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ALL THE LEADING BRANDS ALL STYLES, ALL COLORS 50% 70% OFF to CALL US FOR IN-HOME SERVICE! 313-352-8622 IN ROCHESTER and other northeastern locations' 313-651-5009 THE BLIND SPOT Harvard Row Mall, 21728 W Eleven Mile Road, Southfield, MI 48076 26 FRIDAY, JUNE 3, 1988 A Jew In School he Reform movement has, from its inception, championed the notion that one should be a Jew at home, but a person in the outside world, that one's Jewishness should not in- terfere with integration in- to the larger society. That has long been the guiding principle behind Reform arguments against Jewish day schools, which would dilute support for the public school system, the common pool of American society. Now another Reform tenet is being used to argue the case for day schools — the concept of choice. "Reform Jewish children should have the option of an intense Jewish education," argues James Jonas, who heads the committee draf- ting plans for a local Reform day school. In an age when Jewish culture and traditions are no longer passed down in the home, many Reform Jews, like Jonas, see day schools as the vehicle to educate the next generation and create a young cadre of Reform leaders. Members of his committee are putting together a board of directors for the school — as yet unnamed — which they hope to open in September 1989. Organizers hope the school will attract secular Jews as well as a Reform constituency drawn from Detroit's six temples. Jonas says a critical mass of families already exists to form the school, which will begin with younger grades and grow year by year to eventually include the sixth or eighth grade. The committee has leased space at the Jewish Com- munity Center in West Bloomfield as an initial site for the school, Jonas says. Fund-raising is under way, as are requests for seed money and permanent fun- ding from the Jewish Welfare Federation. The Reform school will dif- fer from its Conservative and Orthodox counterparts in its approach to cur- riculum. While the latter two split the day between secular and Hebrew studies, the Reform school will offer a secular education with an "integrated" Jewish cur- riculum, according to Dr. Margaret Eichner, who will be the school's headmaster. Eichner also serves as Tem- ple Emanu-El's director of education and youth activities. History classes will reflect how Jews affected the period of time under study, she ex- plains. A science class might T deal with Tu B'shevat and the environment. Ethics and values will be stressed and there will be "an infusion of Reform philosophy in the curriculum," Eichner adds. So strong was traditional Reform antipathy to private education that this en- thusiastic push to open a day school might seem like an abrupt aboutface to the casual observer. Not so, says Jonas, who describes the change as part of the evolu- tion of Reform Judaism. Not everyone favors a Reform day school. Rabbi Ernst Conrad, founding rab- bi emeritus of Temple Kol Ami, rails against the school's inherent "elitism?' "This school will be discriminatory against those of other religions, races and creeds," he argues. If parents wish to send their children to private schools, they should pay for it themselves and not depend on funding from private sources such as the Jewish Welfare Federation or on public funds, he adds. For Rabbi Conrad, timing away from public education is tantamount to losing the Reform soul. "I do not think the educational gains are comparable to the spiritual losses:' — D.H. 4 Three Rs Continued from preceding page lassrooms full of kip- pah-topped boys and girls in skirts are a far 41. 11104% cry from the masses of Jews in earlier generations who jammed public schools in their race to become Americanized. Not long ago, litfrt Jewish day schools were almost universally viewed as islands of parochialism in an otherwise progressive sea of public education. No *it* * more, says Rabbi Abramson. "People want to give their kids a meaningful education. Day schools Many are beginning to see 41°°° up 145% day schools as a viable alter- Hebrew schools native. Third- and fourth- down 48% generation American Jews have no hangups about sen- ding their kids to a day school," he says. For Orthodox Jews, an education without intensive Hebrew and Torah study is in- Nationwide Enrollment in Day Schools vs. Hebrew Schools, 1958-1983. adequate in providing the C g tools for study and observance of mitzvot later in life. For the less observant, Americanization is no longer the drive: to fit in; rather it is the frightening spiral of assimilation, alienation and the rapid loss of Jewish identity. "Jewish home and at- mosphere no longer exist. On- ly the education now exists," explains Rabbi Samuel Cohen, principal of the Sally Allan Alexander Beth Jacob School for Girls, the girls' component of Yeshivath Beth Yehudah in Beverly Hills. "The only thing that's going to stop assimilation is being a knowledgeable Jew." "Twelve years ago I believ- ed in the concept of a public school education, but public schools have changed," ex- plains Sonia Pone, whose two children attend Hillel. "Kids • 1 - 4 -■