Changes in the Jewish Welfare Federation Educational Policies
Are Anticipated by Board Approval of Study Commission Report
The Board of Governors of the Jewish Welfare Federation has concur-
red with a series of recommendations developed by its Jewish Education
Study Committee. Central to these is the committee's belief that new
patterns in Jewish population, institutional and household distribution
and affiliation call for appropriate changes in Federation's policies.
The committee emphasized that the United Hebrew Schools has a
vital continuing role to fulfill in providing direct Jewish elementary and
secondary education and supportive services to schools now receiving such
support, including the day schools.
However, the UHS need no longer serve as Federation's exclu-
sive arm for Jewish education, the report said. The report was
released after a year-long study and was prepared by the commit-
tee's consultant, Dr. Sara Feinstein of Chicago.
The future could bring forth new relationships with other educational
rms, including the day schools, independent congregational schools and
other programs. While giving greater priority both to post-elementary
education and more intensive programs, the committee expressed the
opinion that "UHS' traditional six-hour afternoon school program need
not be the only standard in Jewish education and that other forms . . . may
also have a claim on Federation's policy and financing resources."
As new relationships are developed with other school sponsors, Fed-
eration's Culture and'Education budgeting and planning division will be
charged with setting forth meaningful criteria, guidelines and standards
defining such affiliations.
permanent
No
structural
changes are immediately con-
templated, but the report suggests a
transition period during which
changes can be set into motion for
testing and experimentation.
One recommendation of the study calls.
for development of linkages between
formal and non-formal methods of educa-
tion. "This would include not only more
cohesive, structured relationships with
existing Federation agencieg, such as the
Fresh Air Society and the Jewish Com-
munity Center, but also the challenge of
reaching out in innovative ways to the
Jewish family, single-parent families
and the approximately one-third of our
children who are currently receiving no
Jewish education."
DR. SARA FEINSTEIN
More than 8,000 children were enrolled
last year in all Detroit area Jewish schools, from nursery through high
school.
The study was undertaken to meet a series of new challenges: a
dramatic reduction in Jewish school enrollment, both nationally and
locally; a declining birth rate, whose impact will be felt by all schools in
the future; greater mobility and wider dispersal of Detroit's Jewish popu-
lation; and Federation's developing relationship with and increased fund-
ing of day schools.
Essential charge to the study group was to conduct a reapprai-
sal of Federation's long-standing policies for financing local
Jewish education, initially adopted in the early 1950s.
Chairmanship of the committee was held first by George M. Zeltzer
and, during the concluding months of the study, by Mandell L. Berman,
following Zeltzer's election to the presidency of Federation.
Members of the Jewish Education Study Committee included Dr.
Jules Altman, Mrs. Morris J. Brandwine, Mrs. Ruth K. Broder, Dr. Leon
Fill, Stanley D. Frankel, Harold Gales, Dr. Barbara Goodman, Rabbi
James I. Gordon, Rabbi Irwin Groner, Julius J. Harwood, David B. Herme-
lin, Norman D. Katz.
Also, Irving Laker, Rabbi David Lieberman, Milton Lucow, Marvin
Novick, Rabbi Milton Rosenbaum, Rabbi Seymour Rosenbloom, Herbert
P. Sillman, Robert A. Steinberg, Bernard H. Stollman, Mrs. Max
Stollman, Mrs. Asher N. Tilchin, Julian S. Tobias and Henry Winkelman.
Gales, Novick and Steinberg headed three key subcommittee panels
during the study process.
T E JEWISH NEWS
A Weekly Review
of Jewish Events
VOL. LXXV, No. 24 17515 W. Nine Mile, Suite 865, Southfield, Mich. 48075 424-8833
Aug. 17, 1979
Young's PLO Fraternization Rebuked
Mobilize Public Opinion
Against PLO Pressuring
A rising tide of PLO pressures, the impending renewal of attacks on Israel at the
forthcoming session of the United Nations General Assembly and distorted news about Israel
and her relations with her Arab noighbors inspired mobilization of a movement of protest
against the encouragement given in some official quarters to the forces conspiring for Israel's
destruction.
The movement for unification of Jewish efforts in Israel's defense, encouraged by the
Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, proposes these demands:
"No appeasement of PLO terror. No surrender to Arab blackmail."
Defenders of Israel in Christian ranks are joining these efforts, especially in view
of evident threats of blackmail by spokesmen for some Arab nations who offer
increased oil and energy benefits in exchange for pledges to join in their efforts to
undermine Israel.
Andrew Young's 'Unbowed' Resignation Generates New War
Andrew Young's resignation as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations added fuel to the
fires raging over the PLO and suspected American political comfort to the plotters for Israel's
destruction.
The Young "episode" could flare up into a new war over the Middle East, involving not
only Israel and the American Jewish community in actions to prevent the PLO's intrusion
into U.S.-Israel relations, but also the American black community. Some Jewish leaders
Wednesday demanded that Young be fired, but there was no such attitude in Israel where the
(Continued on Page 5)
Official Calls Both Sides 'Intractable'
in UHS Teacher Contract Bargaining
The attitudes of both the teachers and the negotiators for the board in the year-old United Hebrew
Schools teacher contract negotiations were called "intractable" this week, in a statement by William M.
Ellmann, commissioner of the Michigan Employment Relations Commission.
In a written statement to The Jewish News, Ellmann stated: "The year-long dispute involving the
United Hebrew Schools of Metropolitan Detroit and the Michigan Federation of Teachers drags on.
It has been negotiated, fact-found, and last week I met with both sides for three hours in an effort to
bring the matter to a conclusion. Hours and days have been expended already by the state of Michigan
and its fact-finder, Mr. Leon Herman, seeking a solution.
"At least one ofAhe sides, and perhaps both, do not appear to be serious about resolution,
although time is again of the essence. Intractable bargaining positions (the failure to give and
take) do not and cannot foster the end of this conflict.
"The state stands ready at any point to intervene again should the participants indicate a desire to
continue the discussions.. The fate of the children is in the hands of these negotiators:"
The negotiations between the two sides began in the spring of 1978. The teachers did not report to
classes last fall until Sept. 24 because of the dispute, missing 12 class days. Fact-finder Herman held
hearings in December, January and March, and issued his report in April.
Tolerance and PLO: Incompatible
By AXEL SPRINGER
(Editor's note: Oil blackmail by Arabs is threatening friendships for Israel in
many lands. Axel Springer, most distinguished of the West German publishers,
warns of that danger in the following article reprinted from the Aug. 5 issue of
Welt am Sonntag.)
German publisher Axel Springer, left, is shown visiting David Ben-Gm-ion in
Ben-Gurion's Tel Aviv apartment shortly after the 1967 Six-Day War.
"How could this horror happen in, of all places, Germany,
which we Jews held in such hopeful esteem?" — David Ben-
Gurion to Axel Springer, 1966.
There has been much talk and writing recently about a
deterioration in relations between Israel and West Germany.
Bonn is said to have veered from a balanced Middle East policy
to a pro-Arab course. Israelis and friends of Israel in our
country have expressed their concern. And attempts at allay-
ing it in Bonn serve rather to confirm the new line than to deny
it.
This is bad, for more than any other nation in the world
the Germans have most special obligations towards the Is-
raelis. The very notion of "balanced " policy is ominous. What
the mayor of Berlin, Dietrich Stobbe, said to former Jewish
citizens visiting the old capital should always apply: "In doubt,
always for Israel!"
(Continued on Page 8)
AXEL SPRINGER
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