Jewish Community Center Research Articles

Reacciones Comunitarias Frente A Situaciones De Desastre: Un Rol Emergente Para El Psicólogo Escolar

El artículo describe maneras en las que una comunidad puede reaccionar ante situaciones de desastre, tanto locales como nacionales. Sobre la base de experiencias vividas en Israel en los últimos veinte años, incluyendo sucesos traumáticos recientes como el asesinato del Primer Ministro Yitzhak Rabin y las bombas terroristas suicidas, y una intervención en Buenos Aires, Argenina, después del atentado perpetrado en julio de 1994, se propone un modelo que describe etapas distintas de reacción. Se señala como relevante la creación y concreción de programas de prevención e intervención. Se enfatiza el rol de la escuela y del psicólogo escolar para la realización de esos programas y sus roles críticos para afrontar las crisis en lo inmediato y en momentos posteriores. El programa preventivo se centra en el refuerzo de posibilidades internas de niños y docentes (innoculación) y brinda elementos para garantizar el apoyo emocional de los profesionales a cargo de la situación de crisis. Finalmente, se propone un modelo para el desarrollo futuro de la especialización en psicología escolar desde una perspectiva comunitaria.

The Jews of Latin America

Judith Laikin Elkin’s book is still the only synthesis on Jewish life in the region, covering events from the 1400s to the present. In the first edition (1980), she explored the background of discrimination in Iberia and the American colonies, waves of immigration, economic and cultural activities, community formation, reception by the host societies, demographic factors, and differing Jewish experiences in the United States and Latin America. Her purposes were to sketch a history of Latin American Jews, indicate how they fit in the various countries, and describe the collective identities they forged.Partly stimulated by Elkin, after 1980 new works on literature, economic and demographic patterns, state immigration policies, women, and other topics enriched the growing field of Latin American Jewish studies. Novels and memoirs written by Jews from the nations under study also multiplied. At the same time, events in the region and in the Middle East complicated the lives of Latin American Jewry. In the new edition of her book, Elkin incorporates the recent publications and takes the complexities into account. She also has added two chapters, one on the relationship between Israel and Latin American Jews, and another on the relationship between Jews and their non-Jewish neighbors.Ties with Israel have not been uniformly helpful for Latin American Jews. Alienated from the prevailing religious orthodoxy and seeking security in links to a homeland, communities united around the Zionist cause. They became dependent on Israel, and many of their members have moved there in recent years. In an interesting section on the Argentine military dictatorship from 1976 to 1983, Elkin demonstrates that Israel managed to protect Zionist and community organizations from persecution and rescued about 500 Jews from probable death. Nevertheless, Jews still accounted for about ten percent of the disappeared. Its desire to get along with the government, as well as the local Jewish leadership’s opposition to (and fear of) outside interference, limited Israeli actions. Israel’s policies against the Palestinians, arms trade with repressive regimes, and alliance with the U.S. in Central America in the 1980s, however, stimulated anti-Zionism and even some anti-Semitism among Latin American progressives. Thus Israeli interests do not necessarily coincide with those of local Jewish communities.In some places, Jews suffer continued hostility from elements within the military and the Catholic church. Members of the local security forces, for example, probably were involved in the bombing of the Jewish community center in Buenos Aires in 1994. Yet, Christian Latin Americans generally have become more tolerant of Jews. Jews have assimilated into the culture, public life, and even the larger population, through intermarriage, although this is a double-edged sword.I believe the growing acceptance of Jews may fit within a larger trend: a revival of ethnicity, at least in Argentina. As in other parts of the world, perhaps the downfall of other loyalties accounts for this development. The disastrous Malvinas War and the disclosure of the military’s crimes diminished nationalist sentiment in Argentina, as has globalization. Political events within and outside Latin America have weakened ideological allegiances in some places, and postmodern-style decentering may have undermined such sweeping notions as the crisol de razas. Whatever the reasons for the resurgence of ethnic identities, I would say that Jews are but one of the groups that partake in and benefit from it.Not all scholars will agree with Elkin’s conclusions. For example, while she argues compellingly that Iberian anti-Semitism of the precolonial and colonial years continued to influence Latin America after independence, this seems too essentialistic a notion to account for contemporary anti-Jewish feelings. The contrast she tends to draw between a rigidly Catholic, corporatist, and traditional Latin America, and a modern pluralistic United States, open to new faces and talent, renders the former monolithic, idealizes the latter, and appears overdrawn. Yet a broad synthetic and comparative study should generalize in order to stimulate thought, and Elkin has performed this task well. Scholars in the fields of Jewish, immigrant, and Latin American studies will find this book provocative and useful; for students and the general public, it will serve as an engagingly written and lively introduction to the topic.

