Community Center40 The curriculum included Hebrew, Bible, Jewish history, ethics, and practices of Orthodox .41 Despite their annual campaigns, however, the JEA still struggled financially. In 1929 the JEA appealed to the Jewish Welfare Fund for financial help, at which time the Welfare Federation became the schools’ major source of funds.42

Conservative Community Emerges

As Jews of East European descent prospered economically, they left the immigrant neighborhoods of the south side and moved northward. Neither the Reform nor the Orthodox congregations satisfied the religious and educational desires of this upwardly mobile group. They found the Reform service at IHC too stripped of familiar traditions, and their school, which now only met on Sundays, also lacking. They felt the Orthodox shuls on the south side were too attached to East European habits of dress, personal manner, and religious practice, and now were too far away as well. These traditional Jews found a middle ground in . In 1927 two Orthodox congregations, Beth-El and Ohev Zedek, merged to form Congregation Beth-El Zedek, a Conservative synagogue.43 Solomon Schechter, the founder of Conservative Judaism, insisted that a synagogue must conduct an elementary Jewish school as part of its congregational function.44 As a result, Milton Steinberg, Beth-El Zedek’s first rabbi, and one of Schechtcr’s first students, placed great importance on the congregational Sunday school, which supplemented the afternoon program of the JEA. He succeeded in raising the enrollment to 274 and introduced a confirmation class and high school study group, both of which he taught.45 The emphasis on Sunday school and the introduction of a confirmation class reflect ways in which the Conservative movement incorporated some of the changes initiated by . The cessation of immigration during World War I, and the restrictive quotas enacted in the 1920s, led to notable shifts in the focus of Jewish education. Without the influx of immigrants, organized philanthropy was able to turn its attention toward the entire community. Without newly arriving immigrants, the 24