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Conclusion
- Brandeis University Press
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409 Conclusion The Benderly Revolution: ‘‘A Mile Wide and an Inch Deep’’ or ‘‘A Dream Not Quite Come True Yet Still a Dream’’? shortly before benderly’s death in July 1944, Alexander Dushkin made a pilgrimage to his ailing mentor’s home in Gode√roy, New York. Years later he was still haunted by their conversation. ‘‘Dushkin, I do not know whether I did you boys any good personally by drawing you into the profession of Jewish education!’’ Benderly confided. Dushkin did what he could to reassure him, while internally lamenting: ‘‘What a sad summary this was for the beneficent life of a great educator , guide and mentor!’’ Benderly bemoaned how the Federation had forcibly retired him in 1941, e√ectively declaring him obsolete and sentencing him to long hours of solitude far removed from the corridors of the Jewish Education Committee . But at heart he was burdened by the realization that his ‘‘dream had not yet Above: The founders of Camp Modin, in 1965, with Abe and Miriam Gannes, at Cejwin Camps. Front row (left to right): Miriam Gannes, Libbie Berkson, Julia Dushkin, and Bertha Schoolman. Back row (left to right): Abraham Gannes, Alexander Dushkin, Isaac B. Berkson, and Albert P. Schoolman. Courtesy of Gershon Berkson. 410 The Benderly Boys come true.’’ His memoir, which remained unwritten, was to be titled ‘‘A Dream Not Quite Come True Yet Still a Dream—Observations and Reminiscences of the Dreamer, Samson Benderly Ashkenazi.’’ He planned to dedicate the book to his ‘‘fellow townsman’’ from Safed, sixteenth-century kabbalist Rabbi Solomon Halevi Alkabetz, whose ‘‘pregnant phrase ‘last of deed, first in thought,’ ’’ from his Sabbath poem Lekhah Dodi (Come My Beloved) was to be the memoir’s theme. In moments when Benderly was less consumed by self-doubt or self-pity, he was able to take solace in the generation he had raised to carry on his work. The jec, aaje, ncje, and Jewish Education had sprung forth as natural outgrowths of his ‘‘dream’’ and were being led by his disciples largely working out of his playbook.∞ The stories behind the creation of these institutions, as well as modern Talmud Torahs such as cji and culture camps such as Cejwin and Modin, demonstrate the fealty of the Benderly boys to their teacher’s vision as well as their disagreements about how it could best be realized. They highlight substantive di√erences in interpretation and outlook within both the immediate circle of Benderly disciples as well as the somewhat larger educational community that comprised the ncje. The divide between the pragmatists and the purists was genuine, if somewhat fluid depending on the particular issue. Yet there is no denying that even by the end of his disciples’ careers, the Benderly revolution was at best incomplete. Benderly and his boys were up against formidable obstacles, not least of which were the inherent limitations of supplementary education. External events, such as the Great Depression and the Second World War, also powerfully influenced communal priorities and the availability of resources, inevitably reshaping the educational agenda. So too did demographic trends and the Jewish community’s relentless drive toward Americanization and embourgeoisement. If the Benderly boys had little power over these forces, they certainly controlled their reactions to them. For all their reputed dogmatism on issues such as Ivrit b’Ivrit and the primacy of the communal school, most of them—including, especially , Dushkin, Rosen, Honor, Dinin, and Gamoran—were capable of remarkable flexibility, so long as they could reconcile their attitudes and actions with the spirit of Benderly’s vision. For example, while these men were prone to condescension in their attitude toward the balebatim and the ‘‘assimilationist’’ German-Jewish elites, they also learned from experience that success depended on collaboration. Nevertheless, one cannot avoid the conclusion that Mordecai Kaplan was prescient in 1914 when he wrote that Benderly’s fundamental constraint in e√ecting meaningful Jewish educational reform was his failure to truly understand the American Jewish community, and this despite his frequent assertions that Jewish education in the United States must be ‘‘built upon principles underlying the life [44.200.210.43] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 00:42 GMT) Conclusion 411 of all American Jews.’’ Kaplan wrote: ‘‘The whole scheme of Dr. B. I believe is based upon a fallacy, viz., that it is feasible to maintain distinct Jewish groups in the Diaspora, that shall unite in themselves two coordinate cultures of a national character. In my opinion this cannot possibly...