2

Friday, March 30, 1984

THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

Purely Commentary

Guides for the modern
perplexed in planning for
schools and the families

A Glance Into the Approaching 21st Century
and Challenges to Jewry vis-a-vrs Declining
Population and the Reduced School Enrollments

Growth, which was co-sponsored by 31 national Jewish
organizations, called upon the Jewish communities to re-
ject zero population growth, calling it incompatible with
Jewish needs in light of the low Jewish birth rate. The
conferees urged that a "pro-natalist" message be communi-
cated to Jews through schools, synagogues and communal
organizations.
The proposals ensuing from the conference are exceed-
ingly interesting. It is suggested that Jewish agencies give
mortgage assistance and allowances to large families with
an urgent appeal to Jewish communities to assist in lobby-
ing for restoration of government aid to families in need.
Aid to working parents is emphasized. There is emphasis
on recommendations of "a more aggressive approach to be
taken in providing childless couples with adoption serv-
ices" and that Jewish singles be educated toward a greater
responsibility to the community with "an aggressive advo-
cacy of marriage and family as communal norms."
The suggestions also include the establishment of a
"National Jewish Family Week" and an annual award for a
Jewish family of the year.
It is clear that the approaches to the serious issue
involving declines in school enrollments, the reducing
population figures, as well as the threat to Jewish identifi-
cations, are taken seriously. Therefore, the proposals made
by responsible Jewish leaders and their organizations must
be taken equally seriously. What is involved is an
emergence of problems the solution of which will demand
continuing concern by responsible leadership and coopera-
tion by communities in their fulfillment.
The facts above, and the issues related to them, justify
the lengthy quotations. The demand for action is all-too-
serious to be ignored.
. Exemplary as an emphasis on the importance of the
needs thus taken into consideration is a local approach, an
effort now being studied in Oak Park, to provide mortgage
assistance to families who are invited to come to that com-
munity and thereby assure the continuity of a vital Jewish
element that forms some 40 percent of Oak Park's total
population.
The Schiff family instructional proposal sounds prob-
lematic as well as revolutionary, and the population study
suggests not only strengthened-identification but a devo-
tion that is rooted in traditional loyalties.
Both issues under discussion are vital to Jewry. They
can not be ignored.

Without vision a people could perish. Without proper
planning a community could be brought to the brink of
ruin.
To the credit of responsibile spokespeople for Jewish
movements and the studies conducted to solve the mount-
ing problems there should be an accredited recognition of
an approach to realism.
Drastic changes are
occurring in the developing
Jewish experience. Demog-
raphically, there are revo-
lutionary upheavals. Cul-
turally, the challenges are
serious.
From the Board of
Jewish Education of
Greater New • York and the
American Jewish Commit-
tee have just come impor-
tant guidelines revolving
around the needs to retain
the values of Jewish cul-
tural legacies, and the
treatment to be accorded
the problems affecting the
Dr. Alvin Schiff
Jewish family in the years
ahead.
An agenda with many challenges confronts this gener-
ation in all matters relating to the educational needs in
Jewish ranks. There has been serious concern about the
status of teachers and the priority to be given in assuring
that the best trained are available for the Jewish schools.
Yet, Dr. Alvin I. Schiff, executive vice president of the
Board of Jewish Education of Greater New York, now pre-
dicts that "by the year 2000 Hebrew teachers, as we know
:hem today, will not be needed in Jewish supplementary
schools." He notes that his view of the future calls for a total
restructuring of Jewish supplem6ntary school education
and that by the turn of the century Jewish education must
`replace part-time congregational supplementary school
Rachers with full-time Jewish family educators, trans-
'orming Jewish education into a Jewish family education
program."
Commemorative U.S. stamps:
The turn of the century is not far off and an augury like
Schiff's is so dramatic that it needs study if it is to be Maimonides on the agenda,
i-laplemented. Further analysis of his vision of the future is pursuing previous notables
necessary. Here it is:
Schiff recognizes that "the Jewish Family
Educator idea may sound drastic and overly am-
bitious. It may even evoke strong opposition and
raise serious questions from various quarters of
the Jewish community that have legitimate inter-
ests and concerns." He emphasized that "The
Jewish Family Educator proposal is drastic and
ambitious. It does challenge established organiza-
tions in the community. However, it is a necessary
response to a condition that has been worsening
over the years with no cure in sight. The Jewish
Family- Educator is a dramatic way to achieve a
breakthrough in Jewish supplementary educa-
tion."
The numerical decline in Jewish school enrollments,
which accompany the Schiff prediction, are vital to an
understanding of the issues involved. Dr. Schiffpoints to an
Albert Einstein
Moses Maimonides
enrollment drop of three percent per year since 1962. He
declares that if the decline continues for the oncoming 16
Pending in the U.S. House of Representatives is a
years "there will be 51 percent fewer children in Jewish measure proposing issuance of a commemorative stamp
Supplementary schools in the year 2000 than there are honoring the name of one of the most distinguished per-
today — an enrollment decrease from 220,000 to 108,000 sonalities in history, Moses Maimonides, on the occasion of
pupils."
the 850th anniversary of his birth in 1985.
Of equal importance in these challenging times is Dr.
The move was initiated by Congressmen Gary Acker-
Schiff's statement that research studies indicate that par-
man, Robert Garcia an _ d Benjamin Gilman, all of New
ents of supplementary school pupils are either marginally
York, and Tony Coehlo of California.
Jewish or do not fully associate with philosophies and pur-
On the record so far, as U.S. honorees on commemora-
poses of their synagogues. Therefore, parents with such tive stamps, are these eminent Jewish names: Albert Eins-
sentiments leave their children insufficiently motivated tein, whose fame always speaks for itself; Haym Salomon,
For effective learning and lessen the possibility of a lasting who could well be labeled among the leading "financiers" of
influence by the Jewish schools.
the American Revolution; Samuel Gompers, the founder
Dr. Schiffalso touched upon the vital underscoring, the
of the American Federation of Labor; and George Ger-
important relationship between home and school. He shwin, who inspired American music and musicians.
warns that "the part time Hebrew teachers are not what
the doctor prescribed for 21st Century Jewish supplemen-
:ary school children."
In what form does the Jewish family educator concept
assume workability? Dr. Schiff believes the family in-
;tructors must include rabbi, cantor, teacher and principal.
Can it be workable and is it realistic? The fact is that a
sc lution will be needed, that limited school hours, with a
maximum appearing to be six hours of studies a week, are
insufficient. The Schiff proposal will surely undergo seri-
ous tests.
Of major importance in his proposals are the revealed
f acts of declines in enrollment.
The National Conference on Jewish Population
Haym Salomon
Samuel Gompers