The Language of Memory: The Influence of Writing and Reading on the Lives and Well-Being of Senior Adults

Every Tuesday morning I teach two classes to older adults at the Jewish Community Center of Central New Jersey, located in Scotch Plains. One class is called The Short Story and the second is Writing Family Histories. I frequently spend Monday evening preparing for these two sessions, carefully choosing stories or articles that might interest a group of seniors with varied backgrounds and experiences. I head into class early, sometimes spending an hour or more making copies of stories for each class member, enlarging the print size considerably for them. I know I will have to speak clearly and project my voice. In addition to vision problems, many of these seniors have difficulty hearing. During the first session, attended by about 48 people whose ages range from 70 to 100,1 usually have to wait my turn to use the material I've selected for that day. Most often, some of the seniors from the writing class have written articles or stories of their own and are anxious to read them to the short-story class. I hold my stack of copies up to show that I've got some plans for the day, too. I raise my voice. I joke. I try to push my weight around. I am, after all, the instructor. But they are persistent and always win the battle. They've been inspired by last week's class, they insist, or by some world event, and really want to share their work. Besides, next week they might have the flu, God forbid, or the paratransit bus that brings them here might be late, or they might have a grandson or granddaughter visiting them. Or, they might be in a hospital or nursing home, something they universally dread. Their one point of agreement is their wish to remain in their own homes or apartments, and to be independent, for as long as possible. Their second wish, according to one of them, is that they die in bed. One by one, they come up to share their stories, standing at the front of the class. Even though some of them walk with canes, they rarely need assistance when they come up to read their work. They stand without benefit of lectern (the custodian rarely remembers to put one out) and without a microphone (we've finally given up asking for one). The act of writing and the reading of their stories seems enough for them. Many of them are shocked by the fact that they are writing at all. They are energized by what they have produced and nurtured by the act of sharing it with a community of peers, and their work is as varied as they are. Rose Gelfman, for example, is an 84-year-old who, in 1939, at the age of 23, escaped from Vienna to Shanghai, leaving her entire family behind, then spent 20 years in Israel and Australia before arriving in America. She is widowed now and lives in subsidized senior housing. Her ankles swollen from a heart condition and wearing two hearing aids, she walks to the front of the room holding long, lined yellow paper in front of her. She is impeccably dressed and dignified. For about 5 minutes, the members of the class complain and struggle to hear her: Speak up, they order, or, Stand closer, we can't hear you. There is general shuffling and adjusting as they grouch among themselves before finally settling down. Rose reads her title. This memoir is about Kristallnacht. It is November 9, 1999, and Rose wants to commemorate the occasion by reminding her audience what it was really like for Jews living in Austria. As soon as she starts reading, the class quiets down, hushing each other as they struggle to hear, some of them adjusting their own hearing aids. She begins: The alarm clock goes off at 6 a.m. I wake up to a gray November day as ominous as all the days since March 12, 1938, when Austria was liberated by Adolf Hitler, or as we call it, occupied by the Nazis through the Anschluss- unification with Germany as the Ostmark-a province of the Third Reich. I take a cold sponge bath as every day and get dressed quickly to prepare breakfast for the four of us: Papa, who is reciting his morning prayers, my sister Franzi, 16, who is still rubbing her eyes, and my brother Emil,13. …

