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THE JACOB RADER MARCUS CENTER OF THE AMERICAN JEWISH ARCHIVES MS-831: Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Foundation Records, 1980–2008. Series B: Commission on Jewish Education in North America (CJENA). 1980–1993. Subseries 3: General Files, 1980–1993. Box Folder 8 3 Commission on Jewish Continuity. Cleveland, Ohio, 1980-1985. For more information on this collection, please see the finding aid on the American Jewish Archives website. 3101 Clifton Ave, Cincinnati, Ohio 45220 513.487.3000 AmericanJewishArchives.org THE CRISIS FACING THEJEWISH PEOPLE Remarks by: MORTON L. MANDEL Chairman WORLD LEADERSHIP CONFERENCE FOR JEWISH EDUCATION Jerusalem June 18, 1984 i...------ Remarks by: Morton L. Mandel June 18, 1984, Jerusalem here is no more appropriate place in the world for seri­ T ous Jewish leaders and edu- cators to reflect on the future of the Jewish people than in the spiritual center of our people-Jerusalem. To come to Jerusalem is to be bound up in Jewish history. To come to Jerusalem as a cornn;unity leader in5744 is to experience a privilege accorded to all too few of our ancestors. To come to Jerusalem 10 meet with Jewish leadership from "the four corners of the earth" on a subject as vital to our collective futures as is Jewish eduction is awe inspiring. The chaJlenge we face is an impressive one. We meet at a time when even the best of statistics indicate an erosion of identification and an increasing number of Jews not receiving any form of Jewish education. Our gathering together is an attempt to bring into clear and sharp focus the important role that Jewish educa­ tion must play if we are to realize the future creative potential of the Jewish people. But, for these words to have meaning, we must use all the institutional tools available to make this drtl'am a reality. Assembling this distinguished group of Jewish com­ munity leaders is an important step. Most of us are builders, builders in commerce and industry and in other professions. We have brought the leadership skills, honed in the workplace to the service of the Jewish community. We have been in the forefront of Jewish community building-in lhe fashioning of agencies and services-in the development of pro­ grams and resources to meet lhe needs of our people through a variety of communal services. We have also been extremely helpful in building bridges with Israel, serving human needs here and participating as creative partners in building this great nation. The time has come to add a commitment to Jewish education to the economic commitment, social com­ mitment and political commitment we have already made to the survival of Israel and the Jewish people. Jewish countries throughout the world, committed to these values and principles, are the best assurance that Israel will survive. The future of Israel is linked to the quality of Jewish life everywhere. We, each of us, however, come to this meeting with a different set of life experiences. Experiences shaped in a world very different from the one in which we live and even more distant from the one in which our grand­ children will live. I personally have come to this awareness through reflection on my own Jewish experience. I grew up in a family in which Jewishness, Yiddishkeit and a com­ mitment to service and caring were part of the ambi­ ence of my daily living. My Jewish education, 1 am sure, was simiJar to what many of you have been ex­ posed to ... the afternoon Heder to which I went out of a sense of duty to my parents and left with a feeling of liberation. ewish education was not central in my Jewish experi­ J ence. My sense of Jewishness came from people, a Jewish neighborhood, from my home, from the air 1 breathed as a child. Many years of involvement with 1he Jewish community gave me the opportunity to sense the vitality of Jewish insti­ tutional life and strengthened my faith in the Jewish people. Communal service was the top priority in my own Jewish family life style. However, I have come to understand that I did not suf­ ficiently appreciate the options available to our fami­ lies and young people. In a free society one can choose to be Jewish or one can walk away from Jewish life. As I reflected and learned more about the Jewish con­ dition throughout the world, I realized that a highly structured Jewish community, although important for Jewish continuity, is not sufficient. I am now con­ vinced that our families and young people need an appreciation of Jewish values, need an intellectual understanding of our heritage, and need personal iden­ tification and experience of the meaning of Jewish li fe. Without these, we cannot meaningfully compete in a free and open