THE JEWISH NEWS Incorporating The Detroit Jewish Chronicle commencing with issue of July 20, 1951 Member American Association of English—Jewish Newspapers, Michigan Press Association, National Editorial Association. 'Published every Friday by The Jewish News Publishing Co., 17100 West Seven Mile Road, Detroit, Mich. 48235. VE 8-9364. Subscription $6 a year. Foreign $7. Second Class Postage Paid at Detroit, Michigan PHILIP SLOMOVITZ Editor and Publisher CARMI M. SLOMOVITZ Business Manager SIDNEY SHMARAK Advertising Manager CHARLOTTE HYAMS City Editor Sabbath Scriptural Selections This Sabbath, the sixth day of Av, 5726, the following scriptural selections will be read in our synagogues: Pentateuchal portion, Deut. 1:1-3:22; Prophetical portion, Isaiah 1:1-27. Licht Benshen, Friday, July 22, 7:43 p.m. VOL. XLIX No. 22 Page 4 July 22, 1966 U. S. Jewry's Teaching Shortage Problem An important statement made recently by Dr. Alvin I. Schiff, associate professor of the department of religious education at the Ferkauf Graduate School of Education of Yeshiva University in New York, pointed to the need annually of 900 new teachers in American Jewish schools and to the difficul- ties to enlist interested trainees for such positions. The need for Jewish teachers is so press- ing, the problem is so urgently in need of solution, that Dr. Schiff's views must be viewed with great concern. It was pointed out by the Yeshiva Univer- sity professor that while, during the past decade, colleges that are training Hebrew teachers have graduated yearly between 100 and 150 young people who qualify for certi- fication by the National Board of License, or by recognized local certification agencies, only between 10 to 15 per cent of the gradu- ates have become career teachers. Taking into account the 150 or 200 or- dained rabbis from yeshivot gedolot — the Orthodox rabbinical seminaries — many of whom go into teaching — Dr. Schiff stated: "Simple arithmetic shows that, according to the most optimistic estimate, there is an annual deficit of at least 500 teachers." A survey that was conducted by Dr. Alex- ander Dushkin estimated that there are approximately 19,000 Jewish teaching posts in this country — of these 6,500 being in afternoon schools and 3,000 in Hebrew Day Schools. But a statement that had been made by the American Association for Jewish Edu- cation to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that there are 13,000 licensed and unlicensed Jewish teachers in the United States and Canada was called an "educated guess" by Prof. Schiff. Identifying the variety of "recruits" for teaching posts - in Jewish schools, Dr. Schiff listed the following categories: (a) the American version of the lo yutzlah (Hebrew for unsuccessful); (b) the enterprising young person with some Judaic knowledge eager to supplement his income; (c) public school teachers with varying degrees of Jewish education; (d) young people with Hebrew background desiring a modest income while they prepare for more lucrative and more intellectually satisfy- ing experiences; (e) young girls with some Hebraic knowl- edge biding their time before marriage; and (f) young religious men with intensive emo- tional attachments to Judaism and equally strong traditional Jewish background, who are not pro- fessionally trained to do anything else, and to whom teaching is a kind of "path of least voca- tional resistance." Because of this mounting problem, prin- cipals of Jewish schools have been sent to Israel to engage teachers for brief periods, blit Dr. Schiff states that "this procedure accounts for 20 teachers a year." It may even be questionable whether Israeli teachers always fit into an American Jewish school environment, and the fact must also be taken into account that Israel, too, suffers from a teacher shortage. The Yeshiva University educator main- tains that the reason for the lack of success in enrolling trainees for Jewish teaching roles is "the shortage of inspired young people in the Hebrew high schools" and a similar shortage of "inspired students in the teacher training schools. ' He maintains that the vast drop-out rate in Hebrew teacher colleges — given as 30 to 43 per cent in 1957-58 by the American Association for Jewish Education's national committee on teacher education and welfare — "is a rather conservative estimate." Is there a solution to this problem? Dr. Schiff suggests a "crash program to reclaim the unqualified" — the recruiting of young people for retraining; the broadening of the base of teacher recruitment; "in-service" courses to be conducted with the cooperation As the chief spokesman for the United States in the annals of of national religious movements and the the nations of the world, Arthur J. Goldberg has gained a place of Jewish Agen6y, - together with local bureaus, glory, and his utterances are of great value in the consideration of the "supported by. a special fund set up for this happenings that affect all mankind. purpose." Dr. Schiff emphasized: He is already on record as -having expressed views on world con- 'Defenses of Freedom' Contains Arthur Goldberg's Public Papers What is needed are drastic, shocking changes in the attractiveness of the Hebrew teaching pro- - fession—a long-range national program for the enhancing of teacher status and for the raising and equalizing of teacher salaries. If a measure of success can be achieved, nothing can possibly be too drastic, and it is immaterial whether it is shocking. Dr. Schiff is right in stating that "any recommendations will remain academic unless firm measures are taken to implement them." He is no doubt right in asserting that "the Hebrew teacher college must become a professional school." His advice that teacher colleges produce "teacher-scholars" also must be taken ser- iously. Defining the role of teacher training schools, Dr. Schiff maintains: If the Hebrew Teachers Colleges are to as- sume a new leadership role in the Jewish educa- tional community—and they must assume leader- ship responsibility for the theory and practice of Jewish education—then they must be equipped to do so. The first stop in this direction is