The History of Our Expanding School Systems
DETROIT JEWISH NEWS-9
Friday, September 24, 1954
Present Standards Raised. to Meet Greater - Aced
vanced curriculum to graduates of all
Yiddish elementary schools. Experience
sands of youth in America during the in the High School shows that there are
past generation. The oldest such school no basic ideological conflicts among the
in this country was opened in New York schools.
by the Poale Zion movement in 1910. The
socialist-territorialist groups, too, played The Present Outlook
an important role in the pioneering pe-
The United Hebrew Schools is perhaps
riod of the Yiddish secular schools. The the strongest centralized Talmud Torah
Workmen's Circle movement after 1918 system in the country -today.
began supporting socialist Yiddish
It is the educational arm of the Jew-
schools. One of the early differences
among these schools was the part that ish Welfare Federation. It is now giving
Hebrew and Jewish tradition should play supplementary Jewish education to some
2,000 pupils in Jewish neighborhoods.
in the education of the young.
The schools are located at Linwood and
As time went on, the differences which Taylor; the Bnai Moshe Congregation on
led to the creation of separate schools Dexter; the Rose Sittig Cohen Building
by the Jewish National Workers Alliance, at Lawton and Tyler; the Adas Shalom
Workmen's Circle, and Sholem Aleichem Congregation on Curtis near Livernois;
grouping began to dwindle. The cultural the Beth Aaron Congregation on Wyom-
value of Hebrew was recognized and all ing and Thatcher; on Schaefer and
schools, sooner or later, started to share Seven Mile where the new Esther Ber-
a positive attitude to the struggles of the man Branch Building is beginning its
Yishuv in Palestine. As to the question program this fall; and in the Oak Park-
of traditional observances, the schools Huntington Woods neighborhood. Addi-
also reached some degree of unity.
tional .units are planned for the near
future in Oak Park and in the Seven
Yiddish schools have existed in
troit since 1912 when a group of Poale Mile-Evergreen area where many Jewish
Zionists followed New York's example families have recently located. In the
and started a week-end school with latter two units and at the Esther Ber-
Joseph Haggai as one of its teachers. man Branch, the facilities will be de-
This school met in rented. rooms on veloped so as to make maximum provi-
High Street but soon moved to the sions for a co-operative program with
Hannah Schloss Building where it re- the Jewish Community Center.
mained for six years. Afterwards, it had
The United Hebrew Schools, in addi-
its own building on Hancock Street tion to fulfilling its responsibility of
where it met during the week, but fol- providing the basic elementary Jewish
lowing a fire in 1921 it ceased opera- education for the community, also oper-
tion, The socialist-territorialist group ates a pre-school nursery and offers
organized a progressive I. L. Peretz post-graduate courses in its high school
School on East Ferry Street in 1917 with and in the Midrasha. The latter, institu-
J. Comay as the first teacher. By 1921 tion was organized in 1948 to give Jewish
th.e Workmen's Circle organization had high school graduates the opportunity to
started its school in the Lyceum on continue their studies and to provide
Livingston Street and in the following training for young men and women who
year the Peretz School merged with it. wish to prepare for Hebrew school
Subsequent locations were on Delmar teaching. In addition to its own pupils,
the system has increasingly been aiding
and on Holbrook.
For a short period in 1926 and 1927 an the students of other week-day and
"Umparteieshe" school existed on Kenil- Sunday schools
worth Avenue. This school was an at- by providing
tempt to find the point around which t r ansportation,
all Yiddishist labor ideologies could tech nical and
unite. A branch was operated on 12th a d ministrative
Street and the teachers included S. guidance, c u r-
Bercovitch and M. Haar. When this riculum p 1 a n-
\, school closed, the ensuing separation left ning a i d, per-
) a Sholem Aleichem Institute and School sonnel, libra r y
facilities, maps,
; in the Kenilworth building and a Far- films and simi-
band Folk School on 12th Street. Since
1927 the Workmen's Circle, Farband- lar services.
Labor Zionist and Sholem Aleichem F e d eration
groups in Detroit have maintained in- makes it pos-
dividual Yiddish schools. In 1930 the sible for the
combined enrollment of all of these United Hebre
1 schools was about 450. About 15 years Schools to func-
ago the three schools were able -t o get tion effedtively
together and organize a United High as the commu-
School. This institution offers an ad- nal school. The Abe Kasle
Continued from Page 8)
responsibility for the program is the
concern of the widely representative
UHS Board ,of Directors under the lead-
ership during the last ten years of Abe
Kasle, its president. While the UHS pro-
gram in its own schools probably best
meets the educational needs of Conserv-
ative-Orthodox Jews, in recent years the
UHS has been serving some of the spe-
cific needs of Reform education as the
result of having worked . out a special
curriculum in co-operation with the Sub-
urban Temple. Similarly it has been ex-
perimenting in the direction of super-
vising the Sholem Aleichem School
whose curriculum has been designed to
serve those children desiring the type
of Yiddish school education proposed by
the Sholem Aleichem Institute.