By Philip

SiOMOVitZ

During the observance of the American Jewish Ter-
centenary, in 1953, this commentator, as chairman of the
Michigan Chapter of the American Jewish Tercentenary
Committee, urged then U.S. Postmaster General Summer-
field, the Flint, Mich. industrialist, to issue an American
Jewish Tercentenary stamp. The proposal was turned
down flat. The error was to have gone to Summerfield
rather than initiate Congressional action. Therefore, the
hope that the current move for a Maimonides stamp will
prove successful.

Senator Weicker in historic
role of honor . . . with
libertarians Madison, Jefferson

Senator Lowell Weicker Jr. of Connecticut has re-
corded his name indelibly in the honor roll of the most
distinguished founding fathers of this nation. His leader-
ship in preventing the succumbing of this great democracy -
to bigotries akin to those which made the Middle Ages the
horrified era of religious persecutions. Religion then was
foisted upon the world, by means of legislated prayers.
When prayer needs
legislating, it emerges as an
embellishment of ignorance
utilized for the suppression
of freedom in the. truest
sense of the term when faith
needs and demands un-
shackled minds.
Senator Weicker com-
menced the advocacy of
freedom of faith, opposing
legalization of religious L-0
practices some time before
the balloting on the subject
in the U.S. Senate. An ad-
dress he delivered Sept. 19,
1982, at the United Church
Lowell Weicker
on the Green in New Haven,
Conn. aligned Weicker with
James Madison and Thomas Jefferson and the pioneering
elements who established the basic principle of separating
church from state. They assured the liberties for religious
worshippers that reject the polluting of human needs by
closing the doors of basic religious and political institutions
to influences by churches and churchmen. In that speech 18
months prior to the Senatorial debate, he quoted Mark
Twain, who said established religion "means death to
human liberty and paralysis to human thought."
In his Sept. 19, 1982 speech, which should be recorded
as a great human sermon, Senator Weicker said in a com-
ment anticipating the legislative proposal by the President
of the United States, with the urging it had from Fun-
damentalists:

It pains me to see the Congress diverted onto
these moral crusades when there is so much real
suffering in our land, when so many people are
losing their livelihoods and so many going with-
out the necessities of life. And when there are so
many people denied the justice which should be
accorded them by law. -

Let us rededicate ourselves to taking up this
agenda. Let us get involved in our public and pri-
vate lives to shape a fairer society. Then, and only
then, does God promise to hear our prayers.
"Then shalt thou call, and the Lord shall answer,"
writes Isaiah. "Thou shalt cry and He shall say,
Here I am."

Need anything else be said to record the addendum by
a courageous Senator in the battle for the American Sep-
aration Principle? Only an expression of hope that there
will be no effort to turn the matter into a pursuing political
vendetta. That would disgrace the good name of this nation.

Israel' democratic mood

Almost to the very hour of the fifth anniversary of the
signing of the Egyptian-Israel accord on the lawn of the
White House five years ago, a change is pending in Israel
officialdom to whose credit goes the first move towards
peace in the Middle East.
The impending change of guard — assuming the call
for new elections forecasts the end of Likud rule — is ac-
companied by many anxieties. The tensions in Israel are
understandable. The concerns in Diaspora Jewry stem for a
kinship that must mark a continuing partnership in assur-
ing the security and progress of the Jewish state.
Primarily, the new politi8a1 development in Israel is
an emphasis on the state's democratic character. It is such
an uninterrupted status that must always be applauded.
Out of it must also emerge a cultural - spiritual - social -
political status for a state so young yet so civilized. It is in
its democratic character that Jews everywhere surely send
messages of cheer, assuring a share in upholding the hands
of the builders of Zion.

