THE DETROIT JEWISH. NEWS, Friday .
2;,
197 1,t UN' Council Recognizes Israel's Service to Blind Children..
Boris Smolar's
404,
'Between You
... and Me'
Editor-in-Chief Emeritus, JTA
(Copyright 1972, JTA Ine.1
ADULT EDUCATION: Much is being written about the
need to strengthen Jewish education for children in this
country. But little—almost nothing—is being said of the
efforts now being made in the field of Jewish education
for adults.
Adult Jewish education programs are now sponsored
nationally by more than 20 Jewish organizations and syna-
gogue groups of all denominations. They are conducted in
large cities as well as in small communities. They are a
variety in content and in format. Thousands of adults
participate in them.
Most of the programs are concerned with contemporary
aspects of Judaism and lay minimum emphasis on formal
instruction. However, there are some groups which offer
regular courses in Hebrew, Bible, Jewish customs and other
Jewish subjects. The National Council of Young Israel—a
pioneer in formal Jewish education for adults—is one of
them. Formal curricula and intensive study is also empha-
sized by each of the three major synagogue organizations—
Reform, Conservative and Orthodox—although each of them
has its own emphasis.
Adult education courses have been attracting more and
more parents who are of the first generation of American-
born Jews. In their childhood they were sent by their im-
migrant parents to the old-fashioned "Hebrew School"
where the teacher hardly knew English. They looked down
on their teachers whom they considered "greenhorns" and
and they hated their Hebrew schools. Most of them ran
away from school.
They missed their Jewish education and became a "lost
generation"—a generation without any Jewish knowledge.
Many of them did not even know the Aleph Beit, the Jew-
ish alphabet. They grew up to be completely uneducated in
Jewish ways,
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NEW YORK — The United
Nations World Council for
the Blind, at its last meeting,
praised the Jewish Institute
for the Blind in Jerusalem
and its director, Dr. Jacob
Igra, for the development of
new rehabilitative techniques
and program of service to
Jerusalem's blind children.
The Jewish Institute for
the Blind, which celebrates
its 70th anniversary this
year, was founded in 1902
by a rabbi who had witnessed
a blind boy being trampled
to death by a camel in the
streets of Jerusalem and de-
voted his life to providing
help, guidance and protection
for the blind.
Its Jerusalem campus
houses over 200 children
mainly from Sephardic back-
groun d, since blindness
among Jews from Arab
countries is extremely high.
A goal of the JIB, sup-
ported in America through
contributions to Keren Or, is
that each graduate be
equipped not only with the
MARCH OF TIME: The march of time has changed
many things in Jewish life in the country. It has also radi-
cally changed the system of Jewish education.
The old-fashioned "Hebrew school" of years ago no
longer exists today. Jewish schools of all types and ideol-
ogies are now modern educational institutions. Their teach-
ers are all qualified pedagogues, each of them certified
by a Jewish Education Bureau. Many of them are college
graduates. Many have a teacher's diploma from the Jewish
Teachers' Seminary, Stern College, Yeshiva University, Jew-
ish Theological Seminary and from other institutions of
higher Jewish learning where teachers are being prepared
for the Jewish school system.
To the child attending a Jewish school today, the
teacher there is not what the "melamed" was to his father
a generation ago. There are many Jewish children today
who like the atmosphere in their Jewish schools better than
the atmosphere of their public schools. The modern Jewish
school teacher does not only evoke respect on tie part of
his pupils but is actually loved by them.
It is true than many children leave their Jewish schools
immediately after Bar MItzva. It is also true that the
education which the children receive in their Jewish schools
is not deep enough to become rooted in them for their life-
time. However, even this meager education is in compari-
son superior to that which their parents were given in a
most primitive way.
In many Jewish homes one can, therefore, find today
to ele-
a great gap between father and child when it comes
mentary Jewish knowledge. The child, attending a Jewish
school and taking his lessons seriously, expects his father
to help him with the lessons at home. It does not take long
for him to find out that his father is totally ignorant and
knows even less than he does.
Such a situation is quite embarrassing for the father.
He begins to fear that he may lose the respect of his child.
He starts taking an interest in Jewish education. He begins
to attend adult education programs. Not having had a Bar
Mitzva of his own—because he ran away from Jewish
Bar Mitzva
tradition in his youth—he now joins in the
Mitzva" for
ceremony of his son to make it a "double Bar first
genera-
his son end for himself. Through his son, the
tion American-born Jews returns to the Jewish mode of life
His interest in
which he literally hated as a youngster.
since
adult Jewish education becomes meaningful for him
had
it offers him the opportunity to make up for what he
spiritual
life.
lost during his estrangement from Jewish
•
•
•
•
Adult
Jewish
education
is thus
NATIONAL EFFORT:
becoming part and parcel of American Jewish life on a
substantial scale. It has grown into an effort of major pro-
educators whose primary
portions. The number of Jewish
education is similarly increas-
concern with adult Jewish
ing from year to year.
Mass-membership organizations like the American Jew-
ish Committee, American Jewish Congress, Hadassah, Bnai
Brith, National Council of Jewish Women, the Zionist Or-
ganization of America, are active in promoting adult Jewish
education programs. They offer a variety of activities in
the field of adult education.
necessary social skills but
with the ability to earn a
The institute's work in
training young people as
computer operators and pro-
Israel's GNP Equal
to Egypt for 1st Time
JERUSALEM (ZINS) —
Avraham Agmon, director
general of the Israel Finance
Ministry, reports that Is-
rael's gross national product
in 1972 will, for the first time,
equal that of Egypt, despite
the enormous discrepancy in
population of approximately
10 to one. Egypt has about
35,000,000 people, while Is-
rael's population stands at
about 10 per cent of that
figure.
•
The history of most coun-
tries has been that of major-
ities — mounted majorities,
clad in iron, armed with
death. treading down the ten-
fold more numerous minori-
ties, —Oliver W. Holmes.
gramers has brought world
praise and its director recog-
nition.
Many children who come
to the Jewish Institute for
the Blind suffer from mul-
tiple handicaps. This in-
cludes a large number of
deaf, blind children. Exten-
sive programs to rehabilitate
them, in addition to those
who are blind and retarded,
blind and brain damaged and
blind and emotionally dis-
turbed have been imple-
mented.
In cellyating its 70th an-
niversa , the Jewish Insti-
tute fo the Blind in Jeru-
salem seeks the support of
American Jewry through its
office here, Keren Or, Inc ,
1133 Broadway, New York
10010.
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