Henry Ries

When I first met Henry Ries in his home in Manhattan in the mid-1980s, I was struck by his generosity in telling me about his career. Born in 1917 in Berlin-Wilmersdorf in an assimilated Jewish family, Henry (born Heinz) Ries left for New York on 13 January 1938. Initially, he found employment in Bridgeport, Connecticut, where he taught photography at the Jewish community centre and could use their laboratory for his own work. He tried to enlist in the United States Army in December 1941, but this was not possible, since he was an 'enemy alien' and a recent emigrant without American citizenship. In May 1943, he joined the Army Air Corps and received American citizenship. Initially posted to the Pacific theatre, making aerial photographs of China for the 20th Bomber Command, he subsequently transferred to the European theatre, arriving in London in late May 1945. Assigned to the ‘Office Director of Intelligence’, his first job was to evaluate Heinrich Himmler's ‘secret state library’ correspondence with the SS, Hitler, Goebbels, Goring, and others, which was later utilized in the Nuremberg Medical Trial. Three months later, Ries was transferred to Berlin.

From Ethnonational Enclave to Diasporic Community: The Mainstreaming of Israeli Jewish Migrants in Toronto

Previous research on Israelis in Toronto has revealed the existence of a distinctive ethnic community of Israelis on the margins of, but at the same time distinct from, the more established Jewish community (G. Gold and Cohen 182; Cohen and G. Gold, “Israelis” 18). As is the case in other Israeli communities in North America (S. Gold, “Patterns” 121; Mittelberg and Waters 422; Rosen 28; Shokeid 43; Sobel 31; Uriely, “Patterns” 48, “Rhetorical”), Israelis in Toronto tend to live in Jewish neighborhoods, send their children to Jewish day schools or Sunday schools, be members of the JCC (Jewish Community Center), and participate in some of the local organized Jewish activities. While remaining a marginal part of the general Jewish community, they have developed distinctive Israeli communal activities involving politics, recreation, culture, and entrepreneurship.

From Immigrant to Ethnic Culture: American Yiddish in South Philadelphia (review)

