THE JEWISH BSERVER in this issue ... THE JEWISH OBSERVER (ISSN 0021-6615) is published monthly, except July and August, by the Hope for Hard-Hit Yeshiva Parents? Menachem Lubinsky ..... 3 Agudath Israel of America, 5 Beekman Street, New York, N. Y. The Moment of Falsehood, David Schapps . ................. 8 10038. Second class postage paid The Torah-Im-Derech-Eretz Personality: Three Sketches at New York, N.Y. Subscription $12.00 per year; two years, Dr. Raphael Moller, as remembered by a grandson ....•. 12 $21.00; three years, $28.00; out­ The Last "Parnes" of Eiterfeld, Rabbi Nasson Lomner .. 15 side of the United States, SIJ.00 A Day in the Life of a Life of a "Tzaddik Nistar": per year. Single copy, SI.SO Dr. Shimon Askovitz, Sruly Greenwald ......•.. 17 Printed in the U.S.A. The "Aveira" of ... Doing Mitzvos, A. Scheinman ...•.•••. 21 The Calling, a poem by Rochel Leah Lazenga ................. 28 RABBI NissoN WoLPIN Editor The Latest in Juvenile Reading, books reviews •............. 31 Second Looks on the Jewish Scene Editorial Board Digging for Roots, Ezriel Toshavi .........•.•...... 34 DR. ERNST Boot:NHE!MER Chairman Zevulun on the Installment Plan ................. 37 RABBI NATHAN BuLMAN A Unique Travelers' Insurance, Meir Wik/er .•...... 39 RABBI JosrrH ELIAS Postcripts JosrrH FRJEDENSON Update on a Memo ............................. 41 RABBI MOSHE SHERER Letters to the Editor MICHAEL ROTHSCHILD The Vanishing Yeshiva Rebbe ................... 43 Business Manager THE Jrw1sH OssERVER does not assume responsibility for the Kashrus of any product or ser+ vice advertised in its pages. SEPT., 1981, VOL. XV, NO. 8 TISHREI 5742 Tuition Tax Credits: Hope for Hard-Hit Yeshiva Parents? Menachem Lubinsky 1 1 I \; I We have come a long way from the days when the portion of yeshivas' budgets-about 30%, on the traveling melamed would make his stops at the small average-and continuing double-digit inflation is reduc­ Shfetfach on his teaching route to instruct the children of ing this share even further. Yeshivos can hardly take the area. Then, the economics of Jewish education were the business approach toward balancing budgets: com­ relatively simple-direct payment from parents to reli­ puting the cost of educating each student and then /Je-a far cry from the more complex picture today. simply placing a price tag on the child's education, to be Nowadays, tuition payments never cover more than a paid by the" consumer" (or parent). Most would legiti­ mately find it difficult to meet the price. Even more affluent parents are finding that rising expectations and Rabbi Lubinsky is !hr director of Govrrnmn1t and Puhlir Affairs of soaring prices have made the cost of living-it-up so /\gudath Israel of America. expensive that they cannot easily manage to pay full The ]1'wish Ohsenin I Septnnhn, 19/< 1 3 tuitions to their children's schools and maintain their ment of the Constitution guaranteeing separation of lifestyles. church and state. Yeshivos, of course, are looking for increases in con­ This was fought, however, by secular Jewish groups tributions, but the contributors, too, are hit by infla­ such as the American Jewish Congress, the American tion; at the very best, the size of their donations has Jewish Committee and the Bnai Brith, which joined barely kept pace with inflation. Eyes then turn to the with other liberal groups to oppose any government aid government for desperately-needed funds. While Rea­ to parochial schools. They were and are strongly com­ ganomics have called for cutbacks in most types of mitted to maintaining their particular view regarding government support, private education may just prove the separation of church and state in this country, and to be an exception, but this will not happen without a they are convinced that any measure that wou1d assist struggle. religious-sponsored schools poses a threat to this con­ cept and could eventually make it difficult for Jews to The Background continue to live in this country. Until twenty years ago, even the public schools were funded through local and state sources, with the federal Landmark Legislation and Court Decisions government playing a very minimal role, if any. With the Sixties and Kennedy's New Frontier, changes began Despite the opposition, the non-public school forces to take place. With special federal grants (under the did make progress. The Elementary and Secondary National Defense Education Act, and National Science Education Act of 1965 contained provisions for the Foundation grants, for example), funding of public inclusion of non-public schools in the disbursement of education shifted in part from state and local govern­ federal funds. This law was truly revolutionary in its ments to the federal government. It was at that time concept. For instance, its Title I provided funds for that spokesmen for private education, with Rabbi remedial teachers and equipment for instructing educa­ Moshe Sherer (president of Agudath Israel of America) tionally disadvantaged children. Under its Title IV, at the forefront, began