Jewish communal leaders last night at a dinner marking the festival of Chanukah urged the support and development of a sound community program of Jewish education to preserve in Jewish children the spiritual ideals for which the free nations of the world are fighting today.
Speaking at the Hotel Astor at the annual dinner of the Jewish Education Committee of New York. Dr. Shalom Spiegel, professor at the Jewish Theological Seminary, declared that “neglect of Jewish education makes the modern Jew a victim and even an accomplice of the ignorant and bigoted crank or fanatic. The sounder the kernel of spiritual health and integrity, the richer is the individual and the society at large which he will serve as a citizen.”
“It is not without a touch of irony that on the market-place of Nuremberg, shrine of the new pagan creed of Nazidom and home of the Nuremberg Laws against the Jews, there stands a medieval statue of Judah Maccabeus as the prototype of Germanic knighthood,” Prof. Spiegel said. “It serves a grim reminder that one cannot eradicate memories and imperatives of the Biblical faith from the heart of Germany either, without injury to that heart itself.”
Others who spoke at the dinner included Samuel S. Sonneierson, president of the Jewish Education Committee, Dr. Alexander M. Dushkin, its executive director, and Judge Jonah J. Goldstein, who presided. A children’s choral group from the schools affiliated with the Committee sang at the traditional lighting of the Chanukah candles.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
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.