Bar Mitzvah Requirements
The two most important problems
which the schools have had to cope with
in recent years concern the length of
stay of pupils in the school and the
shortage of qualified instructors. It is
encouraging- to note that for the past
five years pupils have been continuing
their Jewish studies over a longer period
of time. To a large extent, this can be
traced to the requirement established
two years ago by the Conservative syna-
gogues in Detroit and the United Hebrew
Schools that a minimum attendance of
four years at a Jewish school is the
prerequisite for Bar Mitzvah celebration.
The teacher problem remains a difficult
one. Midrasha graduates have already
•been helpful to some extent. Favorable
salary scales, retirement plans, and
other important personnel practices
which do not prevail universally in the
field of Jewish education have made it
possible to maintain high personnel
standards in Detroit.
Two of the three Yiddish schools are
located today where they have been for
a number of years—the United Jewish
Folk School of the Farband at Linwood
near Grand and the Workmen's Circle
School on Linwood near Burlingame.
The Sholem Aleichem school several
years ago moved to Wyoming near Cur-
tis. The programs of the three schools
have come closer together. In fact, a
study of the curriculum and courses of-
fered by these three schools does not
show any important difference from the
program of the United Hebrew Schools
except for the stress on the Yiddish
language and literature, the hallmark of
the Yiddish school movement. The en-
rollment of these schools has been de-
clining gradually so that today none of
them has much more than 100 pupils in
its afternoon department. This may be
due, if only in part, to the population
movement to the Northwest area.
Sunday School Registrations
The popularity of the Sunday school
continues. Fifteen years ago there were
almost 3,000 children attending such
schools sponsored by seven Reform, Con-
servative and Orthodox congregations.
Over 1,000 pupils were enrolled in the
Shaarey Zedek Sunday School alone. The
registration today is well over 4,000. For
some time there has been a general aware-
ness that the one day a week school is
not sufficiently intensive to give children
ail adequate Jedish education. There is
a trend to introduce week-day sessions,
usually for the higher classes of the
Sunday school. Since the Sunday school
is here to stay, it is necessary continu-
ally to try to improve it and enrich its
curriculum so that the need for addi-
tional instruction during the week will
be appreciated by pupils and parents.
Priority for Schools
Outlook for the Future
Although the enrollment in the
afternoon department of the Yeshivath
Beth Yehuclah is today less than it was
.10 or 15 years ago, there has been a
great rise in the nursery and kinder-
garten attendance. The increase in
registration of the Yeshivah's all-day
school has_ been more significant. From
112 pupils in 1944 the enrollment rose to
175 in 1949 and is 335 today. The Yeshi-
vah is presently engaged in enlarging
its building on Dexter. It plans to have
sufficient, modern classrooms to alle-
viate crowded conditions in its annex
and provide for an anticipated increase
in registration in the coming years. For
the past two years the Yeshivah has
conducted a branch school at the
Northwest Israel Congregation on Wy-
oming and Santa Matia.
For decades Detroit has given a place
of honor to Jewish education as part of
its general community program. Our
Federation, through depression years
and in prosperous times, has given pri-
ority to the development of effective
schools to help our youth grow
adulthood with a sense of security and
happiness in their Jewishness. Wo can
all be proud of the fact that Federation
has been expending more funds for
Jewish education than many other large
cities such as Boston, Cleveland, Balti-
more, Newark or Los Angeles. It is our
hope that Jewish education, at least to
the extent it is community-sponsored,
will more and more stress the common
denominators of Jewish life and "K'lal
Yisroel" rather than any propagandistic
ideologies that struggle for supremacy
within the Jewish community.
A Solemn Salute to the American Jewish Tercentenary
300 years of American Jewish history attest
athletics, on the farms. and in the factories.
to the progress of a great pioneering com-
In this year of re-dedication to the service
munity. American Jewry has made great
of our country, we welcome the New Year
contributions to science and culture, to
5715 with a prayer for the security of this
Government and Industry, as members of
land, for the happiness of all its people and
the Judiciary, in our schools and colleges, in
for the peace of the world.
Oar Best Wishes to All Our Relatives and
Friends and to the &air* Community for a .
Very Happy New Year
Hordes Agency
INSURANCE
. 17616 Wyoming
UN. 3-2900
William Hordes
Earl Hordes
•
Picture of a diorama depicting the arrival of the first group of
in New Amsterdam in September, 1654.
Jews.
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