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The Second World War and Jewish Education in America: The Fall  and Rise of Orthodoxy

Izak Rudomin

The Second World War (1939-1945) signalled the end of a vast traditional Jewish culture located primarily in Eastern Europe. The death of six million Jews throughout Europe was a catastrophic fall for Jewry and Orthodox Judaism. The war also saw the emergence of American Jewry as the largest single Jewish community in the world, as well as the rise of traditional, Orthodox, Judaism on an unprecedented scale in America. At the core of the revitalization of Jewish life was the domain of Jewish education. There was a direct connection between the events of the war and the growth of Jewish education in America. It is the purpose of this study to describe and explain this period of Jewish history, focusing primarily on the world of Jewish education. 

The study covers three broad periods: Jewish education and culture in America and Europe before 1939; the war itself and the role of Jewish education in the lives of its victims; the post-war period of growth in Orthodox Jewish life in America. 

The first section places the nature of Jewish life and education before the war in a historical perspective. In an overview of Jewish education in America the difficult and troubled progress of traditional education in an open society is described. The fate of Jewish community life in the broader Jewish educational configuration is noted as it struggles to maintain its identity. In Europe, the hostility between adherents of Enlightenment, the haskalah movement, and traditional Judaism, paves the way for a bitter denouement during the war years. 

The second section describes a response of Jewry much neglected by historians: the repeated examples of Kiddush Hashem the "sanctification of God's name" by the victims of Nazism as they faced death. It was this same spirit that imbued and inspired individual survivors of the war to rebuild traditional Jewish life in America. A few select leaders, such as Rabbi Aharon Kotler (1891-1962), Rabbi Avrohom Kalmanowitz (1891-1965), Rabbi Y. Y. Schneerson (1880-1950), and Rabbi E. M. Bloch (1894-1955), escaped from Europe during the war, and established large-scale yeshivahs which were schools of Jewish learning. This was achieved in spite of the apathy and difficulties they encountered in America. 

The third section deals with the successful rise of intensive Jewish education and communal life in America after the war. The war itself is seen as a turning-point and catalyst for the fortunes of Orthodoxy in America. As a result of the traumatic implications of Hitler's "Final Solution", American Jewry was more receptive to calls for an increase in all-day, and even full-time, Jewish education. 
The section contains the following chapters:
"American Haven for 'Yavneh and its Sages' ";
"Rebbes, Hasidim, and Authentic Kehillahs";
"A Comparison of Two Post-War Successes: The Traditional Yeshivah and the Hebrew Day School". 

The events of the Second World War therefore have a central position in the rise of Orthodox Judaism in America. In spite of great losses, culturally and educationally, Orthodoxy recouped its position, reclaiming a rightful role in the modern world.

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION: AMERICAN AND EUROPEAN 
JEWRY AT THE CROSSROADS

Topics of Interest

The Second World War and its Consequences
Responses of World Jewry
The Success of Jewish Education in America
Historical Background and Frames of Reference
Definitions

The Second World War and its Consequences

The Second World War, 1939-1945, signaled the end of a vast traditional Jewish culture located primarily in Eastern Europe. The death of six million Jews throughout Europe was a catastrophic fall for Jewry and Orthodox Judaism. The war also signalled the emergence of American Jewry as the largest single Jewish community in the world, and the rise of traditional-orthodox-Judaism on a scale never before seen amongst the six million Jews of America.

What happened? How was it all achieved? Why did it happen? What significance does this have for America's Jews in particular? What role did education have in causing this situation? How was Jewish education influenced by historical events? What kind of education was it that enabled Orthodox Judaism to find a vibrancy and flourish in America?. Who were the architects that stood at the heart of the changes? What kind of educational institutions were involved? Finally, what makes the Second World War a turning-point for Jewish education in America?

The hallmark of American Jewry had been an unprecedented alienation from its traditional roots. This too was a great fall. After the war, a new phenomenon was evident. American Jewry was confronted with the example of Nazi Germany. The once most enlightened nation in Europe transformed itself into the "angel of death". Jewry was shocked. It had suffered a severe body-blow. But it was far from dead. It had survived. Hitler, the Nazis, and the Axis Powers were defeated. Those Jews who had been spared the brutalities, joined with those who had survived, to re-assess their position in the world. The need to rise up again was urgent.

Historians have noted this sea change of attitude. Raul Hilberg states that for the Jews, the destruction process engendered both physical and psychic upheavals. It brought about a deep transformation in Jewish attitudes and thought. "There has been a complication of relations between Jewry and the outside world; a lasting estrangement has grown into the centuries-old relationship with Germany; and ancient bonds of trust and dependence have been broken within the Jewish community itself." Furthermore, notes Hilberg, the effect of the German destruction process on the position of Jewry within Christianity has been twofold:
1. The Jews have been forced into a re-appraisal of the past.
2. They have developed apprehensions about the future.

Adding to the estrangement between Jewry and the world that surrounds it was the fact that throughout the war, the Jewish people adopted the Allied cause as their own, but the "Allied powers however, did not think of the Jews." Jews had "shut out" many thoughts of their disaster and helped achieve the final victory. 1

Solomon Grayzel records that more than a million Jews were officially enrolled in the fighting forces of the Allies:

		Total Jewish Population 	Number in Service
United States 	4,770,000			550,000
Russia		3,000,000			500,000
Great Britain	300,000			60,000
Canada	170,000			17,000
South Africa	90,000				10,000

Grayzel adds that these figures do not include the many thousands of Jews who fought in the armies of other allies or "who were active in the resistance movements in France, Italy and elsewhere, or the remarkable contribution of the Jews of Palestine. 2 " Parenthetically, these figures show that where Jews were permitted to fight as part of organized armies, they did so out of all proportion to their numbers in the general population. The notion that Jews were cowards because they went "like lambs to the slaughter" is false. It ignores the fact that where Jews were accepted, they contributed selflessly to the war effort.

In spite of this loyalty, concludes Hilberg, the allied nations who were at war with Germany did not come to the aid of Germany's victims. "The Jews of Europe had no allies. In its gravest hour Jewry stood alone, and the realization of that desertion came as a shock to Jewish leaders all over the world." Jewish leaders world-wide spoke of the Jews having been "abandoned, forgotten, left alone, betrayed." It was their "unverbalized" fear that the Allies had secretly approved of what the Germans had done and that "under given circumstances, they might even repeat the experiment." 3

To illustrate the difficulties in obtaining Allied help in saving Jewish lives, we shall deal with the obstacles encountered by Jewish leaders. In many instances, those Orthodox leaders who lobbied hardest to save Jewish lives, were to become the most powerful organizers of Jewish learning institutions in America. Men such as Rabbi Aharon Kotler and Rabbi Avrohom Kalmanowitz, joined with others who survived, such as Rabbi Joel Teitelbaum of Satmar and Rabbi Solomon Halberstam of Bobov, to re-create the kind of Yiddishkeit (Judaism) they had known in Europe.

It is the activities of men such as these, the enormity of their struggles, their miraculous survival, and their achievements, that concern us. At the core of this thesis is the world of Jewish education symbolized by these men. Their greatest strivings revolved around salvaging Jewish scholarship from the ravages of war. They succeeded in re-establishing Jewish communities and scholarship in America, contributing to the rise of orthodoxy.

A wide-spread misconception has it that Europe's Jews failed to "resist" the Nazis. To see the clash between Nazism and Jewry in purely military terms, is a superficial reading of what transpired. When Jews were not afforded the opportunity to join organized armies or resistance groups, it could not be expected of them to offer armed opposition. Over two millennia of living in the Diaspora had shown that Jews have other means of survival. Hence our emphasis on the positive commandment impingent upon every believing Jew to "sanctify the name of God". Many of those who survived carried with them the same commitment to Kiddush Hashem (Sanctification of God's Name) which brought about the transformation of Jewish education in America.

Responses of World Jewry

It is known that two important centres of response developed in the international Jewish community after the war: one in America, the other in Israel. The best known, and most controversial, consequence of Jewry's disappointment with the world was the push for the establishment of an independent Jewish homeland. The masses of world Jewry saw in the establishment of the State of Israel a just reward for the persecutions and betrayals of the world's nations. A political and nationalistic ambition that had been in the making for over a century finally saw fruition. The Second World War was the catalyst.

Our study does not deal with the establishment of the State of Israel per se. We shall refer to Zionism only insofar as it contributed to, or detracted from, the rise of Orthodoxy in post-war America. Our concern is with a lesser publicized and underestimated response of Jewish Orthodoxy: The strengthening of Jewish life and education in America itself.

Judah Pilch, writing the chapter "From the Early Forties to the Mid-Sixties" in A History of Jewish Education in America (1969), mentions the war and its aftermath. His bias is inclined toward emphasizing developments related to the State of Israel. But central to his essay is the observation that the "grave events" of the Second World War "stirred the masses of American Jews. . . Their special concern was to rehabilitate the survivors in Europe proper, to help those who found a haven in other parts of the globe and restore the remnants to the Jewish Homeland in Palestine. . . These were the times when they realized that systematic action was needed in addition to philanthropy to strengthen the morale of the American Jews through greater stress on Jewish cultural values." 4

Thus, Pilch writes of "The Religious Revival" whereby "The Jewish Catastrophe in Europe, the spread of anti-Semitism, and the quest for an answer to the perplexities of the modern age prompted many American Jews to engage in an honest search for a meaning to their Jewishness." So much so, that Jews "whose tendency in the 1930's toward assimilation had estranged them from their people" now appeared to be ready to "join the fold" by joining either a synagogue or a "secular organization" which was engaged in the betterment of Jewish life world-wide.

The post-war years soon became the period of widespread "religious revival" Pilch informs us. But he is unsure whether this came into being because of greater faith and conviction, or, as a result of a "religious aura" which prevailed in the land during and after the war. His assessment is that "both Jews and non-Jews subscribed willingly to religious affirmation". Those that were referred to as the "lost generation" of Jews sought to re-establish some kind of relationship with the Jewish group for the sake of their children. "The need to bring up children in a Jewish milieu motivated most parents to join synagogues." In this "New Climate in the Jewish Community" there emerged a more earnest attempt to deal with the complex problem of Jewish education.

An aim of this thesis will be to trace in overview the history of the cultural and educational achievements of American Jewry prior to the Second World War. This will enable us to understand why Jews in the 1930's tended toward assimilation, having become estranged from their people, and why the "religious revival" that followed the war is so noteworthy.

The Success of Jewish Education in America

Pilch maintains that the most striking development in American Jewish education during the 1940's and 1950's was the steadily continuing upward trend in pupil enrollment within the total Jewish school population. Whereas in 1937 the total Jewish school population stood at 200,000, in 1948 it grew to 239,000, and by 1959 it stood at 553,600 based on the estimates of Dushkin and Engelman in Jewish Education in the U.S. (1959), as reported by Pilch.

However, these figures refer to children receiving “some sort” of Jewish education. Only an estimated 7.8% attended all-day schools. The rest belong to weekday and Sunday schools. Pilch admits that it is true that when measured by years of attendance needed for educational attainment, the schools remained on a "rather low level". And, that the situation in American Jewish education was summarized as being "like a river a mile wide and an inch deep." 5 Our focus however, will be on those Orthodox educators who strove to create that kind of Jewish education which was not merely "an inch deep." The successful establishment of schools and communities committed to the deepest forms of Jewish life and learning was a notable post-war achievement of Orthodoxy.

Whilst wending his way through various features of Jewish education in America after the war, Pilch only briefly deals with "The Expansion of the Day School". He devotes a paltry two paragraphs to "Talmudic Academies" when discussing "Higher Jewish Learning". As we shall show, this is a gross and unforgivable omission for an essay purporting to deal with the history of Jewish education in the modern era.

Pilch does observe that the 1940's marked the period of "phenomenal growth" of the Jewish day schools. He lists some basic factors contributing to this growth into the 1960's:
1. The influx of Orthodox Jews, from Poland and Hungary in the late 1930's.
2. The great Jewish tragedy during the Hitler era, with its destruction of centres of Jewish learning in European lands, engendered a strong desire among Orthodox Jewish leaders in America to perpetuate the "Yeshivoth" which the Nazis destroyed.
3. The growth of parochial schools.
4.The impact of American-born rabbis.
5. The shift away from the "melting pot" idea.
6. The decline of the Talmud-Torah. 6

It is the purpose of this thesis to closely examine the first two of these factors. Even though Pilch mentions the "shock received from the enormity of the Nazi Holocaust", he places it amongst a variety of other points. This detracts from gaining a deeper appreciation of the enormity of the "shock" and the extent and dimensions of the so-called “religious revival” which followed it.

We shall examine the nature and enormity of the destruction that gave forth such a shock to world Jewry. The barbarity of the attackers and the betrayal of supposed defenders was horrifying. In spite of the cruelties inflicted upon them, European Jewry remained, on the whole, true to the education that they had received as Jews. Jewish education in the form of Torah study runs like a golden thread through this period. It is the "unsung" factor that molded the Jew, accompanied him throughout the war, and presented itself as a beacon of hope once the war had ended. The loyalty of many Jews to the Torah as war loomed, their reliance upon it as they faced death, and their clinging to it to survive, concerns us in this study. It is a big clue to understanding the tenacity and success of those who sought to elevate Torah study to its central position in Jewish life in modern America. It lies at the heart of the rise of Orthodoxy.

This rise found fertile ground in a Jewry shocked and disappointed by the world. The corporate soul of the Jewish people was awakened from a complacent drowse. Somehow, Jews were sensitized to the importance of strengthening Jewish life. Somehow, Orthodox Jewish education in America succeeded more after the war. We shall attempt to describe why the Jews were justified in being disappointed with the world. We shall describe how the "shock" of destruction came to be, and how it opened up new vistas of sympathy for traditional Jewish education.

We shall thus give attention to the men of influence amongst the influx of Orthodox Jews in the 1930's and 1940's. We shall focus on the role of the "Talmudical Academies" for longer than two paragraphs because they were the active nucleus, preserving Jewish education rooted in tradition. Jewish historians agree that "throughout the ages Jews have drawn strength and inspiration from the study of the Talmud. As the embodiment of the Oral Tradition, the Talmud was much more than a code of laws. It was considered the very life of Judaism". 7

The Talmudical Academies in America, gave life to day schools and communities in far-flung places. After the war, Talmudical Academies, known as yeshivahs, flourished on an unprecedented scale causing a re-alignment of Orthodox Jewish life. We shall examine the extent of this re-alignment in Chapters VI and VII, as well as the differences between yeshivahs and day schools in Chapter VIII.

Pilch does not deal with the successful growth of Hasidic schools in America after the war. He makes only passing mention of the successful inception of the Yeshiva Tomchei Temimim of the Lubavitcher Hasidim, leaving out significant developments amongst other Hasidic groups. Although the last sentence in Pilch's essay maintains: "At no time since the origin of the New York Kehillah (1909) was there apparent a greater effort to consider Jewish education as a very important item on the agenda of American Jews", he does not deal with the successful establishment of Jewish kehillahs (communities) by Hasidim and other Orthodox Jews in New York and beyond. What of the nature of Jewish life and education in New York communities such as Boro Park, Williamsburg, Flatbush, Crown Heights and Far Rockaway, and further afield in Monsey, Monroe, and Lakewood, N.J.? They find no explanation in Pilch's work. In Chapter VII we shall discuss the flowering of Jewish education within the traditional configuration of the Jewish community. In Chapter II we shall note the early attempts at establishing a New York Community. By looking at its educational policy we find the key to its failure as a venture in Jewish education.

Historical Background and Frames of Reference

It is the aim of this study to address important questions in the field of Jewish education in America by: 
1. Examining the ideas, individuals, and institutions of the past with a view to determining their influence on their own, and our own, times.
2. Bringing historical knowledge and perspective to bear on current educational issues, and policies. 8

We shall trace the roots of the current state of Jewish education to Europe. We know that the Western World of the twentieth century is the product of the Renaissance, the Age of Enlightenment, the Reformation, as well as the American, French, Russian and Industrial Revolutions. Jewry, particularly in Europe and America, has not been immune to the historical and cultural forces emanating from the Enlightenment in modern history. In Western Europe Jews embraced the Enlightenment per se. Eastern Europe's Jews modified the Enlightenment, making it "Jewish", hence the birth of the haskalah movement. The growth of haskalah introduced modern notions of politics and culture to the masses of Central and Eastern European Jews. The domain of education was seen by both proponents and opponents of the haskalah as the "battleground" for the mind and heart of the Jewish soul. 

Orthodox Rabbinic scholars and leaders viewed the Enlightenment, and its "Judaised" off-shoot haskalah, as not only the mortal enemy of Judaism, but as part of the root cause of the misfortunes and retribution which befell Jewry during the two World Wars. We must grasp this notion in order to gain an insight into the minds of the spiritual leaders of observant Jewry. They viewed Hitler's megalomaniacal vendetta against the Jews as divine reproof for abandoning the ways of Judaism. They stressed the dangers of assimilation, and the importance of maintaining Jewish life through Jewish education.

