The reason for the survival of the Jews is that they have a common love for learning, Dr. Emanuel Gamoran of Cincinnati, education director of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations told the members of the Buffalo Jewish Teachers’ Association at the closing session of the two-day conference held at Temple Beth-El.
“After the destruction of the second temple the Jewish people were scattered all over the earth,” he said. “They had no ecclesiastical or political organization to hold them together. All they did have in common was their love of learning. In the year 64 of this era, Rabbi Joshua Ben Gamala in Palestine ordered that there should be established community provision for the education of children from the time they were six years old. This was the first system of universal education established anywhere. In effect it was also the first compulsory educational system.”
At a previous session held at Temple Beth Zion, Nathan Brilliant, director of the Euclid Avenue Temple in Cleveland, spoke. He told of a new system of teaching which is in the experimental stage in the Cleveland Temple school. The system is based on the placing of responsibility for learning on the pupil himself.
Officers elected for the coming term are: Herman Wile, Honorary President; Rabbi Joseph Gitin, President; Uria Z. Engelman, chairman of the executive committee; Sylvia Wagner, Vice-President; Lillian Sugarman, Secretary and Herbert Hyman, Treasurer.
Among those in charge of the conference were Dr. Ben M. Edidin, director of the bureau of Jewish education of Buffalo; Louis T. Masson, Rabbis Joseph Gitin and Reuben J. Magil and Joseph L. Fink.
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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.
