Jews: Education for Survival

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At a time when assimilation, intermarriage and secularism are eroding U.S. Judaism, religious education has become a major Jewish tool for survival. The Jewish school system in the U.S.—Hebrew-or Yiddish-language day schools, plus afternoon and Sunday schools that teach only religion—is now a $100 million operation with 700,000 students and 17,000 teachers.

"Jewish education is coming into its own," says Morton Siegel, education director of the Conservative United Synagogue of America. An educational agency of Orthodox Jewry, Torah Umesorah, has been chiefly responsible for increasing the number of full-time Orthodox day schools from 35 in 1940 to almost 300 today, serving 63,500 children in the U.S. and Canada. Twenty years ago, Conservative Jews had no day schools at all; now they have 24 in 19 communities, and the afternoon classes run by their 810 congregations have religious training programs three or four days a week. Even in Reform Judaism, which is strongly committed to the values of public education, the majority of its congregations conduct afternoon religious classes.

Cheders & Scholars. The first Hebrew day schools in the U.S. were founded in the 17th century, but until recently, most Jewish religious training has been in cheders—one-room seminars in which a handful of boys gather around a rabbi to learn Hebrew, read the Torah and recite prayers. Contemporary day schools are much like Protestant or Roman Catholic private schools. At the Orthodox Manhattan Day School (tuition: $1,000 a year, although 80% of the students have scholarships), the 370 students spend their mornings on religious studies in Hebrew. After a kosher lunch, they turn to secular subjects, taught in English—including science and new math. Standards in the day schools are high; 90% of their graduates qualify for college scholarships.

The vast majority of Jewish children receive their religious education at congregation-run schools that open when public school lets out. At the Forest Hills Jewish Center on Long Island, students spend three afternoons a week studying Jewish history, customs, the Bible, Hebrew. Although programs are similar for all branches of Judaism, Orthodox schools give the stiffest dose of Hebrew, while schools of the Reform branch emphasize ethics.

Teachers & Texts. More than 65% of the nation's 1,000,000 Jewish children are thus exposed to some form of religious training. But just as Protestant Sunday schools suffer a high teen-age dropout rate, only 12% of Jewish boys carry on with religious training after their bar mitzvahs. Despite starting salaries of $6,000 a year, there is a nationwide teacher shortage. Many schools have to import teachers from Israel, or settle for "Jewish baby sitters," whose piety outruns their professional skills.