Three Branches of American Judaism in General Agreement on Day School Funding

A two-day study conference on the theme “Public Aid to Non-Public Education,” sponsored by the Synagogue Council of America found “surprisingly large areas of agreement” among the three branches of American Judaism, according to Rabbi Solomon J. Sharfman, Council president. The conference brought together representatives of national rabbinic and synagogal agencies of Conservative. Orthodox and Reform Judaism. Also participating were observers from the major Jewish educational and community relations organizations. While Conservative and Reform bodies maintained their traditional opposition to outright support for the secular programs of religiously sponsored schools, they admitted a new openness within their ranks to formulas that might bring needed funds to day schools without leading to “an establishment of religion” that is constitutionally prohibited. The most startling revelation of the conference according to Rabbi Mordecai Waxman of Great Neck, N.Y., who served as conference chairman, was the unanimity of support expressed for the Jewish day school by spokesmen for Reform Judaism, whose movement had for many years opposed it. Representatives of all three branches deplored the lack of financial support given to the Jewish day school movement by federations and welfare funds.

A major theme of the Study Conference was struck by Dr. Ben Halpern of Brandeis University and carried through by several of the conference’s speakers, including Dr. Judd Teller of the Synagogue Council of America, Rabbi Emanuel Rackman of the Fifth Avenue Synagogue of New York, and Dr. Bernard Lander, president of Touro College. That theme was that while the major concern of the Jewish community in the early decades of the 20th century was political equality and social and economic advancement, the central preoccupation in the decade of the seventies is Jewish religious and ethnic survival. This was also confirmed by those who spoke vigorously against any compromise of the Church-State separation principle, including Dr. Leo Pfeffer, the noted expert on constitutional law, and Dr. Robert Gordis, Editor of Judaism magazine. Dr. Pfeffer and Dr. Gordis maintained, however, that the prospects for vital Jewish survival are dim indeed if the Jewish community must rely on other than its own internal resources for support of a religious educational system it so desperately need. Rabbi Henry Siegman, executive vice-president of the Council, said that the proceedings of the conference would be submitted to the policy-making bodies of each of the Council’s six constituent agencies. “Ultimately, the rabbinic and synagogal constituents of the Synagogue Council will together determine whether a new consensus on the subject of public aid to non-public education exists within the Jewish religious community,” Rabbi Siegman said.