Book Reviews ... ,f, •• 143 on "maternalism"-in the shaping ofimmigrant women's experience is well placed. I did wish, however, that the book included more primarily historical documentation, more case material, and more "women's voices." The photographs, including several of the same Italian wife who remained in Italy while her husband migrated and she bore his children (conceived, one imagines, on his return journeys), are striking in what they seem to say about individual women's lives. I wanted more of these kinds ofmaterials in the texts-either from diaries, letters, or government reports. I would have liked more first-hand quotations from social workers' reports that would give us the flavor and content of the kinds of "maternalism" displayed towards Italian and Jewish women. Rather than repeating her overview in the conclusion, I would have preferred more pages throughout the book devoted to descriptions ofwomen's lives, contrasts between working daughters and stay-at-home mothers, and comparisons between the discourses used by German Jewish reformers and their Anglo-American counterparts. FriedmanKasaba 's perspective, however, can help us re-read some of the already published novels, personal narratives, and historical analyses that touch on the lives ofthese turnof -the century Italian and Jewish women. Louise Lamphere Department of Anthropology University of New Mexico From Immigrant to Ethnic Culture: American Yiddish in South Philadelphia, by Rakhmiel Peltz. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998. 269 pp. $49.50 (c); $18.95 (P). This ethnographic study ofan elderly group, for many years residents in a neighborhood of immigrants, explores three issues centered on the vitality of Yiddish in the late twentieth century. The issue most thoroughly examined is the significance ofYiddish to at least 30 South Philadelphians: its value as an aspect of their identities, their traditions, and their social concerns. Since the youngest person regularly participating in Peltz's survey is 60, the study also addresses an issue of continuity, of whether Yiddish can sustain itself in American life. The third issue, whether the continuity of Yiddish differs from that of other languages brought in recent generations to the new lands, involves a comparative approach. Peltz discusses in depth the first ofthese issues. The relation of language to identity is for Peltz "malleable, changeable over time and according to situation" (p. 193). The basis for this judgment lies in his finding discrete patterns of involvement with Yiddish from what South Philadelphian participants recall and from corroborative material. These patterns resolve themselves in several configurations throughout the life histories ofthe participants, particularly those born and schooled in the United States. The earliest configuration concerns their 144 SHOFAR Fall 1999 Vol. 18, No. I childhood, the years of Yiddish as the language at home, of English as requisite at school and as current during play on neighborhood streets. This is not a straightforward contrast, since with parents, grandparents, and immigrant adults, younger children more often understood than spoke Yiddish, while English prevailed among almost all siblings. A second pattern implicit in the recollections ofPeltz's group concerns work, observance, and marriage: Yiddish sometimes spoken in neighborhood stores and synagogues, occasionally to spouses and children. The third pattern, weekly conversations at the Senior Center of the Jewish Community Centers, exemplifies Peltz's initiatives during the year of his research in South Philadelphia. He named this pattern "a gleyzele tey" as betokening an atmosphere of neighborly talk, the refreshments served making participation all the more congenial. What the first two patterns outlined here suggest in regard to language and identity is that the memories of participants largely support Peltz's qualifiers-for memory is malleable, changeable over time, and responsive to situation. Yet for all its necessary contribution to comprehending how language and identity affect each other, memory is in itself insufficient. The third pattern that governs Peltz's study emerges from his initiative in convening the South Philadelphia participants in "a gleyzele tey." Unable to locate in the 1980s institutions that normally take Yiddish as their mother tongue, having sought for centers ofYiddish conversation, hoping fruitlessly to find it in Izzy's Luncheonette (the third chapter discusses its charismatic proprietor and his customers), Peltz created one, his generosity also making his study possible. Yet...

Land, Liens, and Ts'Daqah

It is often noted that the term “ts'daqah” is derived from the Hebrew word for “justice.” However, this observation is rarely accompanied by a historically valid definition of the sort of justice assumed to inform Jewish sources on the issue. The dichotomizing of “ts'daqah” and “charity,” commonly offered in place of such a definition, oversimplifies the complex connotations of both terms. The observation that “justice” is “obligatory” or “compulsory,” whereas “charity” is a voluntary act of love, also falls short. It is true that halakhah tends to be expressed in terms of obligations rather than rights, and that this tendency has played a major role in shaping rabbinic sources on support of the poor. As Moshe Silberg notes in the course of his analysis of the moral underpinnings of Jewish law, “[the halakbah] is not primarily concerned with the indebtedness to the claimant, but with the obligation to the debtor, with his religio-moral obligation … and it is only as though in a side effect, as a secondary result of the process, does the claimant receive his money.” Nevertheless, “obligatory giving” is by itself an incomplete characterization of the conceptual structure of ts'daqah.Moreover, beyond these theoretical considerations, confusion concerning the meaning of ts'daqah also has practical implications. The term is frequently misapplied by Jews to describe any contribution to a not-for-profit organization (excluding taxes), regardless of how the contribution is actually used. Jewish communal fund-raisers regularly refer to contributions to sundry funds and projects as ts'daqah, whether the ultimate destination of a contribution is assistance to poor people, construction of a new swimming pool at a Jewish community center, or the salary of a fund administrator.

