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4 The Struggle for a Modern School System
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91 c h a p t e r 4 The Struggle for a Modern School System samson benderly’s research into the finances of the various Jewish schools convinced him that the Talmud Torah system constituted ‘‘the line of least resistance ’’ to reform. Despite their precarious finances and historical association with the impoverished, the schools enjoyed communal support. They were generally governed by local boards of directors and supported through a combination of donations, charity benefits, and tuition collections. Some of the more prominent schools, such as the Downtown Talmud Torah and Uptown Talmud Torah, were organized by landsmanschaften, immigrant benevolent societies modeled after fraternal organizations, whose members helped defray their costs. In a few cases, the schools were connected with synagogues. The communal character of the schools was an important consideration because Benderly was trying to build a system that was at once complementary to and analogous with the public schools. While he could not rely on a tax base to support his system, he hoped to instill within community leaders and the Jewish masses alike a sense of responsibility for funding a communal system of Jewish education that would educate the children Above: Hebrew school pupils at the Inwood Hebrew Congregation. Photograph by Virginia Stern. Courtesy of the Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary 92 Order out of Chaos of rich and poor alike and serve as a Jewish melting pot wherein an American Jewish pattern could be forged.∞ Benderly was also impressed with the caliber and progressive-mindedness of a number of the Talmud Torah principals whom he met, mostly veterans of the reformed khayder movement in eastern Europe. These were not glorified siddur peddlers but thoughtful educators, some of whom were conversant in educational theory. Although many remained observant, they had been influenced by the haskalah and were fervent Jewish nationalists. Of course, all these potential building blocks would be useless if there did not exist a will to reform. Here again, Benderly was encouraged. ‘‘The most hopeful sign is that the more intelligent among the directors are not satisfied with the training these schools impart to their pupils, and have long been casting around for ways and means of improving their institutions,’’ he concluded.≤ Not surprisingly, schools were much more amenable to administrative and fiscal streamlining than to curricular and pedagogical innovations. The Bureau, meanwhile, was congenitally constrained from pushing too hard in these latter areas. Benderly freely admitted that ‘‘the Bureau of Education was perfectly clear as to what the curriculum of a Jewish school should be.’’ As an arm of the Kehillah, however, it was o≈cially nonpartisan. Since curricular content and to some extent methodology could not be divorced from ideology, Benderly found himself in a bind. Some critics even questioned the wisdom of the Bureau becoming involved in any existing school’s a√airs. But without the financial resources to create more than a few of its own laboratory schools, Benderly recognized that the Bureau had little choice but to work within the existing system.≥ A solution to this conundrum presented itself when Benderly was invited to a meeting of the Central Board of Jewish Education, a loosely centralized federation of some of the city’s larger Talmud Torahs under the leadership of Dr. Joseph Bluestone, a Lithuanian-born physician who served for many years as president of the Machzike Talmud Torah on the Lower East Side. The board was organized in 1909 with the object of designing a unified Talmud Torah curriculum, which could alleviate the educational disruptions that resulted from the high rate of student attrition, exacerbated by pervasive Jewish mobility. Rabbi Schmarya Leib Hurwitz, principal of the Israel Salanter Talmud Torah, liked to compare the Hebrew school to a passenger carriage. ‘‘The carriage remains full but the passengers are constantly changing. By the time it reaches the middle of its route hardly a single passenger remains who boarded at the first stop.’’∂ Thus far, despite the seriousness of the problem, the group had been ine√ectual , paralyzed in part by the precarious financial situation that prevailed in most schools and the reluctance of local leaders to cede power to a central body. Bend- [18.117.91.153] Project MUSE (2024-04-17 20:16 GMT) Struggle for a Modern System 93 erly recognized that cooperation with the Central Board would accrue to the Bureau’s benefit. The Bureau could provide the necessary cash flow to jump-start the stalled process. A Bureau...