Orthodox thinkers would say that Jewry has not learnt this lesson completely. But, great changes did occur as a result of the Second World War. The growth of Orthodox Jewish education in America is connected to the war. The inter-relatedness of these diverse events, reaching back into the history of the Enlightenment and the opposition it faced amongst Orthodox Jews is of direct interest to us. It helps to place the Second World War and what it meant to Jews in broader perspective.

Definitions

Our definition of what constitutes Jewish Education rests upon classical Talmudic and Rabbinic tradition (mesorah) of Sinaitic origin, as explained in Chapters II and VIII. Reform, Conservative, Reconstructionist and secular definitions are therefore excluded. However, we have found Lawrence Cremin's definition of education useful because of its generality. He defines-education as "the deliberate, systematic, and sustained effort to transmit, evoke, or acquire knowledge, values, attitudes, skills, or sensibilities, as well as any learning that results from the effort, direct or indirect, intended or unintended." 9 This is of use in examining Orthodox Jewish education. In addition, Cremin's notion of a "configuration" of "educators" that go beyond formal institutions of education, provides a steppingstone for our examination of Jewish education within the Jewish community.

We shall describe and examine the details surrounding the survival of a handful of individuals and institutions from the destruction in Europe during the war. Transplanting themselves to America, they recreated what was to emerge as a traditional Eastern European configuration of communities, institutions and educational agencies. It was a "deliberate, systematic, and sustained effort to transmit, evoke, and acquire knowledge, attitudes, values, skills and sensibilities" based on Torah principles rooted in halachah (Jewish Law). Throughout this study, we shall be defining and examining the educational philosophies and policies of those who helped bring about the fundamental change of course in Jewish education in America, and, the durability of their views and achievements in the latter half of the twentieth century.

Finally, the use of the term "Holocaust" should be conditional.. Our usage of it should not be viewed as acceptance. We prefer the term Churban meaning destruction or catastrophe. Hence Churban Europe is taken to mean the catastrophe which befell Jewry in Europe. This would be in keeping with definitions of past calamities such as Churban Bayis Rishon, the destruction of the First Temple in 586 B.C.E., and Churban Bayis Sheni denoting the destruction of the Second Temple by the Romans in the year 70 of the present era.

Rabbi Isaac Hutner (1904-1980) one of America's leading yeshivah deans, was asked whether the term "Shoah" (literally, "Holocaust") was acceptable in describing the destruction of European Jewry. His reply was:"CLEARLY NOT". The reason being, that the word shoah in Hebrew, like "Holocaust" in English, implies an "isolated catastrophe, unrelated to anything before or after it, such as an earthquake or tidal wave." This approach is "far from the Torah view of Jewish history" because "the churban of European Jewry is an integral part of our history and we dare not isolate and deprive it of the monumental significance it has for us." 10

In the later stages of the article "'Holocaust'--A Study of the Term, and the Epoch it is Meant to Describe" (1977), Rabbi Hutner asserts that ironically, the "artificially contrived term . . . empties the churban of its profound meaning and significance." Those who coined the term "Holocaust", and who thereby appropriated a term which signifies isolation and detachment from history, "did not realize that, the significance of the 'Holocaust' is precisely in its intricate relationship with what will come after". Thus, the pattern of Jewish history throughout the ages is Churban--Golus-Geulah: Destruction--Exile--Redemption, and no event requires new categories or definitions. 11

The phenomenon of "Destruction--Exile--Redemption" defines the nodal point of our study. It is also its unifying theme. One aspect of this phenomenon cannot be isolated from the rest. For a unified perspective there must be a unified approach. We shall not minimize the dimensions of "Destruction." We shall follow the course of "Exile" from Europe to America. Our specific concern shall be Jewish Education as a manifestation of "Redemption".

FOOTNOTES

1 Raul Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews (Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1961; reprinted, New York: New Viewpoints, 1973), pp. 670-671.
2 Solomon.Grayzel, A History of the Jews: From the Babylonian Exile to the Present (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society, 1968), p. 786.
3 Hilberg, Destruction of the European Jews, pp. 671-672 .
4 Judah Pilch, ed., "From the Early Forties to the Mid-Sixties", in A History of Jewish Education in America (New York: American Association for Jewish Education, 1969), pp. 119-121.
5 Ibid., pp. 121-124.
6 Ibid., pp. 140-141.
7 Bruria Hutner David, "The Dual Role of Rabbi Zvi Hirsch Chajes: Traditionalist and Maskil", (Ph.D.dissertation, Columbia University, 1971), p. 139
8 Teachers College, Columbia University, Teachers College: Columbia University: 1980/1981 (Catalog. Teachers College Bulletin, Series 71. Teachers College, New York, May 1980), p. 82.
9 Lawrence A. Cremin, American Education: The National Experience 1783-1876 (New York: Harper & Row, 1980), pp. ix-x.
10 Yitzchok Hutner, "'Holocaust'--A Study of the Term, and the Epoch it is Meant to Describe," trans. Chaim Feuerman and Yaakov Feitman, The Jewish Observer, October 1977, pp. 1;8 .
11 Ibid., p. 9.

PART I
BEFORE THE DELUGE

And the Lord said to Moses, Behold, thou shalt sleep with thy fathers; and this people will rise up, and go astray after the gods of the strangers of the land, into which they go to be among them, and will forsake me, and break my covenant which I have made with them. Then my anger will burn against them on that day, and I will forsake them, and I will hide my face from them, and they shall be devoured, and many evils and troubles shall befall them; so that they will say on that day, Are not these evils come upon us, because our God is not among us? And I will surely hide my face on that day for all the evils which they shall have perpetrated, in that they have turned to other gods.

Deuteronomy 31:16-18

CHAPTER II
JEWISH EDUCATION IN AMERICA: AN OVERVIEW

Topics of Interest

The Difficult and Troubled Progress of Jewish Education in America
The Notion of Community in the Jewish Educational Configuration in America

The Difficult and Troubled Progress of Jewish Education in America

An understanding of the changes brought about by the Second World War requires some knowledge about that which was changed. What was the history of Jewish Education in America during the centuries and decades preceding the war?

Lawrence Cremin has noted that "with Jewish education better established and financed during the 1960s than ever before, American Jews seemed functionally illiterate with respect to their Judaism." And concludes by saying "it is a paradox that tells us much, not only about the nature and limitations of education, but also about the character of life in twentieth-century America. . . . that extends far beyond the confines of the Jewish community." 1 These words appear in the Foreword to Jewish Education in the United States: A Documentary History by Lloyd P. Gartner. The work throws some light on the establishment and struggle of Jewish education in America. Gartner's introduction reveals the historical development of Jewish educational efforts:

Scripture commands the Jew to "impress upon your children" the revealed Divine teaching, and to think and speak of it day, and night . . . Every member of God's unique people had to be imbued with the Bible and with the oral traditions later committed to writing as the Talmud, which were also regarded as Divine in origin. Lifelong study and contemplation of the Torah became essential in the Jewish paideia. . . . Social prestige and religious merit were thus ultimately linked in Judaism with intellectual effort . . . . Nowhere did the zeal for pious study exceed the intensity it attained in Poland and Lithuania, the areas from which the greatest masses of Jews came to America in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. . . . "It is a positive commandment of the Torah to study the Torah . . . . therefore ever Jewish person is so obligated . . . .He must fix a time for Torah study, day or night . . . .Until when is a man obligated to study? Until the day he dies." (Hayyey Adam, Section 10, Parts 1 and 2.) The main content of all this study was law, as discussed in the tractates of the Talmud--civil, criminal, moral, ritual. 2

The fate of traditional Jewish education in the open, emancipated, enlightened and democratic American society is the subject of our present interest and of Gartner's book. Cremin has noted that "the settlement of America, had its origins in the unsettlement of Europe" 3 , and nowhere is this more true than in the transplantation of Jews from Europe to America. The first Jewish settlers in America were fleeing from Christian persecution. Spanish and Portuguese Jews were the first to attempt to set up a "Jesiba" and hired a full-time teacher for their children: ". . . a Suitable Master Capable to Teach our Children ye Hebrew Language; English & Spanish he ought to know, . . . to keep a publick school at the usual Hours of the forenoons on every Customary at our Jesiba," at Shearith Israel (Spanish and Portuguese) Congregation, New York, 1760. 4 The concern seemed to be about obtaining someone learned in "Hebrew", yet also worldly and well-spoken in secular matters.

This trend continued with the arrival of the second wave of Jewish immigrants primarily from Germany and England. Butts and Cremin have pointed out that while there had been a few Jews in America in the 1700s, and while their number had increased significantly with the German immigrants of the 1840s and 1850s, they had not exercised a particularly important influence on religious, educational or social thought. 5 " Isidore Bush's Advocacy of Public Schooling for Jewish Children (1855)" explains the position of the secularist Jew in America. The credo of the Reform movement that was an expression of the times is stated:

. . . After mature reflection and due consideration of all its bearings, I am utterly opposed to all sectional or sectarian schools, nor would I change my opinion if our means were as ample as they are deficient. . . . Would the descendants of our Christian fellow-citizens be more liberal . . . , or would they not rather be strengthened in their lamentable prejudice? . . . Which class of our children are in a better condition to meet and overcome the spectre of Intolerance? . . . Having thus refuted the standing arguments for sectarian schools, I cannot think of any object to be obtained by them to which full justice could not be done by establishing good Sabbath, Sunday, and evening schools for religious and Hebrew instruction only. . . . Sending our children at the same time to our public schools for the acquirement of other branches of learning, the result would exceed our most sanguine expectations. 6

Whatever the expectations, this approach has proven to be a remedy for loss of Jewish identity. Gartner puts it well when he says that the public school was viewed as the symbol and guarantee of Jewish equality and full opportunity in America. The deep American Jewish affinity for the public school lasted a full century, and "turned to disenchantment only in places subjected to urban school crisis in the 1950s and 1960s". 7 We would add that the events of 1939-1945 and their consequences contributed to a re-evaluation of public schooling for Jewish children.

Gartner states that the year 1880 marks the great divide in the history of American Jewry, as unprecedented numbers of Jewish immigrants began to pour into the United States. Prior to 1880 there were approximately 280,000 Jews in the U.S. By 1900 there were about 1,000,000. In 1915, there were 3,500,000. When mass immigration was shut off in 1925, by the Immigration Act of 1924, there were 4,500,000 Jews in America. Today, the figure stands at about six million.

These millions came primarily from Russia, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Romania, Galicia, and Hungary where pogroms, vicious anti-Semitism, and unstable economic and political conditions, made America a much desired haven. After all, America was free, and its streets were "paved with gold"! The fact that these new arrivals were generally of traditional Orthodox or Hasidic background and commitment, was testimony to the general efficacy of the traditional Jewish educational configuration in Eastern Europe. But the impact of American culture added to the lack of any established vast-scale traditional educational networks, contributed to a severe break-down of accepted practice. The industrial and commercial nature of American life forced most to compromise on Sabbath-observance, dress, schooling, and life style to become Americans, or simply to eke out a living.

The already well-established brethren saw it as their mission to speed up the Americanization of the newly arrived Jewish masses. They entered into "kehillah experiments" together with the homely "greenhorns" in order to gain greater social control and influence amongst the "Ostyidden". Newspapers, settlement-houses, philanthropic and cultural groups provided sustained, systematic and deliberate instruction as to the best and quickest ways to give up the "old" ways and enter into the "new". The surrender of the Jewish masses was not unconditional. Hedorim, Talmud Torahs, and a few yeshivahs were established, lasting well into the 1940s and beyond. "It expressed the determination to maintain the old ways rather than the new. It symbolized ethnic continuity in the ways of their fathers, especially yearned for when neither the fathers nor their ways were to be seen." 8 The order of the day was now "cultural pluralism"; an expression of uniqueness in the face of conformity.

Two unique syntheses were born in America during this period: The Conservative Movement and Yeshiva University. Gartner reports that the traditionalist Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS), and, Yeshivath Etz Chaim (later to become a part of Yeshiva College) both opened in New York in 1886. Israel Friedlander (1876-1920), professor of Bible at JTS, provides an example of a Conservative view, when dealing with "The Problem of Jewish Education for the Children of Immigrants (1913)", as recorded by Gartner:

. . . The downfall of the central pillar that had supported the structure of Russian Jewish life, the ideal of religious knowledge or scholarship, involved the downfall of all those institutions which had served it. Hence the beth hamidrash and the yeshivah were doomed from the beginning, and, though attempts at reproducing them have been made they did not yield tangible results.

What then was needed? Friedlander reports that, under the auspices of New York's Bureau of Jewish Education:

The aim of Jewish education was formulated to be "the preservation of the Jews as a distinct people, existing and developing in the spirit of the Jewish religion". The plan of parochial Jewish schools was rejected, on the grounds that it was undesirable for the Jews from the civic point of view and was surrounded by insurmountable practical difficulties.
The curriculum of the Talmud torahs . . . stands midway between the high and, in this country, unapproachable standards of Jewish education in Russia, on the one hand, and the meager requirements of the Jewish Sunday School on the other. 9

The difficulties were viewed as "insurmountable" and high standards were "unapproachable". There is a tone of pessimism and resignation. The "Russian" past appears to be unattainable in the American present. The hallmark of such thinkers and communal leaders was their rejection of the past with the rationale that it could never be recreated under modern American conditions.

Yeshiva University's ethos, a proudly self-declared synthesis, is aptly stated in the "Eulogy to Bernard Revel" by P. Churgin (1940):

For the Yeshiva has never rejected secular studies. . . . During recent generations restrictiveness grew dominant in the Torah world. . . . on account of the dangers of the Haskalah movement the yeshivot began to close themselves in and lock all doors against those trends borne in on the clouds of science and secular activity. . . . The area of Torah became increasingly narrow, and Torah more and more limited its illumination.
Dr. Revel saw this, and set out to restore to Torah its power and untrammeled rule. He brought secular creation within--into the place of Torah, closing the gap and healing the rift. . . . The College is not a world of its own, but is part of a whole. It and the Yeshiva are one unit . . . . Very slowly its image, an image all its own, is becoming fixed, and through the College and the Yeshiva the blemish in Jewish creativeness will be healed. 10

The contribution of Bernard Revel (1885-1940) and Yeshiva College to the establishment of Orthodoxy in America is documented by A. R. Rothkoff in Bernard Revel (1981). He records the vehemence of the Reform movement in opposing, the establishment of a "yeshiva college". In an editorial of the American Hebrew of New York (January 31, 1924) the antagonism is open:

But, now comes something new and fraught with greater danger to American Jewry. This is nothing less than an abominable project for establishing Jewish parochial schools, not merely religious schools . . . . for teaching the secular branches
. . . It is difficult to write temperately on this subject. It is little short of exasperating to stand idly by while a band of fanatics, so blinded by religious bigotry as to the unavoidable consequences of their acts, are playing into the hands of the anti-Semites, the anti-immigrationists, the KuKlux and all other enemies of Israel. 11

It is revealing that this editorial had decided who were the "enemies of Israel", whilst overlooking those who abandoned time-honored Jewish religious practice. The language left no doubt about the rabid anti-traditionalism of its writers. Thus too, when Louis Marshall was approached to aid Yeshiva College, he wrote: "Such a college would be nothing more than a Ghetto Institution. Under the circumstances, I would not be willing to do anything which would favor the creation of such a college." 12

In spite of such criticism, Revel persevered, and sought constantly to reorganize the Rabbi Isaac Elchonon Theological Seminary (RIETS) of Yeshiva University so that it would be "the equal of its East European prototypes". Revel was troubled that yeshivahs such as Mir and Slobodka were revered "while his Yeshiva was considered an inferior American institution". He therefore sought an accomplished European rosh yeshiva to teach the highest class. 13

Several outstanding East European Talmudists took up permanent positions or gave guest lectures. Rabbi Solomon Polachek (The "Meitsheter Illui") , Rabbi Moses Soloveitchik, and Rabbi Shimon Shkop served as heads of RIETS. Rabbi Abraham Kahane-Shapiro, the chief rabbi of Kovno, Lithuania; Chief Rabbi Abraham Kook of Palestine; Rabbi Moshe Epstein, the dean of the Slobodka Yeshiva; Rabbi A. Bloch of Telshe; Rabbi J. Hurwitz of Meah Shearim Yeshiva in Jerusalem; Rabbi J. Kahaneman of Ponevez; Rabbi A. Kotler of Kletzk; Rabbi B. B. Leibowitz of Kamenitz; Rabbi M. D. Plotski of Ostrov; Rabbi M. Shapiro of Lublin; Rabbi Y. Sher of Slobodka; Rabbi B. Uziel, Sephardic chief rabbi of Palestine; and Rabbi M. Zaks of Radin--all delivered guest lectures to RIETS students. 14 Each of these visitors gained impressions of Jewish education in America which influenced their own attitudes and policies.

