Hebrew day schools in New York City, 18 such schools on Long Island and in 27 high schools. He compared these 35, 000 students coming from a total Jewish population in the area of 3,000,000, with the 112 students in a four-grade Jewish day school, in Charleston, which has a total Jewish population of 700 families, “In Charleston, as In Newport News and Augusta and other small communities, the majority of all Jewish children attend day schools, ” he said.

Rabbi Meir S. Eisemann, secretary of the midwest region of the National Conference of Day School Principals, reported on the midwest area which includes Colorado, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Missouri and Kentucky. He said that most Jewish day schools in the midwest had six days of Hebrew instruction, that summer learning programs were in wide operation and that there was considerable experimentation with Hebrew classes at the pre-first grade.

Rabbi Chaim Feuerman, educational director of the Hillel Hebrew Academy of Beverly Hills, California, discussed Hebrew day school developments in the west coast area. He reported that in 1960,Los Angeles founded three new day schools. He also said that new schools were being planned in San Diego, and Portland, Oregon. Rabbi Theodore Carner reported on the increase of schools in Florida, South Carolina, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, Tennessee and Virginia. He said that the “segregation issue” had nothing to do with the increasing growth of the day schools in the South.