Leading Israel attorneys who are candidates for appointments as judges have no familiarity with Jewish Scripture and some do not even remember names of the minor prophets, a Supreme Court Justice told a group of 73 lawyers newly admitted to the bar today,
Justice S. Z. Cheshin told the attorneys he was ashamed by the fact that many candidates for the bar were unable to name any Hebrew book read in the past ten years or any Hebrew writer earlier than Bialik “although they are most familiar with Greek mythology.” The Justice criticized many of Israel’s attorneys for their “indifferent” attitude to the nation’s cultural heritage.
Zalman Shazar, chairman of the Jewish Agency executive in Jerusalem, said that while the Bible was basic study in Israel, in Jewish communities abroad “it is only of limited interest.” In an address to the concluding session of the Israel Bible Research Society conference here, he said every child in Israel receives a “thorough grounding” in Jewish Scripture while abroad only a small minority studies it and an even smaller minority studies It in Hebrew.
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