During the late 1920s and the 1930s, "Orthodox ideals vastly different from those of the Yeshiva (College) were starting to germinate in America. . . The Yeshiva could no longer claim to be the only advanced American yeshiva, although it was the largest and most important." Rothkoff points out that Revel's course of action was no longer the only alternative for American Orthodoxy, and those who did not comprehend or approve of Revel's innovations could support other American Torah institutions. In 1926 the Yeshiva Torah Vodaath opened an advanced yeshivah, or Mesifta, for high school and post-high school students. Rabbi Shraga Feivel Mendlowitz (1886-1948), as principal of the Mesifta, was determined to continue the tradition of the famous Lithuanian yeshivahs. 15 In addition, other yeshivahs, such as Rabbi Jacob Joseph, and Mesifta Rabbi Chaim Berlin, established advanced divisions that rejected the "synthesis" notions of Yeshiva College.

In retrospect, the establishment of Yeshivath Etz Chaim in 1886 was a turning point. When Moses Weinberger exclaimed at the time: "Oh! What pleasant news! A yeshiva for the study of Mishnah and Gemara! . . . Is it possible, can it be? Here in New York? In America?" 16 -- his euphoria was not unfounded. But it would take over eighty years before yeshivahs would become entrenched and a way of life for tens of thousands of Jews in America.

Gartner's work understates dramatic changes in Orthodox life following the Second World War. Asher Penn's excerpt on "Advanced Talmudical Academies" typifies the surprise that such intense Jewish phenomena can be found in America, in 1958. Gartner's words of introduction are that "full-time talmudic education, without college study, flourished at a number of extremely Orthodox yeshivot, mainly in ,the New York City area." The use of the word "flourished" is inaccurate, it should state "flourishes". Writes Penn:

At the Beth Midrash Govoha [in Lakewood, New Jersey] . I held lengthy discussions with a great many students. They were almost unanimous in demonstrating to me that "here in Beth Midrash Govoha" everyone learns solely to deepen himself in Torah. One does not come to . . . acquire rabbinic ordination . . . they have come here to study for years. "one sits and learns"--constantly. . .

(At the Mirrer Central Yeshiva in Brooklyn, New York] I walked down a very long corridor on the second floor, off which on either side are classrooms. At the end of the corridor I noticed a broad window. I looked down, and my surprise was really beyond description. Before my eyes there unfolded the scene of a bright, modern, vast hall filled with about one hundred young people, all swaying over their Talmud tractates. 17

In the early 1980s, the total enrollment at Beth Medrash Govoha was close to 1,000--possibly the largest single concentration of Torah scholars in centuries. In addition, the yeshivah has established affiliated "branches" in other cities. At the Mirrer Yeshiva, not part of the "Lakewood" constellation, enrollment stands at about 500 students. Both Lakewood and Mir did not exist in America before the Second World War.

What amount to spectacular victories for Torah Judaism, and also the most underestimated and misunderstood, have been the establishment of yeshivahs and Hasidic communities in America. The most glaring omission in Gartner's book is that nowhere do we find any mention of the Hasidic movement as transplanted and thriving in America. This is an unforgivable omission for a work purporting to deal with Jewish education in America. It ignores perhaps one of the most dynamic and widespread phenomena in Orthodox Judaism during the modern era.

The portentous visits to America of Rabbi Aharon Kotler in 1935, and Rabbi Elchonon Wasserman in 1938, showed the direction that Orthodox Jewish education was to take after the war. Rabbi Kotler, rosh hayeshiva of the Slutzker Yeshiva in Kletzk, Poland (later re-established as Beth Medrash Govoha in Lakewood, N.J.) was reluctant to deliver a guest shiur (lecture) at RIETS requested by Rabbi Revel in 1935. Rabbi Wasserman, rosh hayeshiva of the Yeshiva Ohel Torah in Baranowitz, Poland, "refused to lecture at the Yeshiva (RIETS) and gave all his support to Mesifta Torah Vodaath." 18

Prior to his death in 1940, Rabbi Bernard Revel wrote his final article entitled "Our Thought and Hope". In it he stated: "We behold the guiding hand of the Hashgaha (Divine Providence) in the fact that, before the spiritual sun of Israel has set in Europe, a sanctuary of the eternal soul of Israel has been established on this continent." 19 He was aware that a profound change was taking place not only demographically, but spiritually as well. Rothkoff maintains that it was Revel who was the first to wrestle with America and successfully established a beachhead for Orthodoxy in the New World. It was only that: a beachhead. Talking of Revel and his times, Rothkoff's conclusion is worth noting:

An era ended with his death. Europe was now completely caught up in chaos and destruction. The historic European Jewish community which nurtured Bernard Revel was now ended. Its Torah centers, rabbis, and scholars were soon to be decimated by the Nazi hordes. American Jewry was to face a host of complex problems and responsibilities in the postwar era. American Orthodoxy, in particular, was to undergo rapid challenge and change, rejuvenation and revitalization, at the conclusion of the global conflict. 20

The tide of history and events following the Second World War, and a resourceful and uncompromising nucleus of Rabbinic leaders and roshei yeshiva (heads of Talmudical Academies), were instrumental in what amounted to nothing less than a firm reorientation of Jewish communities and educational institutions towards greater awareness of the importance of Jewish--Torah--education for Jewish survival in America.

The Notion of Community in the Jewish Educational Configuration in America

An examination of Arthur A. Goren's New York Jews and the Quest for Community: The Kehillah Experiment, 1908-1922 (1970), serves as a useful means of bringing together some of the central motifs of the Jewish experience in modern America. The central area of concern in Goren's book is fundamentally related to the ideas and themes in Gartner's Jewish Education in the United States (1969). The attempt by partly or completely secularized Jews to enter into an organized community compact or gemeinde (or "kehillah" in Hebrew) with newly arrived traditional East European Jews, can be viewed as an attempt at communal and cultural synthesis:

For (Dr. Judah L.) Magnes and his friends, the Kehillah venture represented a step towards realizing that vision.--So singular an undertaking entailed considerable experimentation: it required synthesizing Old World practices and New World skills. 21

Goren states that the "dual process--the struggle to maintain ethnic integrity and to achieve social accommodation--is the ultimate concern of this book". 22 This process" of "synthesizing" is at the core of the attempt by the Jew to remain loyal to what he perceives to be his traditions and at the same time function normally as part of a broader secular society.

Goren's work shows how the vast majority of Jews in the United States were swept away by the main currents in American education: The Jews of "uptown" New York, descendants of earlier migrations from Germany, had adopted a "Protestant-congregational model of communal polity". The "young professionals of the Bureau replaced scriptual authority with Dewey's educational philosophy". The powerful policymakers of the community appointed a director of education who "embraced the tenet of the public school as the sine qua non for a Jewish educational system". The minister of New York's Temple Beth El asserted: "Judaism must drop its orientalism and become truly American in spirit and form. . . . It will not do to offer our prayers in a tongue which only few scholars nowadays understand. We cannot afford any longer to pray for a return to Jerusalem. It is a blasphemy and lie upon the lips of every American Jew." The American Jewish educator, as conceived by some theorists, would be the dominant figure in the community because he was motivated by the ethical and professional standards of "modern educational practice" and be a "scientifically trained professional" and a "devoted democrat". And, that after the Kehillah experiment of 1908-1922 "most Jews remained interested in the minimum of separation from the larger society necessary for maintaining their Jewish identity. They would be content with a more modest vision of community" 23, which are Goren's own concluding sentences in his book.

Goren declares that "the Kehillah's most substantial achievement--its educational system--rested upon the attempt to apply modern pedagogical insights to an archaic but hallowed curriculum." Not surprisingly, "the controversy it roused, convulsed the community" 24. The Kehillah's "substantial achievement--its educational system" was riddled with inconsistencies and never received the huge financial backing ,it deserved from its own leaders. A major inconsistency was the dedication of the Bureau of Education, and its Director, to public schooling as a means to "help" Jewish education.

Benderly, the Director, did everything in his power to undermine the potency of Jewish education received in the Talmud Torahs and Hedorim. He was basically committed to the secular ideal because his attitudes, approach, methodology and techniques represented the antithesis of traditional Orthodox Jewish education. Not surprisingly, Groren records that: (i) Not a single member of the education committee identified with Orthodoxy was promoted to the inner circle of policy makers. (ii) The yeshivah was anathema in the eyes of the "uptown" wealthy, receiving little support from the "downtown" men of means. (iii) Dushkin suggested that instead of teaching Hebrew or Bible or Prayers or Talmud, the Jewish schools should "teach Jewish children". (iv) Money was withheld from those schools that needed help most, namely the small Talmud Torahs and Hedorim. 25

The so-called "archaic but hallowed curriculum" that Goren refers to, Magnes sought to modify and modernize, and, Benderly, in effect, sought to nullify, was as archaic as the attempts at destroying it. The rise of the Hebrew day schools, the proliferation of European-type yeshivahs, and the growth of vast Hasidic communities, kehillahs in a greater sense, became living and not archaic disproof of all rationalizations for a fallen Judaism. Regrettably, Goren ends on a rather pessimistic note. Nowhere in his book is there any mention of the eventual establishment of a significant number of large kehillahs in New York during the 1940s, 1950s, up to the present. He appears to leave us with the impression that a "kehillah experiment" can never work in modern New York. In reality, the type of "experiment" that he dealt with collapsed, but subsequent "experiments" succeeded in Brooklyn and beyond. Perhaps it could be said that the "kehillah experiment" of 1908-1922 was a "trial run" at cooperation between diversely oriented secular and Orthodox Jews, after which the Orthodox realized that they would have to be more independent.

In the light of developments during 1939-1945, and since then, the notion of applying "modern pedagogical techniques to an archaic but hallowed curriculum" becomes ironic. Perhaps the order should have been reversed? It has been the ancient and hallowed curriculum of Jewish Ethical Monotheism that has nurtured and defined humane and disciplined communities serving as an example to all. The policy of the Kehillah's secular backers and directors was misguided for they sought not to encourage Jewish growth but a blending into society at large. They lost a golden opportunity to really further Jewish education on a vast scale.

A new pattern, albeit faint, was discernable in the decades preceding the Second World War. The latent traditionalist leanings of the millions of East European immigrants was illustrated by their desire for a kehillah. The fact that they were courted by the "uptown" wealthy was recognition that they were a force to be reckoned with. Even though prior to the Second World War, Manhattan was the hub of Torah and traditional life never seen before on such a scale in America, the break-down in traditional life was even greater. But something different was taking shape, and it was soon to be Brooklyn's turn to prove that traditional Jewish Orthodoxy need not compromise and synthesize in order to survive and flourish.

FOOTNOTES

1 Lloyd P. Gartner, ed., Jewish Education in the UnitedStates: A Documentary History (New York: Teachers College Press,Columbia University, 1969), pp. ix-x.

2 Ibid., pp. 1-2.

3 Lawrence A. Cremin, Traditions of American Education (New York: Basic Books, 1977), p. 3.

4 Gartner, Jewish Education, pp. 41-42.

5 R. Freeman Butts and Lawrence A. Cremin, A History of Education in American Culture (New York:Henry Holt and Company, 1953), p 320.

6 Gartner, Jewish Education, pp. 68-75.

7 Ibid., p. 9.

8 Ibid., p. 9-12.

9 Ibid., pp. 132-148.

10 Ibid., pp. 155-156.

11 Aaron Rakeffet-Rothkoff, Bernard Revel: Builder of American Jewish Orthodoxy, Diss. Yeshiva University 1967, (Jerusalem: Phillip Feldheim, 1981), p. 97.

12 Ibid., p. 99.

13 Ibid., p. 115.

14 Ibid., pp. 123-125.

15 Ibid., pp. 147-148.

16 Gartner, Jewish Education, p. 107.

17 Ibid., pp. 212-213.

18 Rothkoff, Bernard Revel, pp. 154-155.

19 Ibid., p. 219.

20 Ibid., p. 223.

21 Arthur A. Goren, New York Jews and the Quest for Community: The Kehillah Experiment, 1908-1922 (New York:Columbia University Press, 1970), pp. 4-5.

22 Ibid., p. 3.

23 Ibid., pp. 247; 119; 97; 14; 123.

24 Ibid., p. 5.

25 Ibid., pp. 96; 98; 121; 130.

CHAPTER III

JEWISH EDUCATION IN EUROPE:
ENLIGHTENMENT VERSUS TRADITION

Topics of Interest

European Jewry Prior to 1939: Intellectual Roots of Cultural Conflict
Jewish Education and Jewish Survival at the Edge of the Abyss

European Jewry Prior to 1939: Intellectual Roots of Cultural Conflict

It is the “unsettlement of Europe” that must be studied in order to understand the cultural origins of American Jewry as well as the European cataclysm of 1939-1945. Paul E. Grosser and Edwin G. Halperin in Anti Semitism: The Causes and Effects of a Prejudice (1976), have written that “today there is a tendency to assume that the problem of Jewish security and the attitudes of Jews toward their survival grow from the experience of the Holocaust alone". Why? Simply because "the actions of the Nazis and their collaborators are of such a scale and horror as to obscure the long history of anti-Semitism." What has transpired is that "often lost in appraisals of anti-Semitism is the fact that the underlying spirit of the Holocaust is almost 2,000 years old. The genocide carried out by a civilized and cultured nation in the mid-twentieth century was an extreme manifestation of this spirit, but not an isolated one." 1 Jewish history before 1939 certainly attests to these assertions.

The migrations of Jews from Europe to America, and certainly within Europe itself, is dark tribute to the power of anti-Semitism. Jews have also moved voluntarily when motivated by new opportunities or hope for a fresh start and a better life:

The normal migratory behavior of populations, the refusal of Jews to convert or completely acculturate, outbursts of anti-Semitic violence and the condition of statelessness have combined to make Jews the most mobile people in history. . . .

However , . . . most of this migration was caused by Jews refusing to become non-Jews, their alien status, and anti-Semitism. . . . As outbursts of anti-Semitism occurred in a region or a country, Jews residing there sought refuge in other areas. Another cause of migration was the anti-Semitic practice of expulsion. 2

Anti-Semitism has had two ironic consequences that are worth noting: Firstly, some have argued that continuous persecution of the Jews has been one of the major forces that not only shaped the stance and content of Judaism, but made Jewish survival possible. "Without persecution Jews would have assimilated and disappeared as a people, a religion and an ethos." Secondly, anti-Semitism has a life of its own whereby "anti-Semitism causes anti-Semitism". Grosser and Halperin assert that Western history created and nurtured a symbiotic, interacting prejudice against the Jews. It was "deep-rooted, obsessive, cumulative, self-perpetuating, the old sustaining the new, and effect often becoming new cause." 3 This has meant that perpetual anti-Semitism has achieved the opposite aim: Jewish survival, whether it be by migration or as a cumulative human response.

