Rabbi Jacob S. Friedman, the township’s only rabbi, said today he had appealed to all local Jewish families to keep their children home from school on the second day of Passover, April 8, and urged every Jewish teacher to be absent after the township Board of Education again rejected appeals to include Passover in its spring holiday schedule.
Rabbi Friedman, of Temple Beth Torah, also told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that he had the full support of his board for that appeal and for his offer to pay the day’s salary to any Jewish teacher who said that he or she must work on April 8 because the money is needed. He said he would make such payments, if necessary, out of the synagogue’s rabbi’s fund or his own funds.
Rabbi Friedman made his appeal in a letter in the current bulletin of his 300-family synagogue. He declared that if the school board had scheduled spring vacation to start on April 8 for a week, provisions would have been made for Jewish children and teachers to observe Passover without penalty of missing classes and for Christians to observe Good Friday and Easter.
BOARD IS PREJUDICIAL, DISCRIMINATORY
However, he added, “for some mysterious and unknown reason,” the school board “chooses to remain blind to logical planning and ignorant of the feelings of a large minority in its school.” He said he had made appearances before the board privately and publicly on the matter without success. He charged the school board with being “prejudicial and discriminatory in Its policy regarding the subject of holiday scheduling.” He suggested that “if we parents, students and teachers stick together as a Jewish community, then maybe we will help the Board of Education overcome its handicap of ignorance and blindness.”
The Conservative rabbi said that during his nine years in the Temple Beth Torah pulpit, the school board had only twice recognized the Jewish community in its holiday scheduling. He said between 20 and 25 percent of the 8000 students in the township’s five public schools are Jewish and that “a goodly portion” of the teachers, which he estimated as more than 30 percent, are Jews. He also commented that two of the nine school board members are Jews.
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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.