Children's understanding of the brain: From early essentialism to biological theory

This series of experiments investigated children's understanding of the brainas-container metaphor. In four experiments, preschoolers, kindergartners, first-grade, and third-grade children heard simplified stories about animals undergoing either brain or “insides” transplants and were asked whether behavioral properties or mental contents changed as a result. Kindergarten and first-grade children recognized that the brain is needed for thinking and remembering, but younger children did not consistently claim that a transplant of either the animal's brain or all its insides would lead to changes in an animal's thoughts and memories. By the third grade, children conformed to the brain-as-container metaphor. These results suggest that the period between preschool and third grade is marked by children's struggle to accommodate new information about the brain and to reevaluate their theories of brain and behavior. Knowing that the brain is necessary for an animal to think and remember is not sufficient for children to assert that identity-relevant properties can be altered by a brain transplant. Rather, this conceptualization of the brain seems to compete with children's early essentialist assumption that something intrinsic makes an animal behave in accordance with its species. fa* The studies presented here could not have been conducted without the assistance of the parents, the staff, and the children from St. Thomas Elementary School in Ann Arbor, MI, the Washtenaw County Jewish Community Center, the University of Michigan Children's Centers, and the Occidental College Child Development Center. Portions were presented in April, 1997, at the biennial meetings of the Society for Research in Child Development, Washington DC.

A Freirean approach to working with elders or: Conscientização at the Jewish Community Center

A Freirean approach to working with elders or: Conscientização at the Jewish Community Center

Community Reactions to Disaster

This article will describe ways in which communities react to severe crises, both on a local and on a national level. Based on experiences in Israel over the past 20 years, including recent traumatic events such as the assassination of prime minister Yitzhak Rabin and the terrorist suicide bombings, and on an intervention in Buenos Aires, Argentina, after the bombing of the Jewish Community Centre in July 1994, a model is presented to describe different stages of reaction. The importance of the creation and development of community prevention and intervention programs is stressed. Emphasis is placed on the role of the schools and the school psychologists in developing and implementing such programs, and on their critical role in dealing immediately with crisis situations and their aftermaths. The prevention program emphasizes the fostering of inner strengths and resources in children and teachers ('inoculation'), and makes provision for dealing with emotional support for the professionals in charge of helping the community in times of crisis. Finally, a model for the future development of the profession of school psychology into a broader community service is proposed.

The Credibility of Nonprofit Boards

The wrongdoings of nonprofit organizations have become grist for the media mill. The authors explore five of the more recently publicized cases of nonprofits gone wrong: the United Way of America, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Foundation for New Era Philanthropy, Jewish Community Center of Greater Washington, and Upsala College, and their significance in regard to the role and functioning of the board. Discussion focuses on the implications of these cases in regard to nonprofits' credibility and strategic options for enhancing accountability. Unless governing boards address some of their deficiencies, tighter government regulations, increased donor skepticism, and greater demands and expectations upon them will result.

Southville jewish community center, inc.: A case study

Southville jewish community center, inc.: A case study

Doris Humphrey and the 92nd Street Y: A Dance Center for the People

In this article, I will speak about a subject I hold very dear—the 92nd Street Y. Besides the coincidence of its being my current place of employment, the Y has long been part of my life. I knew it both as a member of Don Redlich's company when we rehearsed there as the Y's resident dance company, and as an audience member thrilling to the likes of Pearl Lang in Kaufmann Concert Hall. It is my hope to enlighten you about the nature of this extraordinary institution, its importance in the development of modern dance, and Doris Humphrey's deep involvement in its history.Why the Y? Or, to use the Passover phrase of inquiry, “Why is this Y different from all other Y's?” What were the convergences that would bring together a Jewish Community Center and the foremost practitioners of the developing modern dance? What benefit could the institution and the artists mutually realize? To unravel this complex fabric of relationships, it is useful to have as background a brief overview of the origins of the Y and the philosophy expressed by its founders.On March 22, 1874, a group of German-Jewish businessmen and professionals signed a charter creating a new organization in New York City. The wording of that document is as follows: “We the undersigned, desiring to promote harmony and good fellowship among Hebrew young men and to unite them in an organization tending to improve their social, moral and mental condition, do form an association under the name and style of the ‘Young Men's Hebrew Association’” (1). Thus was born the first YMHA, with the express aim of serving the Jewish community, in particular the cultural and intellectual advancement of Jewish young men.