Grosser and Halperin list the reactions of Jews to anti-Semitism, noting that during both ancient and modern times there were numerous reactions which "justified" or encouraged more anti-Semitism and which in turn caused more reaction, "setting in motion a vicious circle." They qualify that although these reactions are not "prime causes" of anti-Semitism, they are contributing factors. These reactions fall into three categories:
1. Defenses: (i) The attainment of success and position to counter insecurity resulting from persecution. (ii) A further strengthening of the family and community, inter-communal as well as local, "which caused more distrust and resentment which engendered more persecution, which further strengthened the family . . . ". (iii) The acceptance of stereotypes imposed by their Christian neighbours, "occasionally, as a result, they literally fled their original identity." (iv) Other Jews, out of fear and a desire to escape the stigma placed on them by society sought to respect and join that society. (v) Infrequently the Jews counter-attacked their persecutors physically. "They were then accused of being vicious, or clannish."
2. Attitudes: (i) Fear of Christianity owing to the villainous roles into which it had cast them and the offensive characteristics it had assigned to them. (ii) Resentment against the Christian for his persistent efforts to convert them..(iii) Over-reaction, over-sensitivity, and paranoia, which were encouraged by "persecutions, the Western tendency to minimize it, to attribute its cause to Jewish character, to ignore its danger signals and to fail to acknowledge it in history," and by "the subtle ubiquity of anti-Semitic attitudes in Western culture, seen even in its models and heroes, in its literature and saints."
3. Characteristics and Customs: Jewish "characteristics" and customs were affected to some degree by anti-Semitism, but these "were exaggerated by the non-Jew and many of them were presented as 'further' proof of the ancient theological slander that Jews hated Christians." 4

The reactions of Jews to anti-Semitism in the modern era were similar to those when they had been the victims of earlier persecutions, but at much greater cost. For a time it seemed that anti-Semitism would disappear as nations became more secular. But,

The new models for ordering and making sense of the world still needed an explanatory devil. Writers of such divergent persuasions as social Darwinism, capitalism, socialism, conservatism and philosophy of history in turn embraced the old Devil of Christianity--the Jew. A new term, a new justification for hating and persecuting Jews developed in the scientific and secular age of the 19th century--anti-Semitism. The term anti-Semitism was coined by the German, Wilhelm Marr in the 1870s to label anti-Jewish attitudes and behaviors based on racial and pseudo-scientific theories of history and economics. 5

The twentieth century may be dubbed "the century of anti-Semitism". Grosser and Halperin maintain that anti-Semitism correlates in its incidents and savagery with social dislocation, tension and change. The economic, social, and political patterns of the world were wrecked and swept away. Crown, church, and family were replaced by nationalism, science, and psychology. The works of Freud, Darwin, Marx, Einstein, Lenin, and Nietzche, "undercut virtually all that had previously passed as natural, the truth or civilization". Thus was born the century of nationalism and total war. The two are symbiotic, feeding and nourishing each other. "The two world wars drew and redrew the political geography of the globe. Nationalism continues the job of cartography." 6

Thus:

The readjustments and changes that followed World War I created tremendous insecurity and anxiety. One of the attractions of fascism is its promise of order and stability within a revolutionary framework. Fascist movements thrived and succeeded during this period and, its most insane manifestation, Nazism, came to dominate as the Nazis gained control of Germany and later most of Europe either by alliance or conquest. While all fascism includes romantic blood and soil and racial myths, for Nazism this was the dominant feature. The concept of the Aryan uber mensche ... Nazi anti-Semitism combined pell-mell the religious and racial varieties and came to overshadow all other features, policies and goals of the Third Reich. This is evidenced by the sacrifice of rational military needs, while losing a major war, to the requirements of the Final Solution.

The twelve-year period of Nazi power, especially the last six years of their regime, was the most precarious period in Jewish history. In contrast to other periods of anti-Semitic excesses, such as the Crusades and the Black Death, no havens were available and virtually no escape was possible for Jews under Nazi control. The very survival of Jews was never more seriously threatened than during this period. If the Axis powers had been successful in their push for world domination, as appeared quite likely in 1942, the Final Solution would have been more final and horrible than it was." 7

The origin of Hitler's "war against the Jews" during 1939-1945 is traced by Lucy S. Davidowicz. Starting with the Jews in Hitler's "mental world", Davidowicz asks if the idea of the Final Solution originated in passages of Mein Kampf, germinating in Hitler's subconscious for some fifteen years before it was to sprout into practical reality. Those fifteen years were in turn connected to a two thousand year legacy of antipathy to Jews. What is of concern to us, is Davidowicz's grappling with the bridge between idea and act:

The idea of a mass annihilation of the Jews had already been adumbrated by apocalyptic-minded anti-Semites during the nineteenth century. . . . Hitler . . . succeeded in transforming the apocalyptic idea into concrete political action. The mass murder of the Jews was the consummation of his fundamental beliefs and ideological conviction. 8

Thus, the "nexus between idea and act has seldom been so evident in human history with such manifest consistency as in the history of anti-Semitism". It was Hitler's ideas about the Jews that would be a "starting place for the elaboration of a monstrous racial ideology that would justify mass murder whose like history had not seen before." 9

What of the Jews' "mental world"? What of Hitler and anti-Semitism in the mental world of the Jew? How did Jewish thinkers interpret the "nexus" between the idea and act of anti-Semitism? How did Jewish scholars deal with the challenges of the modern era? If we are to gain a meaningful insight into the "habits of mind" of the thinkers and educators of Orthodox Jewry, we must appreciate their attitudes and reactions to secularity in general, and the modern Enlightenment in particular.

Bruria Hutner David, in "The Dual Role of Rabbi Zvi Hirsch Chajes: Traditionalist and Maskil" (1971), states that the end of the eighteenth century marked the beginning of a new era in European history. European Jewry was directly affected by contemporary events. Jewish history often paralleled European history. In the political realm the authority of absolute monarchs was crushed with governmental control passing to the people. Similarly, "the Jewish world, too, was swept by the revolutionary quake which shook western Europe. The new motto of 'liberty, equality and fraternity' spelled the downfall of economic and social barriers between Jew and non-Jew. . . ghetto walls came tumbling down it became the life ambition of many Jews to be accepted by the 'outside' world." 10 It was within this framework that the haskalah movement was born and nurtured. The literature of the period called for "change and enlightenment" in Jewish life. David quotes Salo W. Baron who defines haskalah as "a pre-emancipation rapprochement with the environment". Rapprochement, and a union, with the outside world constituted the core of the movement. 11

The seeds of the successes gained in Jewish education after the Second World War were already sown in Europe two hundred years earlier by the leading Rabbinic and Talmudic figures. Haskalah had called for a "drastic change in the curriculum of the Jewish school in Germany and Eastern Europe, where secular studies were completely disregarded." In striving to "normalize" Jewish life, it proclaimed "the ideal of . . . agricultural pursuit . . . as..... cure for the sorely tired Ghetto Jewry". It "sought..... to shatter ancient forms and patterns of thought and behavior. In short, Haskala aspired to reform Jewish life socially, religiously and aesthetically." 12

Opposed to this tendency towards "reform" were the rabbis and traditional leaders of European Jewry. Haskalah was confronted with the representatives of halachah. The halachah had literally been "the way" in which Jews had lived, and haskalah was its antithesis. In Western Europe the Enlightenment prevailed, in Eastern Europe its Hebraized progeny, haskalah, met a formidable foe: halachah. David's description of the confrontation between Orthodoxy (as the embodiment of halachah, and haskalah in Europe, touches at the root struggle between Orthodoxy and its opponents not only in Europe, but in the re-established Jewish communities of America:

The tendency to turn towards the outside world and the resultant attempt to reform Jewish life led the Orthodox camp to a bitter battle against haskalah. Hasidim and mitnagdim, although opposed to each other, joined hands and closed ranks against their common maskilim enemies. The essence of the Jewish spirit would be jeopardized by the assimilatory tendencies of haskalah. The inner urge to be accepted by the non-Jewish world would wreak havoc in Jewish life. The unique nature of Judaism as a religious entity of its own and its structure of communal life would be challenged. Thus the translation of the Pentateuch into German by Moses Mendelssohn (1729-1786), the first fruit of haskalah in Germany, was banned by the leading rabbinic figures of the age. The battle extended from Germany and Austria, where it was headed by Rabbis Pinhas Horowitz and Ezekiel Landau, to Hungary, under the leadership of Rabbi Moses Schreiber, and eastwards to Russia. It was indeed an age of storm and strife with far-reaching effects on the course of Jewish history. 13

The "storm and strife" was no mere gentlemanly encounter between opposing camps. Jewish maskilim working in tandem with anti-Semitic governments conspired to impose their notions of Jewish education by force. The best known example of this trend in the history of yeshivah education is the forced closing of the Volozhin Yeshivah in 1892 by the Russian authorities. Volozhin, known as the "mother of yeshivas" had been founded by Reb Chaim Volozhiner (1749-1821) a close talmid (student) and disciple of Rabbi Eliyahu of Vilna, "The Vilner Gaon", (1720-1797). It was the prototype of the Lithuanian style yeshivahs of the modern era. The main issue involved the compulsory introduction of secular studies into the yeshivah curriculum. Rabbi Naftoli Tzvi Yehuda Berlin, "The Netziv", (1816-1893), as the rosh yeshiva (dean) of Volozhin refused to accept the government's demands, which resulted in closure.

Aharon Surasky in Giants of Jewry (1982), states that the Jewish maskilim in Russia constantly sought ways to close down the yeshivah. They attempted to destroy it internally by seducing small numbers of students away from their talmudic learning and undertake university studies. External assaults on the yeshivah included informing government circles about the yeshivah's opposition to secular studies. In 1858 the yeshivah was officially closed but remained functionally open as Rabbi Berlin attempted to negotiate with government authorities. 14

By 1880, writes Surasky, the situation had grown worse:

The maskilim grew more persistent, and an editorial in Hameilitz openly demanded changes. Netziv, as Rosh Yeshiva, remained firm in his position to guard at all costs the purity of his sacred trust. In a private letter to the editor of Hameilitz, Netziv writes, "you must understand that we appreciate the value of our sacred Talmud more than you, and we know that just as undefiled chulin defiles kodesh through contact, so do secular studies, even when there is no impurity in them, disturb the sanctity of the Talmud and the success of its study when they come together.” 15

The struggle grew more vicious as the Tsarist education ministry, egged on by the petitions of maskilim, began to attack the yeshivah in new ways. There were decrees that the number of students be reduced, and orders that special courses in the study of Russian language and literature be included in the curriculum. It was insisted that all students be taught secular studies no fewer than two hours per day. The coup de grace came on January 22, 1892, when the yeshivah was surrounded by "hundreds of peasants commanded by dozens of policemen . . . . Some government officials stepped into the beis hamidrosh and ordered the students to stop learning, while a police captain read out to Netziv the government order closing the yeshivah. . . . The officials demanded that the students leave the building immediately. Their job was not only to close the institution but also to lock the building and seal its doors." 16

In a general overview of Europe, David has stated that although the haskalah campaign ranged over the entire European front throughout the nineteenth century, the form it assumed varied from country to country. "In this respect, too, Jewish development echoed and followed the pattern of the general enlightenment." Quoting Carlton J. H. Hayes' A Political and Social History of Modern Europe (1929), David says that as a general rule, "'the further west one went . . . the larger proportion of liberals one found, and conversely, the further east one went . . . the larger proportion of conservatives one encountered.' The same holds true for the haskalah movement, except that Germany should be substituted for France." 17

David observes that it was in Germany that the greatest number of Jews were swayed by the forceful trends of haskalah, only to be followed by the greatest number of conversions. The haskalah ideology gradually moved across Europe. At first to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, then to Lithuania, and finally to Russia. However, "when it did penetrate the more eastern sections, it did not receive as hearty a welcome as in western Europe. It encountered strong resistance of the traditional orthodox masses of Jewry." 18

The significance of the "unsettlement" of Jewish life in Europe cannot be over-emphasized. The tenor of Jewish life in America was set by the cultural wars in Europe between haskalah and halachah, modernity and tradition. At the centre of this struggle lay the domain of education. Each side conducted deliberate, systematic, and sustained efforts to transmit, acquire, or evoke its point of view. We have already noted that haskalah called for a drastic change in the curriculum of the Jewish school. This call varied in content from country to country, but its aim was always the same: rapprochement with the secular environment.

Western and eastern European Jewry reacted differently to enlightenment reforms. Educational reform was a reliable litmus test of how far enlightenment had penetrated Jewish minds. Thus, when in 1782, Emperor Joseph II of Austria issued the Patent of Tolerance, ordering the abolition of an offensive body tax, and granted permission to Jews to engage in commerce and send their children to public schools, there were two main responses:

The Jews of Trieste, then under Austrian rule, responded with joy to the revolution in education introduced by the law. In Galicia, on the other hand, there was anger and consternation. This section was geographically part of Poland, a center of pulsating orthodox life. While the Partitions of Poland brought the greater part of that country under Russian rule, Galicia was annexed by Austria. These Polish Jews reacted with fury at the mere thought of abandoning the traditional setup of hadarim. The abolition of this system was the dream of the maskilim, but was viewed as a great catastrophe by the masses of Galician Jews. 19

Thus, an image of Europe at peace with itself as it marched towards two world wars is as fallacious as that of European Jewry sitting idly as catastrophe beckoned. Jewry was afflicted by internal resistance against those who would change its traditional character. Externally there arose particularly vengeful and anti-Semitic European regimes that threatened Jews throughout Europe. The relationship between internal turmoil and external threats was complicated and not easy to define. The scholar and observer had to reach into his philosophy of life and weltanschauung to define the "nexus between idea and act", between body and mind or between the metaphysical and the tangible. The traditional Jewish thinkers, chazal or the talmidei chachomim, the Talmudic sages, did not shirk from interpreting, however cautiously, the unfolding patterns of history.

One such personality was Rabbi Elchonon Bunim Wasserman (1874-1941), one of Jewry's greatest scholars and leaders before his execution by Nazi forces in Lithuania. Popularly known as "Reb Elchonon", he was an active force among the millions of Jews in eastern Europe and was among those "who achieved first rank in the Torah empire of Poland and Lithuania." 20

In an essay entitled "An Analysis of the Jewish Tragedy--Its Causes and Solution", Rabbi Wasserman writes that "in our approach to a solution of the Jewish problem we must attempt to discover the cause which, in so short a period of time, has brought upon the great majority of world Jewry untold miseries which have not had their like since the destruction of the Temple." He states openly that to seek natural causes for this phenomenon would be futile because "all the events of contemporary Jewish history are beyond the laws of the natural course of human history." As proof of this, he points out that "Hitler's phenomenal rise from paperhanger to the position of the all powerful master of the destinies of nations is inexplicable by the normal course of human history." His conclusion is that "our only recourse is to turn to the Torah. There we shall find both the explanation of and the cure for our malady." 21 At the heart of this "cure" lay the domain of Jewish education.

Jewish Education and Jewish Survival at the Edge of the Abyss

Rabbi Elchonon Wasserman, reflecting rabbinic thinking, draws on Talmudic and Rabbinical sources when he states that:

Whenever, in the course of history the Jew loses consciousness of his heritage and mission in life, it becomes necessary that his enemies rouse him and restore him to the possession of his faculties. The magnitude of his enemies and the severity of the methods they employ in awakening the Jew depend entirely on the intensity of the latter's lethargy. 22

According to Rabbi Wasserman then, the upshot of haskalah and the enlightenment movement was to bring about a national "lethargy" amongst Jews. This brought them face to face with myriads of enemies. "When the Jew completely ignores the covenant which God made with his ancestors and desires to live like other peoples of the earth, then hordes of beastly anti-Semites swoop down upon him with terrific force and fury, as is the case in our own day." The major problem, as perceived by Rabbi Wasserman, was the denial of faith, and it was impossible to reach faith except through the study of Torah.
However:

Since the Torah is forsaken by a great portion of our people, faith is also weakened accordingly. It becomes apparent in the final analysis, that the reason for our present plight, unparalleled in Jewish history, must be attributed to the abandonment of the study of Torah. . . . If this prime cause of all our ills shall be removed, we shall, of ourselves, become cured . . . . It is but for us to seek this salvation, by attempting to spread Torah in Israel . . . . No other method can, therefore, avail us. 23

What emerges is that Torah study is viewed, as the raison d’etre of Jewish survival and existence. Abandonment of Torah by Jewry becomes an invitation to anti-Semitic reprisal, claimed the rabbis. The sharper the turn away from Torah, the deeper the potential backlash against Jews. The thinking of the traditional Jewish sages was that only by strengthening Torah study as the primary element of Jewish education, can Jews feel secure about their existence. There is no other way to ensure Jewish survival. There was a clear sense of "unsettlement" and there was alarm that a catastrophe was approaching. Once the catastrophe arrived, there were those who believed that they knew why it was the latest in a long chain of persecutions.

Irving J. Rosenbaum in The Holocaust and Halakhah (1976) declares that the mistaken assumption that the Holocaust was without precedent in Jewish experience has not only spawned an entire literature of "Holocaust theology", but also has been responsible "for an almost total unawareness of the role played by the Halakhah in the lives and deaths of the Holocaust's victims." No matter how great the inroads of haskalah, when the executioners appeared, the Jews were still able to draw on the legacy of Torah and halachic education. Indeed, "it has been estimated that more than half of the millions of Jews caught up in the Holocaust observed the mitzvot, the commandments of the Torah, in their daily lives prior to the advent of the Nazis." 24

Rosenbaum asks whether this commitment to halachah crumbled and disintegrated under the pressures of the "final solution". or, did it continue to bring not only some semblance of order, but of meaning, sanity, and even sanctity into the lives of the victims? Raul Hilberg in The Destruction of the European Jews (1961) has stated that the reaction pattern of the Jews was characterized by almost complete lack of resistance. "In marked contrast to German propaganda, the documentary evidence of Jewish resistance, overt or submerged is very slight. On a European-wide scale the Jews had no resistance organization, no blueprint for armed action, no plan even for psychological warfare. They were completely unprepared." Hilberg lists compliance as one of five ways a group can react when confronted by force. In a tone of wonderment he notes that the supreme test of the compliance reaction came in front of the grave "yet here, too, the Jews managed to console themselves." 25

What kind of paideia was it that helped Jews to cushion the blows against them and placed events into a framework of acceptance? Where lay the strength of the teachings that brought scholars and children alike to accept the horrifying decree with a faith that "all will not be in vain"?

