The Benderly Boys and American Jewish Education

9 The Central Jewish Institute

237 c h a p t e r 9 The Central Jewish Institute The School Center as a Model for the Modern Talmud Torah the educational experimentation at the New York Bureau and its laboratory schools found its fullest expression in the program of the Central Jewish Institute (cji), which operated in Manhattan’s Yorkville neighborhood between 1916 and 1944. The first modern Jewish educational center in the United States, it soon became a model for other schools and Jewish community centers in the New York area and beyond. At its helm, from 1918 until its demise, was Benderly disciple Albert Schoolman, who ably elaborated on a programmatic blueprint developed by his colleague Isaac Berkson. cji opened in the fall of 1916 on 125 East Eighty-fifth Street next door to Kehilath Jeshurun (kj), the neighborhood’s most prestigious Orthodox synagogue. Supported by some of kj’s lay leaders, cji was nevertheless an independent institution, a cause of some friction with its neighbor. And while its orientation, at first, was vaguely modern Orthodox, it defined itself as a transpartisan, community Above: The Central Jewish Institute’s motto, ‘‘Judaism and Americanism,’’ was frequently celebrated in its national holiday festivals and pageants. Courtesy of the American Jewish Historical Society, New York, NY, and Newton Centre, MA. 238 Learning for Living institution. cji’s leaders, who touted it as a new kind of Talmud Torah, defined its educational mission broadly to include the entire family unit. A community supplementary school for children ages seven to fourteen was always its core, but the sta√ also directed and oversaw a variety of educational, social, and recreational activities for parents and youth as well as children receiving no formal Jewish education.∞ The Institute and its summertime counterpart, the Cejwin Camps (which will be discussed in chapter 10), played a pioneering role in fostering and creating a multifaceted Jewish American subculture that emphasized cultural Zionism, identi fication with the Jewish people, and the promotion of uncomplicated integration of Jewish and American values. The cji experiment sheds significant light on the ideals and goals of the Benderly group. It also demonstrates the obstacles that these educators faced and the compromises they were compelled to accept. Even after the cji was closed, important elements of its mission and vision continued to live on in the work of a host of Jewish educational institutions including schools, camps, and Jewish community centers. From Yorkville Talmud Torah to Central Jewish Institute It was Mordecai Kaplan who first floated a very early version of the educational center idea in 1908 or 1909, before he resigned as the English-speaking rabbi of kj.≤ Sarah Baum Epstein recalled how Kaplan excoriated a well-meaning synagogue young adult group for holding its Hanukkah pageant in the nearby New York Turn Verein hall, which was festooned with Christmas decorations. ‘‘We had a wonderful time. When everything was all over we called on our Rabbi, now Professor Kaplan. I thought when he stood up he was going to congratulate us. Well he got up there. How he thundered and how he bellowed. . . . And he said ‘how dare you have this beautiful Jewish play in such Christmas surroundings?’ ’’ For Kaplan, the revival of Judaism depended on the creation of institutions that embodied a ‘‘Jewish social atmosphere.’’ He entreated his congregants to build a social and educational center, at one point even suggesting that they sell the current synagogue property and relocate to a building better suited to serve a multiplicity of functions.≥ Kaplan’s ideas apparently made a great impression on Samuel I. Hyman, a successful feather merchant who became the driving force behind the cji’s construction . An active board member of Kehilath Jeshurun, Hyman had long recognized the need for a Talmud Torah building. For many years, the synagogue conducted Talmud Torah classes in its vestry rooms, which Hyman and others judged to be too cramped and unpleasant. It was Kaplan who influenced Hyman The Central Jewish Institute 239 to expand his vision to encompass not merely a school but a Jewish community center. Upon hearing Kaplan’s criticism of the Hanukkah pageant, Hyman reportedly pledged, ‘‘it won’t be long before we have our own home.’’ In 1910, heartened by the early success of the Bureau’s first model schools, he purchased three adjacent houses that lay between the synagogue and Lexington Avenue.∂ When, after considerable delay, the building’s...