their struggle to persuade the funds were made available for library resources, text­ federal government to direct funding to the non-public books and instructional equipment for all schools, schools, as well. Rabbi Sherer became the first Jewish including non-public schools .... Title VII supported bi­ spokesman to testify before a Congressional committee lingual education for children requiring it. This was in favor of government aid to nonpublic schools, a stand especially helpful for teaching English to Yiddish­ so novel that The New York Times gave it front page speaking children as well as to recently-arrived Russians. coverage (March 30, '61). Individual states followed suit and provided a broad Until then, it was widely assumed that all Jews were range of support to non-public schools, from outright opposed to government financing of private education. salary supplements to teachers of secular subjects, to (This perception was all the more convincing, since a paying for special services, such as remedial education number of Orthodox national organizations shared the for learning disabled, handicapped and underprivileged anti-aid view.) Indeed, there has always been a fear that, students. in spite of constitutional guarantees against any estab­ All of these gains were challenged in the courts by the lished religion in America, separation of church and secular Jewish establishment. The U.S. Supreme Court state is tenuous, and could easily be compromised, since decision (Lemon-Di Censo) in June '71 ru1ed unconsti­ America is basically a Christian country. Thus there has tutional supplementing salaries to teachers in non­ been a knee-jerk reaction among Jewish defense groups public schools. More devastatingly, the Court (PEARL (such as the AJC and the AOL) against any kind of v. Nyquist) in June '73 ruled out a wide range of indirect legislation that might involve even indirect govern­ means of government support, such as grants to pa­ ment support of religious institutions. This position rents paying tuition to non-public schools, and reim­ was reassessed in the Orthodox community in the 60s, bursement for expenses incurred by non-public schools mainly because of the dire financial straits of the yeshi­ for performing certain state mandated services-such vos and day schools. Two considerations convinced the as maintaining health and attendance records. Orthodox community to back government aid: first, it Yet all was not given up as lost. Back in the caucus was unjust for tax-paying parents to receive no rooms of state legislatures, new bills were drafted, gove~nment support for their children's education designed to avoid the courts' objections to the "govern­ merely because, as a matter of conscience, they were ment's excessive entanglement" with religious educa­ enrolled in private schools, while parents of children tion, earmarking payments for the children receiving enrolled in public schools were provided with education the services rather than the schools, and other such at no cost. Second, the church-state problem could be approaches. The secular defense organization fought put to rest by requesting funding only for secular sub­ passage of these laws, as well, claiming that they were jects and other non-religious functions of the school. unconstitutional. The battle was carried into the courts, This would in no way compromise the First Amend- again with mixed results. In one case (Wolman v. Wal- 4 The Jewish Observer I September, 1981 ter, '77) the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the State of have come at a better time. Aside from personal budget Ohio could underwrite the costs of diagnostic tests for strains, yeshiva expenses are also expected to rise. The emotional, speech and hearing disabilities administered number of children attending yeshivas is growing at a by public school personnel on the premises of non­ faster pace than ever before. In fact, the "baby boom" in public schools, but therapeutic services for the pupils New York's Orthodox Jewish community in the 70s, for could be held only in neutral or public facilities. On the instance, has provided an unprecedented enrollment in other hand, the Supreme Court in a series of cases the early grades of many New York City yeshivas. upheld government support for bus transportation, According to estimates by the U.S. Department of Edu­ textbooks and state mandated services in behalf of non­ cation (1980), there are more than 100,000 children public school students, such as maintaining attendance attending nearly 500 Hebrew day schools in the United records and administering and marking state examina­ States: 66,000 students are said to be enrolled in New tions. (The last was a recent decision.) York State yeshivas. The natural growth of the Ortho­ These small gains made but a minor dent in the yeshi­ dox Jewish community will, of course, mean that many vas' deficits, but unfortunately the aid was far greater in of our yeshivos will have to expand facilities in the years the eyes of the Jewish public.