Rosenbaum asserts that "long, long before the Holocaust, the Halakhah had developed its theoretical 'theology' and its practical course of action when confronted with such tragic events." The conclusion is that the halachah was uniquely equipped to adjust to death and suffering: “… In the face of events which would make Job's trials seem trivial, Jews retained their confident belief in a just creator, whose secret purposes they might not be able to fathom, but whose revealed and clear dictates in the Halakhah they were bound to observe." 26

When Rabbi Wasserman made his call for strengthening the study of Torah he was in fact calling for the direct strengthening of the observance of halachah. For Rabbi Wasserman, the greater the threat of holocaust, the greater the need for a more vigorous Torah education. It would undo the dangers to Judaism which threaten destruction of Jewry. Thus, he declared that whoever works in the cause of spreading and propagating Torah "promotes the salvation of Israel". Those who seek to stand from afar should bear in mind the precept "Thou shalt not be indifferent to the blood of thy fellow Jew." In sum: "Those who are engaged in spreading a denial of Torah in Israel must be considered fully responsible for the Jewish blood being shed in our day." 27

Rabbi Wasserman asks: "How must this sacred work of spreading Torah be organized?" He then provides an educational outline for what he fervently believes to be the "salvation of Israel":

The Renaissance of Torah must start with the small child, for youth is the foundation of a nation, particularly in these days, when parents are influenced by their children, rather than children being influenced by their parents. . . . It is essential that we organize elementary schools to instruct the young in the study of Chumash and the commentary of Rashi which brilliantly links the Written Law with the Oral Law of the Talmud. Such a course cannot fail to instill in their hearts faith in the knowledge of the rudiments and fundamentals of Torah, and an adequate preparation for the study of Mishna and Talmud.
The prime prerequisite in such schools is that the teachers in these schools be God fearing and that they practice and live that which they preach.
. . . A good competent staff will attract a great number of pupils for in the innermost recesses of every Jewish heart there is an inextinguishable spark of love for Torah. It needs only to be blown into a bright flame. 28

Rabbi Wasserman's confidence in the "inextinguishable spark of love for Torah" in the heart of every Jew was not unique, it was shared by those who survived and rebuilt the Torah way of life in America.

FOOTNOTES

1 Paul E. Grosser and Edwin G. Halperin, Anti-Semitism: The Causes and Effects of a Prejudice (Secaucus, N.J.: Citadel Press, 1976), p. 3.
2 Ibid., p. 21
3 Ibid., pp. 295, 307
4 Ibid., pp. 311-314.
5 Ibid., p. 207.
6 Ibid., p. 237
7 Ibid., pp. 238-239.
8 Lucy S. Davidowicz, The War Against the Jews 1933-1945 ( New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1975; reprinted ed., New York: Bantam Books, 1981), p.3. 
9 Ibid., pp. 3-4.
10 David, "The Dual Role of Rabbi Zvi Hirsch Chajes", pp. 1-2
11 Ibid., p. 3.
12 Hillel Bavli, "The Modern Renaissance of Hebrew Literature" in The Jews, ed. by Louis Finkelstein, II (3rd ed.; New York, 1960), 894, in ibid., p. 2.
13 David, "The Dual Role of Rabbi Zvi Hirsch Chajes", pp. 3-4.
14 Aharon Surasky, Giants of Jewry: Volume One (New York: Chinuch Publications, 1982), p. 60.
15 Ibid., p. 61.
16 Ibid., pp. 61-65
17 David, "The Dual Role of Rabbi Zvi Hirsch Chajes", p. 4.
18 Ibid.
19 Ibid., pp. 4-5.
20 Nosson Scherman and Meir Zlotowitz, eds., Reb Elchonon: The Life and Ideals Of Rabbi Elchonon Bunim Wasserman of Baranovich (New York: Mesorah Publications, 1982), P. xvi.
21 Elchonon B. Wasserman, An Analysis of the Jewish Tragedy--Its Causes and Solution" in Epoch of the Messiah (Brooklyn, N.Y.: Ohr Elchonon Publications. First printed as Ikvese Dimeshicha, New York, 1938), p. 44.
22 Ibid., pp. 44-45.
23 Ibid., pp. 45-46.
24 Irving J. Rosenbaum, The Holocaust and Halakhah (New York: Ktav Publishing House, 1976), p. 1.
25 Hilberg, Destruction of the European Jews, pp. 662; 669.
26 Rosenbaum, Holocaust and Halakhah, pp. 1-2
27 Wasserman, "An Analysis of the Jewish Tragedy--Its Causes and Solution" in Epoch of the Messiah, pp. 46-47. 
28 Ibid., pp. 47-48.

PART II: INTO THE FURNACE

Apparently they consider us tzaddikim in Heaven, for we were chosen to atone for Klal Yisroel with our lives. If so, we must repent completely here and now . . . We must realize that our sacrifices will be more pleasing if accompanied by repentance, and we shall thereby save the lives of our brothers and sisters in America.

Rabbi Elchonon Wasserman before execution by Nazi forces,July 6, 1941.

CHAPTER IV
EUROPE: THE KILLING GROUND

Topics of Interest
Kiddush Ha-shem: Sanctification of God's Name 
Survival

Kiddush Ha-shem: Sanctification of God's Name 

Judaism guides its adherents not only how to live according to halachah, but also how to take leave of this world. Martyrdom has its place in the Torah universe and observant Jews have always known of its significance. Every year on the Day of Atonement, Jews recite in their prayers the martyrdom of ten of their greatest sages. These ten were selected by the Romans because they were great spiritual leaders at a time when Rome sought to suppress observance of Judaism in Palestine. The foremost among these was Rebbi Akiva. He said: "Just as a fish cannot live outside water, so the Jewish people cannot live outside of Torah", and defiantly taught Torah to thousands. For this he was condemned to be flayed alive. 1

In The Holocaust and Halakhah (1976), Rosenbaum states that the Holocaust added a new dimension to the concept of the mitzvah of kiddush ha-shem- the sanctification of God's name--through martyrdom if necessary. Whereas in past persecutions the Jew had most often had the option of abandoning Judaism to escape execution, the victim of the Holocaust had no such option. For those who had sought refuge from anti-Semitism through assimilation, it was a most ironic denouement. The halachic implications were no less ironic, for it was the universal rabbinic opinion, as formulated by Rabbi Shimon Huberband of Warsaw that "a Jew who is killed, though this be for reasons other than conversion, but simply because he is a Jew, is called Kadosh" (holy) and has fulfilled the mitzvah of kiddush ha-shem. 2

The notion of "sanctification" unites both victims and survivors. Those leaders and scholars who survived, and rebuilt bastions of Jewish education in America were imbued with the same selfless zeal that characterized many of their martyred contemporaries. The spirit of those who succumbed and those who survived was the same: all sacrifice is not in vain for it is the essence of survival. In order to appreciate the successes of, for example, the Satmar, Lubavitch, and Bobov leaders in rebuilding Jewish life based on Hasidic educational philosophies after the war, we must know of the furnace they survived. In that furnace, there perished the elite of Jewry's leaders and educational guides.

Rosenbaum records that Rabbi Nehemya Alter, at a rabbinic meeting in Lodz, Poland, emphasized the importance of kiddush ha-shem, which may assume various forms. Central to this mitzvah is "not to degrade ourselves before the goyim [gentiles]." There are eyewitness accounts of the preparation for kiddush ha-shem of such Hasidic leaders as the Brezner, Grodzisker, and Zaloshizer rebbes. They reflect their "calming influence upon terrified Jews as they themselves faced death with dignity". Some confronted death with the "ecstasy appropriate to the fulfillment of the . . . ultimate mitzvah". The Grodzisker rebbe, prior to entering the gas chambers in Treblinka, urged Jews "to accept kiddush ha-shem with joy and led them in the singing of Ani Ma'amin ('I Believe')." The Spinker rebbe "danced and sang in the death wagons to Auschwitz, especially the prayer, Vetaher libenu . . .--('Purify our hearts so that we may serve you in truth')". The Piazesner rebbe observed:

He who is slaughtered in kiddush ha-shem does not suffer at all . . since in achieving a high degree of ecstasy, stimulated in anticipation of being killed for the sanctifying of His Name, blessed be He, he elevates all his senses to the realm of thought until the entire process is one of thought. He nullifies his senses and feelings, and his sense of the material dissolves of itself. Therefore he feels not pain but rather only joy of fulfilling the mitzvah. 3

Rosenbaum concludes this segment by saying that to achieve the heights of kavanah (proper intention) for the mitzvah of kiddush ha-shem as described by the Piazesner rebbe was perhaps beyond the power of most Jews. But many were able to die with dignity in the confident belief that theirs was the privilege of fulfilling this great commandment. 

The meaning of these events for American Jewry is touched upon by Marshall Sklare in America's Jews (1971). He notes the difference in immigration of East European Jews after World War II. Some of the immigrants were concentration camp survivors, and they had very strong convictions about their Jewishness. The "Orthodox sectarians"' impact has been the most noticeable, and their example has created controversy within the minority community. "Frequently, they considered themselves to be brands plucked from the fire, miraculously saved so that the way of life hallowed by tradition might be preserved." 4

Sklare points out that these survivors were disinclined to expose their children to any substantial amount of secular education, much less to enroll them in public institutions. They thus proceeded to establish a network of yeshivahs, stimulated day school education, and profoundly influenced the Orthodoxy of the older East European group. American Jews were suddenly confronted with the fervour of the war's survivors, not quite clear what caused such "fanaticism." It was the fervour of a flame that refused to be quelled.

At a later point in his work, Sklare asks how the rise of the Jewish day schools in America can be explained. The reply is that one significant influence was the character of Jewish immigration during and after the Second World War. The Orthodox Jews who arrived in America during this period were refugees rather than settlers because they came out of necessity rather than choice. "Their version of the American dream was that they should have the freedom to re-establish the way of life they had enjoyed before the Holocaust. Thus, without hesitation they proceeded to organize their own schools." Such that would "give primacy to Jewish culture and shield their children and others from the influence of the secularism of the public schools." 5

The killing in Europe shaped Jewish life in America. For example, prior to the war, Hasidic life was never established on American shores. The courts of the rebbes, the Hasidic leaders, remained in eastern Europe. The emergence of Hasidism during the Second World War and shortly thereafter in America, was made possible by the arrival of a number of Hasidic leaders together with small circles of their followers. 6 Thus, a new era of intense Judaism was ushered in to America. Like the biblical burning bush, the Jewish people endured in spite of the hellish flames that enveloped them in Europe. What was burnt there, would arise almost phoenix-like from the ashes, finding refuge and nestling in America.

In The Destruction of the European Jews (1973), Raul Hilberg states that the destruction process resulted in something more: It changed the lives of many who were not its victims. "It was felt throughout the world." He outlines crucial changes, showing that for the Jews, the destruction process engendered both physical and psychic upheavals.
Significantly, Jewry's physical dimensions and distributions underwent a permanent change:
1. World Jewry lost one-third of its number, losing six million of an all-time high of more than 16,000,000 before the war.
2. Before the rise of the Nazi regime, the bulk of Jewish population, wealth, and power was centred in Europe. When Germany was smashed, nearly half the world's Jews were living in the United States, and most of the Jewish wealth was located there. In America, too, were henceforth to be found many of the decisive voices in world Jewish affairs. 7

Survival

The task of surviving was no easy one. The Jews of Europe were the victims of Nazi genocide, Allied indifference, Arab machinations, and betrayal by elements inside and outside their own ranks. Those who escaped the brutality, the silence, and the treachery were literal cinders plucked from the flames of annihilation. For, as Hilberg states, the German annihilation, of the European Jews was the "world's first completed destruction process. For the first time in the history of Western Civilization the perpetrators had overcome all administrative and moral obstacles to a killing operation." 8

The process whereby the Germans killed millions of Jews did not come out of a void. An administrative undertaking of such dimensions must have had meaning to its perpetrators. "To Adolf Hitler and his followers the destruction of the Jews had meaning. To these men the act was worthwhile in itself. It could not be questioned. It had to be done." So much so, that the German destruction of the Jews was not interrupted: "That is its crucial, decisive characteristic." 9

The reaction pattern of the Jews was characterized by "almost complete lack of resistance". In marked contrast to German propaganda, the documentary evidence of Jewish resistance, overt or submerged, is very light. The Jews were not oriented toward resistance, and the fact remains that the Jewish resistance effort could not, and did not, seriously impede or retard the destructive operations. Another reaction of the Jews, was the attempt to avert the final force of the German destructive measures. One such method was the petition, or appeal, whereby Jews sought to transfer the struggle from a physical to an intellectual and moral plane. But, "everywhere the Jews pitted words against rifles, dialectics against force, and everywhere they lost." 10

A major fault in Hilberg's work is that there is a "blindness" to the concept of kiddush ha-shem. This is evident when examining the domain of Jewish education in Europe during the war. Multitudes of Jews continued to strengthen themselves, within the framework of traditional Jewish education, in observing the mitzvahs, which included the need for kiddush ha-shem. In a short illustrated work, The Unconquerable Spirit: Vignettes of the Jewish Religious Spirit The Nazis Could Not Destroy (1980), compiled by S. Zuker and edited by G. Hirschler, there is a chapter dedicated to "Study As a Way of Survival". Introducing the first vignette on "Study as a Life Preserver", the editor writes that before the war, Torah study had been a way of life for hundreds of thousands of Jews in Eastern Europe:

During the Holocaust years, it was to serve many of them as a way of survival. Skeptics have labeled this constant preoccupation with Talmudic studies as an attempt to escape from the harsh realities of life in the ghettoes and concentration camps. But they cannot deny that the unceasing study of Torah enabled countless Jews in the camps and ghettoes to go on living worthily until the end, and in some cases even to survive physically and spiritually until the day of liberation. 11

In the vignette "The Nazis and the Scholars", the editor reminds us that very early in the war, the Nazis realized that Torah study, and the scholars who taught the Torah, played a crucial role in the spiritual survival of their Jewish victims. "No wonder that they developed an almost fanatical hatred for scholars and students of the Law." There are many proven and documented examples of Nazi antipathy to the slightest trace of Jewish learning. "The Nazis regarded rabbis and Hasidic rebbes as potential ringleaders of ghetto revolts." Thus, in the Lodz ghetto, rabbis were among the first to be arrested and murdered. Illustrious rabbinic scholars toiled as simple labourers in an attempt to elude death. "After working all day at the most menial tasks imaginable, they would spend the evening hours teaching Torah and strengthening the morale of the other ghetto inmates. 12

In "Study as a Weapon", Zuker states that during the Holocaust, many Orthodox Jews believed that the evil in this world could not be defeated by physical warfare, because "the struggle between good and evil would eventually be decided not by human force but by Divine Providence." Most rabbis and scholars of the law were convinced that self-refinement through prayer and study was the only weapon which Jews could wield against the arch-enemy. It was in this spirit that Jews of all ages and walks of life sat together in ghetto basements and attics, immersing themselves in the study of the Law. Large and small Jewish communities saw Jews devoted to Torah study in the face of ever present dangers:

In Makow-Mazowiecki, where, according to an eyewitness report, "the situation in the ghetto was such that no one could be sure whether he would be dead a few moments hence", twenty boys hid out in a tiny, dark attic and devoted all their waking hours to the study of the Law. In Demblin Modzitz, Moshe Lichtenstein, one of the leaders of the Jewish community, a man of about 50, sat day and night over his holy books.