society. We cannot inspire loyalty through a sense ofguilt nor t hrough fear of anti-semitism. The memory of Ausch­ witz, although essential to Jewish identity, is not suf­ ficient. Besides the memory of suffering, our youth must be inspired with the dream ofa new and exciting future for the Jewish people. s a consequence of t hese reflections, I have increas­ A ittgly, of late, devoted my energies to enhancing Jewish education and to strength­ ening the Jewish educational effectiveness of our community institutions. It is only in this way that we can build a secure Jewish future. Not merely secure, not merely survival, but a future that is creative and significant. There is much about Jewish education that is exem­ plary. There are shining examples of excellence every­ where. Here with us, at this conference, are professional educators who are world-class leaders, and who have helped us get this far. They will deliberate with us as we review the state of Jewish education today. To come to Jerusalem, the spiritual center of our peo­ ple, is in itself to experience a sense of confidence in the future, a feeling that whatever our differences, we are united in common purpose. that whatever the diffi­ culties, we have the will and capacity to fulfill our role in linking past and future generations. rt is no simple task we face. Despite the high level of Jewish community leadership here assembled, we re­ present a fraction of our people, and i r we are to lead, we must develop the kind of strategies that will encour- age others to follow. We must build a climate that encourages experimentation and innovation, a climate in which life-long Jewish learning becomes an ideal to be sought. To achieve this, we must be willing to set aside our institutional "hats" to come to these serious deliberations determined to take the necessary small and large steps that will make the difference. All of us here share a deep concern about our future. 1 believe with all my heart that the Jewish people will survive. Our challenge is to ensure that our survival is significant, meaningful, and creative. I am confident that our deliberations together ln Jeru­ salem, based upon a spirit of urgency, frankness and hope, will inspire us and other Jewish Leadership throughout the world to make Jewish education a powerful force, with a spiritual and moral vision capable of giving significance and meaning to all our efforts on behalf of our beloved people and our sacred heritage. June 18, 1984 T ., June 26, 1984 M E M O R A N D U M TO: Henry Zucker ) ' 1 FROM : Barry Shrage ' \.~ As we discussed, in 1980 the\ Federation adopted a Jewish educa- tion report that, for the first time, set forth a total community strategy with good potential for significantly upgrading after­ school Jewish education. As you know, after- school Jewish educa­ tion has had serious problems for many years now, and the 1980 report strategy focused on upgrading the process through the inte­ iration of "beyond the classroom" techniques into the ongoing-- ,_ ..... _f+,-r.schoo I eclucat,on of each ch, 1d. ihe report focused on con­ gregational Jewish edocat,on which serves over 70% of our young­ sters and sought to adopt a number of program components, long known as effective educational tools to group workers, and make them a standard part of each youngster's Jewish educational ex­ perience. These program components included an intensive Jewish k summer camp experience, retreat programs, parent education, youth ~ ~ group programs and an I srae I tr1e. whne none of these program ' C't5mponents 1s new, the uni~uene~s of the Cleveland approach was the su tion that the s ould all become an integral part of each child's Jewish e uca ,on as o ose e curren s, ua ,on where these experiences are viewed primarily as extracurricular . To implement this strategy, the community has come forth with a number of overall programs including the Congregational Enrich­ ment Fu nd and the Israel Incentive Savings Plan. The Jewish Com ­ munity Center has also expres sed an interest in working closely with the congregations toward the implementation of parts of the strategy. The problem has been that while the funding is available and while the schools make sporadic use of the funding opportunities , none of the schools has integrated the approach into its ongoing curriculum. The problem in my opinion is twofold : 1) a lack of initiative and imagination on the part of the Bureau of Jewish Education in 11 sel ling" the approach to the schools, 2) the fact that congregational schools generally don't have the spare staff available to think through the i mplementation of this kind of major curricular change.

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