the estab- lishment of full-scale departments of education manned by full-time educational professionals in each of our teacher training establishments. In cities which have such schools, in-service programs should be their responsibility and under their sponsorship with the assistance and support of the bureaus. Efforts for implementation of such a pro- gram are being made in some communities, including Detroit's Midrasha. Whether or not they are proving successful should be ascer- tained by proper research into the results of the courses offered in various communities, and all means should be taken to assure the success of teacher training programs. The teacher shortage, as well as the inadequacies, are too challenging to be left untapped. No matter what the cost, American Jewish com- munities should set out to solve this grave problem. Birchers Adopt the Anti-Semitic Patterns Robert Welch and his associates in the John Birch Society have repeatedly main- tained that their movement is not anti- '•Semitic. But at a three-day rally in Boston, at which- the vilest anti-Semitic speeches were delivered by leaders in the society, Welch himself, the founder of the society which is among the major factors in the rightist move- ment, was present. There were shocking diatribes against Jews and a spokesman for the John Birch Society even reiterated the Nazi defense that "it is a lie that the Nazis killed 6,000,000 Jews." This is how history is being distorted, and the appeal to hatred seems to be growing rather than diminishing. Another shocking, even if ridiculous charge, made by the Birchers' spokesman was that political activity on American university campuses is caused by the use of the drug LSD "which is imported from Israel." It would undoubtedly be useless to argue with the anti-Semites and to prove to them that LSD is a native American product and that the only country whence it is being otherwise imported is Italy._ Is it possible that the anti-Jewish venom is increasing in this country? It certainly is not diminishing, and the spread of it in Har- lem and Watts, as part of the Negro anti- Semitism, certainly adds to the anxieties that are occasioned by the growth of hatreds in this country. ditions that affect the destinies of nations. And he had authored briefs influencing the law of our land, during his service as a member of the United States Supreme Court, that will go down on record as profound declarations in matters like civil rights, separation of church and state, education for freedom, labor and law and other issues involved in human rights. In "The Defenses of Freedom—The Public Papers of Arthur J. Goldberg," edited by Daniel Patrick Moynihan, published by Harper and Row, the major expressions by the chief U. S. delegate to the United Nations have been gathered with skill and with a deep apprecia- tion of the eminent statesman's views on scores of challenging issues. , "In his career Arthur Goldberg has been first of all a lawyer, only thereafter an advocate," Moynihan states in his introduction in which he shows that in the contents of this collection of Gold- berg's declarations "certain themes continually appear: the neces- sity for laws, the importance of procedure, the demands of justice, the quest for equality, the interdependence of public and private effort." Goldberg's speech on "Peace in Freedom," in the section "Freedom Under Law," delivered before the Overseas Press Club last September, is an appropriate commencing public utterance with which the editor starts the collected papers. It is followed by the text of the address on "Human Rights and Social Pressures" he delivered in New York at a meeting of the American Jewish Committee; another on "Coercion of Freedom," at Hebrew Union College—Jewish Institute of Religion in Cincinnati, and a third also in New York, before the American Jewish Congress, on "The Achievement of Equality." Regrettably, two major Jewish addresses by Goldberg are 7 part of this volue. One was delivered on the occasion of the pub* tion of the revised translation of the Torah, at a dinner given - New York by the Jewish Publication Society of America; the ott- - was a Zionist Organization of America convention session at wht Goldberg wholeheartedly adopted the Zionist views of the bit Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis. Major among the papers in this volume is the address he delivered in 1961 before the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, in Washington, on the subject "The Moral Basis of Social Action." In it he paid tribute to Stephen Wise, condemned religious intolerance, pleaded for "the light that illuminates a real democratic political system." There is real power in Goldberg's utterances on the question - of civil rights, in his pleadings for social justice. Especially noteworthy are the rulings concurred in by Goldberg, during his service on the Supreme Court, on matters relating to the First Amendment and Bible reading in the schools and in the Aptheker case in which the court's majority concurred with Goldberg that a sweeping ban on passports imposed too great a burden on fundamental liberties to travel. "The Negro Revolution" is an important section in the book, con- taining Goldberg's views on the basic rights of the Negro. - Appropriately, the volume commences with autobiographical notes, containing Goldberg's statements when he appeared at Senate con- firmation hearings when he accepted the positions as a member of President Kennedy's Cabinet, as a Supreme Court Justice and as the U. S. delegate to the UN. When he was questioned for confirmation for the Supreme Court, he had said: "I have been a member of many organizations identified with the Jewish faith . . . " The editor of this volume, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who was an assistant Secretary of Labor and co-authored with Nathan Glazer "Beyond the Melting Pot," is vice chairman of the President's Com- mission on Pennsylvania Avenue, an enterprise that originated in the Department of Labor during Arthur Goldberg's tenure as Secretary of Labor. Moynihan leas produced a most valuable book.