In Kotzk, as a survivor reports, "men--old men in particular--sat and studied the Torah, which they searched for allegories and numerological hints to show that the end of Hitler and his cohorts was at hand. They sought to hasten deliverance by tears, by study and by prayer. " 13

The tears, studies, and prayers of those Jews might very well have produced the results they longed for were it not for the indifference of the Allies to the plight of European Jewry and the misguided policies of secular Jewish leaders. Herbert Druks in The Failure To Rescue (1977), concludes after thorough research that "Roosevelt and the British acted in such a manner as to prevent the rescue of European Jewry. Their policies enabled the Nazi Germans and their European collaborators to slaughter six million Jewish men, women and children." 14

Another interest group that wished to see the Jews of Europe annihilated were certain Arab leaders. On the Allied side, for example, King Saud met with President Roosevelt on February 14, 1945, not long before the latter's death. Roosevelt asked Saud for advice regarding the Jews. Saud is reported to have told Roosevelt that the Jews should be granted "living space" in the Axis countries which had oppressed them. Roosevelt agreed: "The Germans appear to have killed three million Polish Jews, by which count there should be space in Poland for the resettlement of many homeless Jews." Furthermore, he reassured Saud that " he would do nothing to assist the Jews against the Arabs and would make no move hostile to the Arab people." When Saud proposed to send an Arab mission to America to present the case of the Arabs and Palestine, Roosevelt said it would be "a very good idea because he thought many people in America and England are misinformed." 15

On the Axis side, various works have documented the significant influence of the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Amin el Hussein, in urging the Nazis to exterminate more Jews. For example, Hilberg records that Marshal Antonescu of Romania wanted to allow 75,000 to 80,000 Jews to emigrate to Palestine in return for payment of 200,000 lei, equivalent to $1336, for each emigrant. ". . . Although the Jews could not buy their way out, any possibility of mass emigration was frustrated by two major obstacles: the lack of shipping and the lack of a destination. Neither Axis nor Allied shipping was available for the transport of the Jews." When the Grand Mufti discovered that 4000 Jewish children accompanied by 500 adults had somehow managed to reach Palestine he wrote to the German Foreign Office on May 13, 1943 asking the German Foreign Minister "to do his utmost (das Ausserste zu tun) to prevent further emigrations from Bulgaria, Roumania, and Hungary." 16

In "'Holocaust'-A Study of the Term, and the Epoch it is Meant to Describe" (1977), Rabbi Isaac Hutner states that the Mufti was serving his own "perverted fears, which were the influx of millions of Jews into Palestine, and the destruction-of the Mufti's personal empire". Yet, there can be no doubt, based on historical research of the facts, that Hitler and the Mufti each helped the other accomplish his own evil goal. The Nazis, represented by Eichman, simply wanted to kill Jews; the Mufti wanted to make sure that they never reached Palestine:

In the end, the "final solution" was the same. At one point, Eichman even seemed to blame the Mufti for the entire extermination plan, when he declared, "I am a personal friend of the Grand Mufti. We have promised that no European Jew would enter Palestine any more." 17

Druks proves the assertion, proven by other researchers as well, that from 1933 to 1945 nearly one third of Jewry was exterminated by European Nazidom and its collaborators, and that "a portion of the six million could have been saved if only refuge had been established. But it did not happen that way." He states furthermore that most of the world's statesmen and international politicians did not care as to what would happen to the Jews, and Jewish leadership in the "free world" of Britain and America proved unwilling or unable to act on behalf of European Jewry. He indicts the Jewish leaders who were too badly divided and frightened of anti-Semitism to do anything, and those American Jews "who did not want their fellow Jews to come to America because they were afraid that their own position might in some way be hampered, perhaps, by the growth of anti-Semitism." 18

In "Fortress Europe" itself, the dark schisms between the followers of haskalah and those that followed halachah came into the open in macabre ways. One is reluctant to assume the role of prosecutor and apportion blame for acts carried out under the most appalling conditions. "Judge not your friend until you too stand in his place" is an ancient Jewish teaching which any observer should bear in mind when judging others under stress. However, there are certain writers who feel compelled to write, and indict, those whom they feel failed the test of history. In The Holocaust Victims Accuse: Documents and Testimony on Jewish War Criminals, Part 1, (1977), the author Moshe Shonfeld, quotes Y. Efroiken, who is described as "a standard bearer of secularism whom the holocaust brought to the gates of repentance", and who in his book Sanctity and Valor of the Jews wrote:

From where did the thousands of Jewish police (Kapos), who served the Germans in the concentration camps and the ghettos, come? From which circles was this infamous army recruited? The survivors of the holocaust all concur that they originated from the underworld and from the 'maskilim'--the very people who denounced their 'unenlightened' brethren for their traditional garb. Did not these maskilim harbor the identical feelings of scorn and even hatred of their masters and officers, the Nazis? 19

The questions are chilling, and Shonfeld provides some shocking examples of depravity amongst Jews divided by a kulturkampf. It highlights the ugliness of the struggle between halachah and haskalah under the aegis of the Germans. It was perhaps the nadir of the Jewish experience during the war. It was unquestionably a "fall" for Jewry fighting for its survival. The hope of survival appeared to be slim for the victims, and spiritually dim for those on the outside. Within the walls of festering "Festung Europa" it was Orthodox, religious, Jewry that felt the extent of the "fall" as its teachers and scholars were killed, and as thousands upon thousands who had survived assimilation succumbed to the sword. The behavior of frummer yidden--religious Jews-under inhumane conditions appears to have remained noble and noteworthy:

Torah-true Jewry--Jews wearing traditional rabbinical or chassidic garb--never held positions in the Jewish police force, which administered ghetto Jewry, and never served as Kapos or officers. Even Gentiles sympathetic to our people who sought to describe outstanding personalities or singular heroism in the camps, could only find such examples from amongst Torah observant Jews, who never meted out beatings, who starved, rather than defile themselves with 'trefos', who shared their last crust with the weak and the sick. 20

Thus, surrounded by enemies within and without, the trapped Jews of Europe became an easy prey. The elite of Jewry became a spoil. A thousand years of Jewish life in Europe was wiped out by a "Twelve Year Reich". Whole Kehillahs--traditional communities in cities and shtetles (small towns and villages), famous schools of learning, yeshivahs and chedorim, together with their teachers were burnt to ashes. And throughout this Gotterdammerung the heroes are not the followers of the Nordic gods.

Jewish education of the deepest and profoundest kind suffered mortal blows. The famous yeshivah of Slobodka in Lithuania with its students and mashgiach (supervisor) Rabbi Avrahom Grodzensky, typify the ignominous demise of the greatest seats of Jewish learning in the modern era. But typical too was the selflessness of Slobodka's teachers and students as they prepared to pay the highest price for kiddush ha-shem:

After the ghetto of Slobodka was established, the students of the yeshiva and the kollel became forced laborers. During all the years of the ghetto, he (Rav Grodzensky) did not cease to speak and reflect on the fear of the Almighty. . . .

The ghetto years were intense, constant preparations for sanctifying the Almighty's Name . . . . Rav Elchanan Wasserman had found refuge in the home of Rav Grodzensky. . . . He asked him to prepare a lesson on the timely topic of sanctifying the Almighty's Name. The righteous scholar did not refuse, and in a few hours came out of his room and spoke on this subject. Rav Grodzensky concluded with a deep, stimulating talk on behavioral attitudes on the same topic . . . .

The last days of the Slobodka ghetto came about. Rav Grodzensky was cruelly beaten when the Germans discovered the bunker where he hid together with several yeshiva students. He was brought to the ghetto hospital. It was known that the Germans were going to burn down the hospital, with all of the patients inside. He said to the last of his students who visited him that he would lovingly receive the judgment of Heaven, but his heart trembled within him over the image of the Almighty--which would be desecrated by these evil people. 21

Such was the fate of those who did not survive. The life histories of those who did survive show the inter-woven links between the victims, events in Europe, and the nature of Jewish life and education in America as it emerged after the war. The case of the survival of the Satmar Rebbe, Rabbi Yoel Teitelbaum (1887-1979), shows how the combination of circumstances, bizarre beyond belief, in Europe, allowed for the rescue and survival of a significant figure in the restructuring of Jewish life in America.

There exists much muddled thinking and much more misinformation, concerning the antipathy of the Satmar Rebbe and the Satmar Hasidim towards modernism, Zionism, and the process of Americanization. Herman Dicker, in Piety and Perseverance: Jews from the Carpathian Mountains (1981), describes the series of events that eventually brought Rabbi Yoel Teitelbaum to America. In 1934, Rabbi Teitelbaum established himself in Szatm'ar (Satmar) in Northern Transylvania in Roumania. In 1940, Transylvania was annexed by Hungary. On March 19, 1944, Hungary was occupied by German troops who began deportations of Jews to Auschwitz. In May, Rabbi Teitelbaum tried to escape to Roumania, but was caught and thrown into the ghetto at Cluj, and deported to Bergen-Belsen. In December 1944, "as a result of financial arrangements with the Nazis carried out by Rudolf Kasztner with the cooperation of the Jewish Agency for Palestine, Rabbi Teitelbaum and 1,368 other Jews from Hungary were then shipped to neutral Switzerland, where they arrived on December 7, 1944." From there he went to Palestine, and in 1946 came to the United States, deliberately settling in Williamsburg, part of Brooklyn, New York City. 22

The plot is much thicker. Only in his notes to the chapter at the end of the section., does Dicker see fit to make two crucial observations: 1. Kasztner's activities were aired before the Jerusalem District Court in 1955, where Judge Benjamin Levy found him guilty of cooperation with the Nazis. In 1958 the Israel Supreme Court cleared Kasztner of this verdict, but he had been shot to death on March 3, 1957. 2. It is an ironic twist of history that the anti-Zionist rabbi should have been rescued by the Zionist Kasztner. 23

Indeed, the entire case has become a notorious cause celebre amongst close observers of the fate of European Jewry during the war. Could more have been done to save them? Could more have been saved? Could military or diplomatic action been taken by the Allies that would have hampered or stopped the destruction process? The answers would appear to be in the affirmative. The various Axis governments were at least open to bribes and secret diplomacy let alone military strikes against concentration camps or railway routes to the death camps. Arthur D. Morse in While Six Million Died: A Chronicle of American Apathy (1968), sums up the efforts of the Swedish diplomat, Raoul Wallenberg in Hungary. Recruited by the American War Refugee Board representative in Stockholm, Wallenberg was given full diplomatic accreditation as third secretary of the Swedish legation in Budapest. He was assigned to organize a special department responsible for the protection and relief of Jews. There was no overt American involvement, but it was the War Refugee Board that financed the project, even providing Wallenberg with a list of corrupt Hungarian passport officials, undercover anti-Nazis, and others who could be of assistance. Wallenberg arrived in Budapest early in July, 1944, undertaking what Morse calls "the most dramatic life-saving operation of the war". 24 It is a graphic example of what could have been done given the will and interest.

Wallenberg's reward? On January 17, 1945, Wallenberg drove off to meet with Marshal Rodion Malinovsky of the Soviet Army that was besieging Budapest. "I don't know whether I'm going as a prisoner or a guest", he said, and has not been seen since:

Whatever his actual fate, Wallenberg left a rich legacy--the lives of more than a hundred thousand Jews. His gallantry bridged the chasm between the pretense and performance of the forces of international morality. All those who had thrown up their hands in despair could no longer plead the impossibility of rescue, for Raoul Wallenberg provided daily proof of its feasibility. The War Refugee Board gave him the resources to do the job but his actions gave meaning to the very existence of the board. 25

Hungarian Jewry represents the best case of lost opportunities because its Jewish community came under direct German control relatively late, when the tide of the war was going against the Axis. Germany would lose, it was only a question of when. This made many leading figures in the Third Reich open to warnings, and amenable to deals that would save their necks at war's end, or perhaps even gain them money.

In April 1944, Dr. Rudolf Kastner of the Vaadat Ezra v'Hazalah, a Zionist assistance and rescue committee, and its underground rescue expert Joel Brand, established contact with Hauptsturmfuhrer Wisliceny of the SS in Hungary under Eichman's command. Hilberg states that there are two versions of the ensuing discussions. According to Kastner, the SS promised that for 6.5 million pengo, about $1,600,000, 600 Jews would be permitted to leave for Palestine. When the money was raised, the Germans then raised the number of prospective emigrants by a thousand. According to Eichman, Kastner had agreed to keep the Jews from resisting deportation in return for the freedom of a few hundred Jews, who would emigrate illegally to Palestine. "It was a good bargain", said Eichman. 26 The deal went through, and amongst those selected to live was Rabbi Yoel Teitelbaum of Satmar. It was a most ironic gain for religious Jewry, derived from Kastner's Faust-like deal with his Mephistopheles.

On May 8, 1944, one week before the deportation of Jews to the death camps was to start, Eichman called Joel Brand to discuss a new proposition. Eichman, acting upon Himmler's direct orders, proposed a scheme whereby the lives of the Hungarian Jews could be saved for a price, to be paid in goods. "The following quantities were mentioned: 200 tons of tea, 200 tons of coffee, 2,000,000 cases of soap, 10,000 trucks for the Waffen-SS to be used on the eastern front, and unspecified quantities of tungsten and other war materials. The SS would be most interested in the trucks." Thus began a sad saga. To procure these items, Brand was to leave for Istanbul to contact the Allies. "The Jews, in the meantime, would be sent to Auschwitz to be gassed until such time as a favorable reply was received." 27

The whole scheme came to nothing because of the machinations of the British and members of the Jewish Agency of Palestine. Ben Hecht, in his horrifying book Perfidy (1961) deals with the failure of the Brand mission and those responsible. In his key chapter "Perfidy in Israel", Hecht states that "it is known now (1961) that Eichman's offer of a million Jewish lives for a few thousand trucks was not an Eichman whim. It was a plan hatched by Hitler, Himmler, Goebbels, Becher, Goering, and all the leading German thinkers of 1944. The execution of the plan was assigned to Colonel Eichman." Hecht maintains that the fact that Brand was chosen, and not Kastner, may be proof of their hope to be taken seriously. "An honest Jew was needed to bring the offer to the Jewry of the world--a Jew with no known taint of German-love in him. Brand was such a man, the Germans decided. And he was." 28

Hecht provides three possible reasons for the Nazi offer: First, the Eichman offer of "Jewish Blood for Trucks" was a separate peace overture toward the West. The trucks, said the Germans, would not be used against the Western Allies. They would be used only against the Russians. Second, sparing the lives of the last million Jews might "brighten the world's opinion of the fallen Third Reich", winning for it and its leaders a kindlier postwar judgment. Third, the "most obvious, and the most German" reason, was that should it turn out that the Allies did "not give a hoot about saving a million Jews", and that they regard the offer with contempt and derision, then the Germans would win a psychological victory. Let Brand's mission fail, and "Germany will have proved its case against the Jews--nobody likes them. Or, more practically, will have established the fact that Germany's deliberate torture and murder of six million defenseless and unmenacing humans (Jews) did not make it an outcast from Western civilization." 29

Hilberg has written that on May 17, 1944, Brand, accompanied by a Jew Grosz, who had worked for the Canaris office, moved out of Budapest. However, in Istanbul, they were "caught by British agents, transported to Cairo, to be held in solitary confinement by Deputy Minister of State Lord Moyne." 30 Hilberg glosses over how it was that Brand was tapped and who were those responsible for the failure of the mission. Hecht on the other hand, details the events and offers an over-view of what transpired and its significance. It is not pleasant reading:

The Jewish Agency continued to function as a Jewish collaborator and a Jewish front for British policy in Palestine. . . .

. . . .When British policy required silence and inaction toward the extermination of Hungary's Jews, the Jewish Agency and its now world famous factotums upheld its policy. . . .

When he is arrested and marched to British headquarters, Brand's feverish dream seems to be coming true. . . . Moshe Sharett is there to hear his wild tale of Eichman's Blood for Cargo offer.

. . . . .Says Leader Sharett, “I’m very sorry, Mr. Brand, I have been given to understand that you will have to travel southwards (to British Cairo) and not go back at this time to Budapest." . . .

But no Jews rescue Joel Brand. He arrives at his British prison. Sharett, Weizmann, Ben-Gurion have kept Brand, his mission, and his imprisonment, a secret. During all this time the Hungarian Jews have been burning--12,000 a day. Soon there will be no further danger of Jews disturbing the White Paper by trying to pry their way into Palestine. . . .

. . . .After four and a half months, Joel Brand is released. . . .

. . . .Nobody feels too happy about the Joel Brand business. On the other hand, nobody feels too unhappy. Political objectives exonerate leaders from feeling guilt. They regard their actions, however cruel and vicious their results, as impersonal deeds dictated by national demands.

Thus it comes to pass that thought there are six million Jews murdered, there is no guilt. Neither German, Briton, American, nor Jew feels guilty. 31

From the foregoing, the position of the Satmar Hasidim and their world-view are placed in better perspective. As the survivors of Hungarian Jewry they have an acute perception of the treachery that befell them. They know that they are heirs to a long chain of Jewish tradition. Rabbi Yoel Teitelbaum, as the leader of Satmar, proceeded to base his re-born community and its educational system on historical precedent and clear-cut principles.

It has been acknowledged that Rabbi Teitelbaum's arrival in the United States signaled the beginning of a remarkable career, which was more a continuation of one that had shown signs of greatness in Europe. Dicker writes that it is amazing that Rabbi Teitelbaum managed to overcome the bitter experiences of the Holocaust and rebuild a large following with a wide ranging chain of religious, educational, and social institutions. 32

Thus, survival in the most nightmarish ways, from Hitler's purgatory, translated into the emergence of a strengthened Jewish education in America, of an intensity never before witnessed in the New World.

