Among the worst sufferers in the present cataclysm in Germany are the Jewish communal and private teachers. Since the advent of Hitler they are being more and more displaced from their positions not so much by any instigations against them by the Nazis but by the actions of the German Jews themselves. This situation is deplored by the Israelit, of Frankfurt, because at this moment the function of the teacher of Jewish religious tradition and Hebrew, should be more important than ever for the keeping up of the Jewish spirit.
Thousands of Jewish teachers in Germany today find themselves without means of subsistence, and many are in desperate circumstances. The reasons given for their plight is a tendency on the part of many Jewish families in smaller German communities to dispense with the usual religious instruction for their children.
Because of their consciousness of being unwelcome in the country on account of the Nazi anti-Jewish attitude, these families are sacrificing their Judaism in an effort to attract as little attention as possible by their Jewishness among “Aryan” neighbors. This is particularly true of those Jews who even before the advent of Nazism gravitated toward assimilation. In other cases, the reasons are chiefly financial.
Der Israelit sees grave menace to German Judaism in the continuation of the present trend to curtail training of the coming generation in Jewish affairs.
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.