Le comportement spatial des juifs de Strasbourg

The spatial behaviour of the Jews of Strasbourg/France. This paper highlights the residential behaviour of the Jews of Strasbourg and its development between 1966 and 1990. This behaviour was conservative, with a large concentration of the Jews in the neighbourhood of the synagogue and the Jewish community centre. Jews from North Africa, who immigrated to this city in the early 1960's, were more dispersed at the beginning in more distant parts of the city, but they adopted the general Jewish pattern and came to live near the Jewish centre. The centre of gravity of Jewish domicils moved slightly to the east, but it still is within walking distance of the synagogue. A comparision with Basle/Switzerland (the author has formerly researched its Jewish residential behaviour) shows a similar pattern. In both cities, only a small fraction of the Jews went to live in suburbs, contrary to the general population, as well as to the residential behaviour of the Jews of Leeds/England (who moved outwards in each of the last three générations), and of the Jews in the U.S.A., where there is a much larger dispersion of the Jews in the last decades.

'In blood, in blood thou shalt remember': David Mamet's 'Marranos'

Inspired by a story of the persecution and extermination of his mother's relatives killed in a forest during World War II, David Mamet's Goldberg Street is a minimalist gem in which a father teaches his daughter about her ethnic identity, her history, and her responsibility as aJew.1 To illustrate his lesson, the father relates two cryptic stories, the focus of which is antiSemitism. M1\ore recently, David Mamet has addressed anti-Semitism and his growing reaffirmation ofJudaism in essays, in his screenplay, Homicide, and in his trilogy, Old Neighborhood.2 But the earliest example of ethnic representation in the Mamet canon is to be found in his little known, unpublished play entitled Marranos. Commissioned in 1975 by the Bernard Horwich Jewish Community Center, for whom Mamet had previously written Mackinac (which also remains unpublished), Mamet was paid the handsome fee of$ Iooo and 'provided only with the subject Marranos not even stipulated to be a title'. Douglas Lieberman, director of Marranos and the Bernard Horwich Jewish Community Center Acting Company which mounted the play's only production, recalls that Mamet's primary concern was the 'feelings of the Jewish family as they discover they are coming unmasked'.3 Not surprisingly, Mamet has set his play in the home of a wealthy Portuguese merchant on the same evening that the family has been denounced to the Inquisition and is hurriedly completing preparations to flee to Holland with immediate and extended family. Although the term Marranos is typically associated with the expulsion and extermination of covertJews during the Inquisition in Spain in the fifteenth century and Portugal in the sixteenth, the practice of Jewish existence in disguise in the Iberian Peninsula may be traced to the fourth century when the Visigoths ruled Spain and first promulgated anti-Jewish laws. The

First Year Operation Report of the Corona Discharge Ozone Swimming Pool Water Treatment Systems at the Peck Aquatic Facility, Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Abstract The two corona discharge ozone swimming pool water treatment systems installed in the Peck Aquatic Center in Milwaukee, WI now have been in continuous operation since September, 1987. The two pools are part of the Karl Jewish Campus Facility of the Harold and Judy Sampson Campus of the Milwaukee Jewish Community Center. The operation of these water treatment systems has shown that safe and high quality pool water is obtained reliably and economically. One pool (Main Pool) is of Olympic size, the other (Learner pool) is designed especially for use by children. Both pools utilize a full corona discharge ozone water treatment system. They were the first ozone systems in the U.S. to be built for public pools using the process of ozonation, flocculation, filtration, ozone removal and residual chlorination. An extensive testing program was initiated in cooperation with the Wisconsin Department of Health. The bacteriological water quality from these swimming pools was in compliance with Wisconsin State ...