Footnotes

1 Grayzel, History of the Jews, pp. 184-185
2 Rosenbaum, Holocaust and Halakhah, p. 61. 
3 Ibid., pp. 62-63. 
4 Marshall Sklare, America’s Jews (New York: Random House, 1971), pp. 24-25.
5 Ibid., p. 170. 
6 Ibid., p. 24.
7 Hilberg, Destruction of the European Jews, p. 670.
8 Ibid., p. 669
9 Ibid., p. 639.
10 Ibid., pp. 663-664.
11 Simon Zuker, comp., and Gertrude Hirschler, ed., The Unconquerable Spirit: Vignettes of the Jewish Religious Spirit the Nazis Could Not Destroy (New York: Zachor Institute, 1980), p. 107.
12 Ibid., pp. 111-112.
13 Ibid., pp. 117-118.
14 Herbert Druks, The Failure to Rescue (New York: Robert Speller & Sons, 1977), p. 98.
15 Ibid., p. 97.
16 Hilberg, Destruction of the European Jews, p. 504.
17 Hutner, " 'Holocaust'--A Study of the Term, and the Epoch it is Meant to Describe", p. 8.
18 Druks, Failure to Rescue, Introduction.
19 Moshe Shonfeld, The Holocaust Victims Accuse: Documents and Testimony on Jewish War Criminals, Part 1 (New York: Bnei Yeshivos, 1977), pp. 20-21.
20 Y. Efroiken in ibid.
21 From Toras Avraham in ibid., pp. 95-97.
22 Hermah Dicker, Piety and Perseverance: Jews from the Carpathian Mountains (New York: Sepher-Herman Press, 1981), pp. 109-110.
23 Ibid., p. 145.
24 Arthur D. Morse, While Six Million Died: A Chronicle of American Apathy (New York: Ace Publishing Corporation, 1967), p. 292
25 Ibid., p. 297-299.
26 Hilberg, Destruction of the European Jews, pp. 542-543.
27 Ibid., p. 544.
28 Ben Hecht, Perfidy (New York: Julian Messner, Inc., 1961), pp. 229-230.
29 Ibid., pp. 230-231.
30 Hilberg, Destruction of the European Jews, p. 544.
31 Hecht, Perfidy, pp. 234-243.
32 Dicker, Piety and Perseverance, p. 110.

CHAPTER V
AMERICA: LAND OF CONSTERNATION AND HOPE

Topics of Interest
Distorted Images of Jewish History
Supplication and Consternation
Determined Rays of Hope

Distorted Images of Jewish History

The destruction of European Jewry and its significance for American Jewry has elicited some rather strange responses from popular historians. Irving Howe, in World of our Fathers (1976), a descriptive work about "the journey of East European Jews to America and the life they found and made", concludes a short note on: "The Holocaust and After", with:

Memories of the Holocaust pressed deep into the consciousness of Jews, all, or almost all, making them feel that whatever being a Jew meant, it required of them that they try to remain Jews. This was in part a matter of fear, somewhat more, a matter of need; but most of all, a matter of honor. Beyond that, any pretense of explaining the Holocaust, any theory as to its causes, was bound to crumble into inconsequence, a mere trifling with categories in face of the unspeakable. There was nothing to do but remember, and that was best done in silence, alone. 1

But the "silence" is thunderous and to stand "alone" in the face of the terror is impossible. Howe asks what the Holocaust could mean for ordinary Jews who had but recently improved their life in America. He replies that "they did not speak much about it". Again the silence, as he perceives it to be. Even though he admits that many wanted to survive so that Hitler be denied posthumous victories, he makes no mention of the revitalization of Orthodox life after the war. Indeed, his work is a sad lament to the fall of Orthodoxy in pre-war America. The world of Orthodox Jewish education is far removed from Howe's American Jews.

In contrast to Howe's bland equilibrium, there is Max I. Dimont's The Jews in America: The Roots, History, and Destiny of American Jews (1978), which unfortunately caricatures and even belittles all aspects of serious traditional Torah Judaism. In a sense, Jewish life in America, as it existed amongst the broad masses could at best be described as a poor caricature of time-honoured Jewish practice. This makes the rise of Orthodoxy even more remarkable. The successful attempts at restructuring Jewish educational and communal life after the war, vindicate the viability of the traditional models.

In discussing Jewish education after World War II, Dimont declares that even though enrollment increased by over fifty percent in Jewish secondary schools, "results declined" and "Jewish education failed to keep Jewish youth Jewish." This is in keeping with his theme of the inevitability of the decline of meaningful Orthodoxy in America. He claims that "purist Orthodoxy in America is in an untenable position." He scorns "the Jewish educational establishment" for "trying to hammer" into the grandchildren of the two million "David Levinskys" who "abandoned Orthodoxy without forsaking Judaism" the "articles of faith" their grandparents and parents abandoned. His view is that "a Jewish youth may dislike Orthodox ways yet love Judaism just as an Amish youth may dislike Amish ways yet love Christianity". For Dimont "it often seems as if Orthodoxy goes out of its way to prove that Judaism is a burden by adding more unnecessary burdens--a sort of Jewish mortification of the mind."

And what of those who happily thrive on a diet of Orthodox Judaism? Dimont relegates them to "the lunatic fringe", portraying them as crackpots:

The second faction, under various leaders, espouses different and mutually hostile paths to God's grace. Adherents number barely 25,000 to 50,000. Several Hasidic sects have captured the imagination of some young American Jews, some formerly mixed-up adolescents, drug addicts, and left-wingers. In this new Hasidism, they have found the escape they previously sought in asocial activities. 2

Notwithstanding his inaccuracies, and distortions of Orthodox life, Dimont reveals his gross misjudgment of the dynamic and appealing qualities of Orthodoxy. He commits the classical blunder of mistaking signs of life for death throes. He gloats over the death of large-scale Orthodox life, when in spite of all opposition, Orthodoxy rises. The serious scholar of Judaism will find little merit in Dimont's works.

An attempt at a more scholarly and balanced approach is to be found in A History of Judaism: Volume II: Europe and the New World (1974), wherein the author, Bernard Martin, states that while after World War II the older "European Orthodoxy" continued "quixotically" to battle against the corrosive influences of the American environment, it obtained a certain accession of strength with the settlement of a number of Hasidic groups in New York; most notably the Lubavich Hasidim. The"charismatic leader" of Lubavich, Rabbi Joseph Isaac Schneersohn (1880-1950) came to America in 1940, and soon established a strong center which, in the postwar era, organized intensive missionary activity and a network of day schools throughout the country. 3

Even though Martin is patronizing in his descriptions of Orthodoxy he sketches a picture of vitality. There is no doubt that "the immediate postwar years also witnessed a great upsurge in religious life in the American-Jewish Community." National religious institutions encouraged this growth by rapidly expanding their programs, and "the various Orthodox yeshivot, such as the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary of New York, the Hebrew Theological College of Chicago, the Telshe Yeshivah of Cleveland, and Ner Israel of Baltimore" were proof that "Orthodoxy itself displayed renewed vigor". Echoing a familiar theme, Martin states that many Jews affirmed Judaism out of genuine, even if "frequently inchoate and unarticulated" religious yearnings. In response to "the trauma of the Holocaust", many Jews were determined not to give Hitler ultimate victory by neglecting Judaism. 4

Rabbi Joseph Elias in an article "Dealing with 'Churban Europa"' (1977), has commented that Holocaust studies are often an abuse of the events themselves. The political, social, and psychological concepts of the modern thinker lack the means to fully comprehend the tragedy of 1939-1945. "It is not surprising that in most of the books . . . there remains . . . the inability to penetrate below the surface of what happened. We are left with a riddle which challenges man's very ability to function." Nevertheless, Elias admits that there are "sparks of the truth" in almost every place, which should help us understand what the era "may have been meant to teach us". 5

Elias notes that, for example, in works such as New Lives (1976) in which D. Rabinowitz studies survivors of the Holocaust, living in America, and G. Sereny's Into That Darkness, the multiplicity of feelings, uncertainties, and confusion of goals of survivors are reflected. Not being rooted in Jewish tradition, their tendency is towards fatalism and dejection. In contrast however:

Anybody familiar with the Orthodox communities created by Holocaust survivors in this country will readily agree that, however traumatic their war experiences were, they do not suffer from the same lack of purpose or uncertainty about the meaningfulness of their life. 6

There are thus divergent ways of viewing the history of Jewish education in America, often diametrically opposed. This is revealed by the historiography of the era itself.

Supplication and Consternation

A serious study of the period is presented in The Silver Era in American Orthodoxy: Rabbi Eliezer Silver and his Generation (1981), by Aaron Rakeffet-Rothkoff, describing the impact of Rabbi Eliezer Silver (1881-1968) on the development of Orthodoxy in America. In August 1937 Silver represented American Jewry at the Agudath Israel's third Kenesiyyah ha-Gedolah--Great Assembly--in Marienbad, Austria, where he saw the last massive gathering of European Orthodoxy before the Holocaust. In a public address to this gathering, Silver demanded that the Torah leaders of European Jewry extend greater spiritual guidance to their American brethren:

. . . Let each of the Torah leaders visit us once not to raise funds, but rather to intensify American Torah life.

Why have you deserted almost a third of your people?. . . 

We have sowed and planted yeshivot and other Torah institutions. We have fought for Kashrut and Family Purity. However, we are now weak. Come and implant a new spirit within us. Nevertheless, only send us Torah leaders steeped in learning and fear of God. Only such geonim can be influential in the United States. With such an approach you will repay us for what we have done for you over the years. 7

Silver's wish for the need of geonim--geniuses of Talmudic learning and masters of Jewish Law--who would mold, guide, and establish a vibrant Jewish life as it ought to be, was to be answered providentially. The cost was astronomical in terms of Jewish blood. The war-time darkness that descended on Europe meant that a few surviving geonim would indeed "turn-on" the "light of Torah" in America.

Upon his return to America, Silver attempted to alert the American rabbinate to what loomed before them. In an open letter of November 18, 1937, Silver asked: "How much longer will we separate ourselves from these leaders of the Torah? How can we continue to stand apart as our masters are opposed and censured by those outside the Agudah camp? Can it be that we do not choose to be with Rav Hayyim Ozer, Rav Menahem Zemba, and the Gurer Rebbe?" 8 Silver followed this up by formally organizing the American branch of Agudath Israel in 1939. He drafted its platform, which amongst other things, declared that the founding of Agudath Israel "is no longer subject to negotiations or debate, but is rather an accomplished fact". And, of significance from our perspective, he stated that the initial acts of the movement "will be to spread Torah knowledge and fear of God. The study of Torah will be encouraged among both young and old." Furthermore, every attempt was to be made "to enhance the prestige of Torah and its sages in the United States, Eretz Israel, and all the other countries of our dispersion." 9

Rothkoff writes that with the continued influx of European Orthodox refugees, Agudath Israel expanded its American activities. The unsettled pre-war years that were in fact the "road to war" of the 1930s "brought thousands of committed Jews to America from the threatened lands of Europe". The progress of the Agudath Israel in America during the l930s "was slow, but significant". For,

It represented the transition from groups of young men interested in spiritual growth to an organization that could gain access to the levers of power. The growth of the American Agudah coincided with the intensification of Nazi Germany's war against the Jews. 10

The third convention of the American Agudath Israel took place in August of 1941 in Baltimore. The personalities present, made clear the passing of the Torah centers of intense Jewish learning from Europe to America. Leading European roshei yeshivah who succeeded in reaching the United States were present: Rabbis Aharon Kotler of the Kletsk Yeshivah, Reuven Grozovsky of the Kaminetz Yeshivah, Mendel Zaks of the Radun Yeshivah, Elijah Meyer Bloch and Hayyim Mordechai Katz of the Telz Yeshivah, as well as Jacob Rosenheim, president of Agudath Israel. Silver summed up the state of affairs when he declared:

The leading geonim and disseminators of Torah knowledge in the world are now in the United States. We must build centers of Torah and fear of God in this country.

. . . We shall succeed in turning America into a holy place due to the merit of the Torah. In the past, great saints and sages were called upon to establish Torah life in new countries. Today this task falls upon us, although we are spiritually weak and inadequate. Nevertheless, we shall succeed due to the virtues of Torah observance. We must cease to despair of progress, Instead, we should organize, build and achieve our purpose. 11

In August of 1942 Silver organized a "Special Conference for the Strengthening of the Jewish Religion" at Belmar, New Jersey. He declared in somewhat ironical terms:

In opening this special conference of the Agudat Israel we are fully conscious of the frightful Holocaust that has enveloped the world and realize the special grave danger that threatens the whole of our people at the hand of the demon loosened upon the earth. In this fateful and most crucial hour we turn to the Creator in supplication for succor.

Our approach to the Almighty is similar to the manner which we appealed to the State Department, when about two years ago a delegation of venerable Talmudists and patriarchal hassidic rabbis came to Washington to secure special visas for our great leaders and teachers whom we were anxious to rescue from the hell of Eastern Europe. At that time we addressed the heads of our State Department as follows: "We come to you not as great orators nor as astute politicians; not as leaders of wordly influence nor as great lawyers with shrewd arguments. We come to you with millions of bleeding Jewish hearts, with the totality of Israel's great catastrophe, with hands outstretched in silent appeal from hundreds and thousands of our great Talmudic scholars and present day sages, representing the very flower and nobility of traditional Jewish learning and wisdom, who plead for rescue. Our own limited power of speech prevents us from putting this plea in words, nor are we able to put it in writing on paper. We beseech you to receive this silent plea as if it were uttered in words coming from your own hearts. 12

Obviously, the cause of Jewish education in America would have been strengthened even more had those thousands of European scholars and laymen steeped in Judaism been brought over in time. However, pleading with the State Department on their behalf was a matter of great consternation. This was part of a world-wide problem, for as Walter Laqueur has stated: "Neither the United States Government, nor Britain, nor Stalin showed any pronounced interest in the fate of the Jews", even though they were kept informed through Jewish organizations and through their own channels. In the work: The Terrible Secret: Suppression of the Truth about Hitler's "Final Solution" (1980), Laqueur writes that: How, during all the war years, "the Allied intelligence services should have not known (or ignored) the truth about the Hitlerite extermination camps which extended over many square kilometers and in which millions of people had been incarcerated", is a "legitimate question". 13

Part of the reply is that "too much publicity about the mass murder seemed undesirable, for it was bound to generate demands to help the Jews and this was thought to be detrimental to the war effort. Even in later years when victory was already assured there was little willingness to help. . . The statistics of murder were either disbelieved or dismissed from consciousness." Indeed, concludes Laqueur, many Jews could have been saved in 1944 by bombing the railway lines leading to the extermination centers as well as the centers themselves. This could have been done without deflecting any major resources from the general war effort. "In short, hundreds of thousands could have been saved. . . . There was not one reason for this overall failure but many different ones . . . . In some cases the motives were creditable, in others damnable." 14

There were a variety of people, some even of Jewish origin, who could have done more to save at least a large segment of Europe's Jews. In The Failure To Rescue (1977), Herbert Druks documents that Lawrence Steinhardt, as U.S. ambassador to Moscow, was accused of being responsible for the misfortunes of hundreds of Jews and had inspired the ruthless policy of the State Department. Steinhardt had sent reports to Assistant Secretary of State Breckinridge Long in 1941 "that it was not in the interest of the United States to admit East European Jews." When American Jewish leaders approached President Roosevelt in 1941 asking him to let more refugees into the United States, he confronted them with Steinhardt's report. Druks observes that the President said he sympathized with the plight of the Jews, but he opposed the admission of Jews to America. Only "extremely needy individuals" would be admitted, and then only if they passed rigorous admissions tests, and if they would not in any way endanger United States security. That, maintains Druks, was Roosevelt's policy and that was the essence of America's diplomacy of rescue. 15

Thus Roosevelt managed to generate an impression of dedicated concern, but the reality was quite different. Whilst Roosevelt declared in a presidential statement on March 22, 1944, that:

In one of the blackest crimes of all history--begun by the Nazis in the day-of peace and multiplied by them a hundred times in time of war--the wholesale systematic murder of the Jews of Europe goes on unabated every hour . . . That these innocent people, who have already survived a decade of Hitler's fury, should perish on the very eve of triumph over the barbarism which their persecution symbolizes, would be a major tragedy. 16

Nevertheless, as Morse records., when on April 5, 1944, New York Post columnist Samuel Grafton suggested the designation of "free ports for refugees" within the United States: . . . We do it, in commercial free ports, for cases of beans, so that we can make some storage and processing profit; it should not be impossible to do it for people." The President responded to this suggestion at a press conference, that it would not be necessary to establish havens in the United States because there were many countries to which the refugees could go. To a real suggestion for rescue "'the real hurdle' was the White House." 17

In June 1940, the President signed the Alien Registration Act which required all aliens over fourteen to be registered and fingerprinted. The State Department issued a "special care" circular advising all consular and diplomatic officers to re-evaluate all visas and extirpate the so-called subversive elements. No visa was to be granted if there was "any doubt whatsoever concerning the alien". The best interests of the United States had to be considered even if it meant a drastic reduction of quotas. Druks observes that the reinforced controls may have kept some spies out of the country, but it enabled unsympathetic consuls to reject Jews who held legitimate visas and tickets. 18

When the S. S. Quanza docked in Norfolk in September, 1941, en route to South America, the President's Advisory Committee suggested that the passengers be permitted to disembark until private organizations could make arrangements for them to reach their final destination. The State Department at first refused, and after some screening, it was discovered that five of the eighty passengers were qualified to receive emergency visas to the U.S. The State Department was pressured to admit them. Druks reports that Breckinridge Long, as Assistant Secretary of State in charge of the Visa Division, was so incensed and galled that he brought his complaint directly to the President.

