How to ‘place’ Youth in Non-jewish World Called Chief Problem

The economic depression through which this country is now passing has not given rise to circumstances warranting any modification in the support of the educational institutions maintained by the Jewish community.

Although Jews constitute ten percent of the Philadelphia population, they are represented by only four percent in the distributions of the County Relief Board.

These are among the salient points stressed by Lessing J. Rosenwald, millionaire philanthropist, in his message as President at the annual meeting of the Federation of Jewish Charities, which took place this week.

In his report Mr. Rosenwald gave a comprehensive resume of the manner in which the Jewish community of Philadelphia succeeded in taking care of its indigents through one of the most difficult years in the history of the Jews of America.

JEWISH EDUCATION IMPORTANT

Following his review of the purely relief agencies, Mr. Rosenwald devoted a considerable portion of his message to the importance of Jewish education for the Jewish youth of this country. “Our Federation,” he said, “has been consistent in its support of Jewish educational and recreational activities. But in view of continued unemployment and increased distress among large numbers of people, the question has been raised whether federations should not curtail or even eliminate support of Jewish educational, cultural and recreational activities and confine themselves purely to those activities concerning physical welfare.

“Our answer is this: In many families which have felt the serious effects of the depression, youth finds itself today idle and distraught. For the young just out of school there are no jobs—no opportunity to translate their energies into productive and self-supporting work. The promise of a useful career seems to many of them helplessly remote. Even the moral support of a comfortable and ordered home has been taken away. To this situation youth’s natural reaction is doubt, confusion and a sense of profound disillusionment. Some of the effects of such enforced and unwelcome idleness are already apparent. In increasing numbers boys and young men who might normally be employed or live with their families are now “on the road”. Such tendencies must be checked.

PROBLEM OF ADJUSTMENT

“To the Jewish community there is presented still another type of problem. The individual child must be enabled to adjust himself to an environment which is non-Jewish. To this he must be aided to react intelligently to those aspects of his life which are Jewish. This he can achieve through formal, Jewish instruction. His understanding of a long-lived culture, so full of struggle, and the surmounting of these struggles by his forbears, tends to give the child a sense of balance, self-respect and dignity. His study of literature enriches his personality, strengthens his moral fibre, and contributes to better citizenship by affording him a better understanding of present-day Jewish life. Helpful recreation counteracts the formation of unwholesome habits and attitudes. These cultural and recreational activities make possible Jewish survival in America, on the basis of positive cultural life and a better understanding of social values.”