After the fact

Review| May 01 1985 After the fact Poland 1983: Auschwitz, Majdanek, Treblinka by James Friedman Bertha Urdang Gallery, New York City Feb. 5-March 2, 1985Concerning a Personal Project: The Photographing of Nine Nazi Concentration Camps by James Friedman (Distributed by the Ohio State University Gallery of Fine Arts) at Purdue University Library, Lafayette, Ind. March 1-April 5, 1985 and at the Greater Rochester Jewish Community Center, Rochester, N.Y., April 15-May 7, 1985; Jewish Federation of Broome County, Binghamton, N.Y., May 9-27, 1985; Kingsbay YM-YWHA, Brooklyn, N.Y., May 29-July 15, 1985; and other cities through 1988 Vincent Leo Vincent Leo Vincent Leo is an artist and critic living in Columbus, Ohio. He is a 1984 Ohio Arts Council fellowship recipien Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Afterimage (1985) 12 (10): 17–18. https://doi.org/10.1525/aft.1985.12.10.17 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Twitter LinkedIn Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Vincent Leo; After the fact. Afterimage 1 May 1985; 12 (10): 17–18. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/aft.1985.12.10.17 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu nav search search input Search input auto suggest search filter All ContentAfterimage Search This content is only available via PDF. © 1985 by The Regents of the University of California1985 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Fiscal Efficiency of Central Agencies for Jewish Education

The discussion in this paper departs from a fundamental premise: that in the foreseeable future local central agencies for Jewish education will not be receiving from their parent Federations the degree of increase in allocations which will enable them to significantly expand — let alone sustain at the current levels — the array of services which they deliver. This situation can be traced to a number of factors. To begin with, in many communities the ability of the Federation to raise funds through its annual campaign has leveled off. As a result, the total amount of money available for distribution to all Federation constituencies, including local bureaus of education, is no longer increasing in step-function fashion. Secondly, other Federation beneficiaries are staking claim with ever greater determination to their perceived share of the community dollar. Over the years most central agencies for Jewish education have become inured to this sort of competition for Federation funds from such sister agencies as the Jewish community center, the local Jewish home, and the like. But in recent years, allocations to local Jewish Day Schools have climbed to record levels, often making these institutions prime “competitors” with bureaus of Jewish education for community funds, more particularly with that portion of the total pie which has been allotted to education. This places bureaus in a difficult dilemma: On the one hand, they must support — indeed, encourage — increased funding for Jewish day school education. At the same time, bureaus are confronted with the uncomfortable fact that each community dollar allocated to day school education is a dollar which, potentially, might have been assigned to the central agency.

The aged: satisfied or dissatisfied?

Abstract:On the basis of interviews with 129 elderly people in the Long Beach Jewish Community Center, the most impressive finding was that, with the exception of some widows and persons with serious health problems, these men and women were content with life and did not have many unmet needs or difficulties with adjustment to old age. They did not consider their life idyllic, however. Transportation was a real problem for some, and medical expenses for others. Incomes were usually too low to allow for much of the travel so many of them wished to experience. Some had difficulties in interpersonal relationships. Failing health was the greatest single problem; more than half of the group had had a major health impairment and one‐fourth had been in a hospital during the previous year. Nevertheless, in general this population of aged people was emotionally healthy, optimistic and interested in life and the opportunities it afforded them. It should be emphasized that this group was not typical of all the aged in the country. The study demonstrated, however, that in this society, old age can be a highly rewarding period of life.It would be most desirable to find some explanation for the diversity of attitudes observed in various reports in the literature and in the present report. Over‐all conclusions can be rendered meaningless if the aged in some of the groups and areas studied are unhappy and dissatisfied whereas those in other groups and areas are radically different in their reactions. Another factor in the diverse findings may be the ecological or social concentrations of different personality types.

Origin and Function of Modern Tenets in Jewish Education

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Additional informationNotes on contributorsAlexander S. KohanskiAlexander S. Kohanski is the principal of the Jewish Community Center School of Verona, N. Y.