Long wrote in a memo of September 5, 1940, that "the list of Rabbis has been closed and now it remains for the President's Committee to be curbed." Druks adds that Long was the fellow who had been so impressed with Mussolini because the Duce made the Italian trains run on time, and on April 7, 1936, had written to William E. Dodd, U.S. Ambassador to Germany:" From a purely objective point of view, I think the suggestions made by Hitler--if they are sincere, afford the biggest, broadest base for discussion made by any European statesman since the World War." 19

It was Long who came armed with reports from Steinhardt, when he wished to convince Roosevelt to impose even stricter visa regulations to protect America from "undesirables". Jews were "lawless, scheming, defiant" and "the same kind of criminal Jews who crowd our police dockets in New York." In this respect Steinhardt reflected the same mentality of New York's "up-town" wealthy European Jews who resented the arrival of East European Jews on the Lower East Side in the early 1900s. In America they attempted to undermine the traditional and educational values of the newcomers. Outside of America, Steinhardt evidently feared such new migrations to New York, bearing in mind the difficulties inherent in assimilating such "lawless, scheming, defiant" elements. Fatefully, it was the same Steinhardt who was U.S. Ambassador to Turkey at the time that Joel Brand arrived there with his mission on behalf of Hungarian Jewry. Brand thought Steinhardt to be "a good Jew. And besides that, a good man". 20 He hoped that Steinhardt would be "the best man to contact on the Allied side, if any approach to the Allies was to be made at all by me". 21 But the Ambassador was "incommunicado" from the cause that Brand represented. How bitter the irony that the man who was thought of by some East Europeans as a "good man", saw them as "criminal Jews".

Thus, the State Department found a valuable ally in the assimilated Jew Steinhardt, and it is no surprise when we are informed that Long subscribed to his views and went a step further. Long was of the feeling that Steinhardt was not only right with respect to Russian and Polish Jews, but that his observations could be applied to "the lower level of all Slav population". When American Jewish leaders approached Roosevelt to admit more refugees, he confronted them with Steinhardt's reports. Roosevelt would continue to maintain that he sympathized with the plight of the refugees, but that he rejected "any plan which would allow any organization whether it be Rabbi Wise or MacDonald or William Green to recommend finally that any person abroad whom they had not seen be admitted to this country." Thus concludes Druks, because of such diplomacy, because of the Nazi’s terror, and because of the division and sluggishness of Jewish leadership, some six million Jews were exterminated in Europe. 22

In The Holocaust Victims Accuse (1977), there is a section dealing with "Stephen Wise: The Chief Saboteur" which describes the activities of Wise and Congressman Sol Bloom, to prevent legislation in both houses of Congress leading to the formation of the War 
Refugee Board in 1944. American Orthodoxy led by the Agudas HaRabonim kept up a continuous battle for such a board. Two days before Yom Kippur in 1943, four hundred rabbis staged a mass demonstration in Washington calling for the rescue of the European Jews. They brought their petitions before the House of Representatives, the Senate, and the White House. Their appeals saw fruition when their measure passed both houses, forcing Roosevelt on January 22, 1944, to create the War Refugee Board. 23

In an article in The New York Times Magazine of April 18, 1982, Lucy S. Davidovicz maintained that the "five hundred" Orthodox rabbis who came to Washington on Oct. 6, 1943 were brought by the "Irgunists" to "dramatize" their case, implying a belittlement of the "Irgunists" and their "Orthodox" cohorts. "They had no appointment with the President, for he had been told by a confidant, Judge Samuel Rosenman, that the group behind this petition was not representative of the most thoughtful elements in Jewry." 24 Rothkoff in The Silver Era (1981) has a different version of what Rosenman told Roosevelt. They were, he said, "a group of rabbis who just recently left the darkest period of the medieval world. I unsuccessfully tried to stop their coming since they really represent no one." 25 Davidowicz overlooks not so much this comment,but the mentality that underlies it.

Who were the rabbis that were fancifully thought to "represent no one"? Their leading figures were Rabbis Eliezer Silver of Cincinnati, and Avrohom Kalmanowitz whose Mirrer Yeshivah had found refuge in Shanghai. Rabbi Silver supported the Emergency Committee to save the Jewish People of Europe organized by the Revisionist group, who as the Irgun, opposed Britain's restrictive immigration and anti-Jewish policies in Palestine. Silver declared that:

The Agudat Harabanim supported this committee, despite the fact that it was sponsored by the Revisionist party and was, therefore, opposed by the other Zionist parties for partisan reasons. But we supported any serious rescue plan, regardless of its source. 26

Furthermore, Rothkoff records that Silver once declared that "Orthodoxy has empathy with the Revisionists because they share a common fate. Both are pushed around by the Establishment." 27

Davidowicz is almost patronizing towards this group of rabbis, calling them "venerable and impressive--. . The incident did not create much of a stir." What did these rabbis ask for that it "did not create much of a stir"? Rabbi Silver's appeal to the President cut to the bone of the issues:

To the President of the United States, Franklin D. Roosevelt, God protect him:

In the name of God, Almighty Creator of the Universe, Who commanded us in the Holy Torah, "Do not let the blood of your friend be spilled, I am the Lord," we cry out in our misery to the Lord, God of Heaven and Earth. A voice is heard aloft, the voice of the blood of our brethren, pure souls in the hundreds of thousands; children, infants, and elders, men and women crying out to us: Save us!

How will we be able to stand and pray on the Holy Day, the Day of Atonement, knowing that we had not fulfilled our duty? . . . Millions have already fallen, put to the fire and the sword. Tens of thousands, have perished of starvation, and of the most horrible manners of death--let the earth not cover their blood!

In view of this emergency situation, it is a sacred duty to take urgent measures for saving the Jewish people and especially:

. . .

d) to intervene with the neutral countries and influence them to allow the Jewish fugitives from the sword to take refuge, and to assure them haven and sustenance in these lands;

e) to open the gates of the democratic countries for refuge, and to open more widely the gates of our own country and to expedite the entrance of these refugees into the United States;

f) to open immediately the gates of the Land of Israel . . . ;

g) to establish a special agency for rescuing the remnants of the Jewish people in Europe. 28

These efforts finally contributed to the formation of the War Refugee Board. It was to be a special agency for rescue and aid to the war's victims. Contrary to what we might garner from Davidowicz, Rothkoff maintained that its representatives, stationed in neutral countries, devoted themselves with zeal and daring to rescue work despite the lateness of the hour. "They succeeded in saving some thousands of Jews in Roumania and Hungary." 29

Even though Davidowicz portrays Stephen Wise as earnestly active on behalf of Jews trapped in Europe, the impression she leaves is far from accurate. Furthermore, she makes the remarkable conclusion:

But rescuing the European Jews was an unachievable task. Most European Jews were inaccessible, beyond the reach not only of the American Jews, but even of the Allied armed forces. They were in Hitler's vise. The most dramatic illustration of their remoteness from rescue was the case of the Roumanian Jews. 30

The comment fits into a discerned pattern amongst Davidowicz's writings. J. Elias, in reviewing Davidowicz’s "Blaming the Jews: The Charge of Perfidy" in The Jewish Presence (1977), notes that Davidowicz has for some reason or other taken it upon herself to clear the Jewish leadership of charges that they were guilty of betraying their Eastern European brethren. Unfortunately:

Faint as her defense is, it is still too kind to these leaders. Stephen Wise and others knew relatively early what was going on and acceded to a cover-up; they failed to put public pressure on the governments, tried to silence those who did, and at crucial moments actually opposed rescue projects. It is strange for a historian, in belittling the work of the Irgunists, to write that "its one accomplishment . . . was that it . . . brought about the creation of The War Refugee Board", as if this had been a small thing. 31

Arthur D. Morse has observed in the concluding paragraphs of his work While Six Million Died (1967) that:

The War Refugee Board represented a small gesture of atonement by a nation whose apathy and inaction were exploited by Adolf Hitler. As he moved systematically toward the total destruction of the Jews, the government and the people of the United States remained bystanders. Oblivious to the evidence which poured from official and unofficial sources, Americans went about their business unmoved and unconcerned. Those who tried to awaken the nation were dismissed as alarmists, cranks or Zionists. Many Jews were as disinterested as their Christian countrymen. The bystanders to cruelty became bystanders to genocide. 32

The proof cited by Davidowicz that the fate of Roumanian Jewry exemplified that "rescuing the European Jews was an unachievable task" is presented differently in other sources. Davidowicz maintains that:

Now we know that Hitler's war against the Allies gave him the opportunity to pursue the war against the Jews. He would not willingly have surrendered them. He would not have sold them even for a price which the Allies could never have paid or offered. 33

True, that Hitler's war against the Allies was his "golden opportunity" to destroy the Jews. But that all Nazis would not have responded to bribes or threats is not so certain. Certainly when it came to even the upper echelons of the Nazi regime, there was a marked response to bribery, let alone military action. The Jews of America were in a position to undertake various overt and covert actions on behalf of their European brethren. Sadly, leading figures worked in the opposite direction.

The "co-operation" between Stephen Wise and the State Department in the failure to rescue the Jews of Roumania is corroborated in various works. When Ben Hecht placed an advertisement in New York's newspapers:

FOR SALE
70,000 JEWS
AT
$50 APIECE
GUARANTEED HUMAN BEINGS

explaining that three and a half million dollars would rescue the seventy thousand Roumanian Jews--Stephen Wise made a public statement in the name of the American Jewish Congress denying the "confirmation" of the offer from the Roumanian government. 34

Nora Levin in The Holocaust: The Destruction of European Jewry 1933-1945, (1968), states that the State Department blocked the possible rescue of Jews from Roumania. Though it is in keeping with the rest of the work, Levin chooses to ignore the role of Wise in obstructing rescue efforts. Levin, like Davidowicz, seeks to put the entire blame on the State Department only. They both overlook the negative role of the President and those Jews who had access to him. Levin records that even though money had already been collected to be deposited in blocked bank accounts in Switzerland, the State Department maintained that the transaction would benefit the enemy. This was in spite of Treasury Secretary Morgenthau's observation that the State Department scoffed at economic warfare in other connections. 35

Quoting from Cordell Hull's Memoirs, Levin shows that whilst noting the State Department's reluctance to deposit money abroad, Hull admitted that the Nazis were susceptible to them. Hull notes, in an attempt to justify his actions for lack of money and staff, that "the Germans permitted Jews to leave only when they were amply paid to do so. We were reluctant to deposit sums of money to the credit of the Nazis, even though the deposits were to be made in Switzerland, were to be liquidated only after the end of the war, and apparently could not be used by the Nazi leaders." 36

Rabbi Eliezer Silver, writing in 1941, summed up the consternation of Orthodox Jewry with the President and State Department:

It is now the time to demonstrate in our capital. we must knock on the doors of the White House to demand that the State Department fulfill its promise to bring over the roshei yeshivah and their students. . . . We gave their names to the State Department and looked forward to prompt results . . . . The overseas representatives of the United States have hardened their hearts and placed obstacles in the path of the refugees . . . .How can our president be so cruel to Torah luminaries and scholars who wander in despair from city to city? 37

At the height of the war American Orthodoxy found itself to be the heir of the European legacy. In order to rebuild, it had to rescue as many who were able to transmit a refined and dynamic brand of Orthodox life and learning. As we have shown, this was an almost impossible task in the face of internal American opposition.

Determined Rays of Hope

There were significant, if unnoticed, rays of hope for American Jewry. Rothkoff records that the Vaad Hatzola (Jewish Rescue Committee) succeeded in bringing over the Kletsker Rosh Yeshivah, Rabbi Aharon Kotler who arrived in San Francisco on April 10, 1941. Rabbi Silver published a statement of welcome in May 1941 for Rabbi Kotler:

I heartily greet the great guest whom American Jewry is now privileged to welcome.

My dear friend the great gaon is the greatest teacher of Torah in our generation. Rabbi Aharon Kotler and his family have succeeded in leaving the continent of blood and reaching our country. I am certain that he will raise the level of Torah in America. We will now be able to educate great Torah scholars here. May his coming be for peace and success. 38

Rabbi Kotler devoted all his energies to rescue activities from the moment he arrived. His first public appearance was at the semi-annual convention of the Agudas Harabonim. Rabbi Silver introduced the new arrival to the assembled rabbis, calling on them to unite so as to "quench the great fire which was raging". In response, Rabbi Kotler stressed the urgency for saving the yeshivahs:

I must first thank the Agudat Harabanim and the Vaad Hatzalah for enabling me to reach these shores . . . . The Lithuanian schools remain intact and learning there is stronger than ever. . . they pleaded with me to leave so I could inspire American Jewry to labor with added dedication to save the Torah and its students.

. . . Remember your obligation at this dark hour. The Holy Ark, Torah scrolls, and their students are bleeding . . . . Little time is left and we must immediately act. Everyone must volunteer for this sacred task.

Rabbi Silver, you are right. We are the most sinful of all generations. Other nations totally sacrifice themselves for their survival. We do not do enough. If we only had the necessary funds, we could have already saved thousands of additional souls.

Everyone must do his share to help attain these means. 39

Government assistance was also essential, and certain writers have noted the aid of Treasury Secretary Morgenthau. Nora Levin, delving into "The Mogenthau Diaries VI--The Refugee Runaround", quotes Morgenthau:

We knew in Washington, from August 1942 on, that the Nazis were planning to exterminate all the Jews of Europe. Yet, for nearly 18 months after the first reports of the Nazi horror plan, the State Department did practically nothing. . . . 18 terrible months of inefficiency, buck-passing, bureaucratic delay and sometimes what appeared to be calculated obstructionism. . . . Lacking either the administrative drive or the emotional commitment they could not bring about prompt United States action on behalf of the desperate people. 40

On January 16, 1944, Morgenthau prepared a highly confidential document for the President, charging that certain State Department officials: 

1. Utterly failed to prevent the extermination of Jews in German controlled Europe.
2. Hid their gross procrastination behind such window-dressing as "inter-governmental organizations to survey the whole refugee problem".
It concluded by saying that "the matter of rescuing the Jews from extermination is a trust too great to remain in the hands of men who are indifferent, callous and perhaps even hostile. The task is filled with difficulties. Only a fervent will to accomplish, backed by persistent and untiring effort, can succeed where time is so precious." 41

It was to Morgenthau that some of the newly arrived yeshivah leaders and rabbis turned for help in salvaging whatever could be pulled from the European churban. Rothkoff records that Rabbi Avrohom Kalmanowitz of the Mirrer Yeshivah developed a unique and influential relationship with Morgenthau. Kalmanowitz was able to "influence" the State Department with Morgenthau’s help. It is claimed that Joseph J. Schwartz, a member of the Joint Distribution Committee declared "that there was a rabbi with a long white beard, who, when he cried, even the State Department listened." 42

As we have shown, the State Department was a rather large behemoth to move. But those like Rabbis Avrohom Kalmanowitz and Aharon Kotler managed to encourage the well informed Morgenthau to gain a measure of help in rescuing Jews. Rothkoff states that by December 1943, permission was granted for the resumption of communications with enemy occupied territory, both in China and Europe. This is significant because, for example, the entire Mirrer Yeshivah found itself in Shanghai after escaping from war-torn Lithuania, across Siberia, passing through Japan, and finding exile in China's "free city": Shanghai. The yeshivah survived the war intact. At war's end, they were to establish themselves in New York, with some members going further afield.

The activities of Rabbi Avrohom Kalmanowitz, "President" of the Mirrer Yeshivah, deserve special attention. Due to the fact that he had often traveled abroad before the war for fundraising, he possessed a Polish passport. Using that, he came to the United States in 1940, managing to obtain Polish passports for the trapped students and staff of the yeshivah from the Polish embassy in America. The salvaging of the yeshivah became the central concern of his life. It was mainly due to his efforts that the entire yeshivah survived and finally re-opened in the United States in 1947.

In order to understand the emphasis placed on saving the yeshivahs, we must grasp something of their centrality in traditional Jewish life. Many Jews long assimilated in America did not understand the importance given to saving the Talmudical Academies. During the war, differences arose between the Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) and the Vaad Hatzolah. The JDC objected to the Vaad's special concern for rabbinic leaders and yeshivah students. Rabbi Eliezer Silver addressed himself to this complaint when he wrote to the JDC on June 9, 1942:

One may well understand why we, more than others, are so much concerned about the lot of the yeshivot--the Jewish Academies of old standing--and their individual students and instructors. We see in them the very essence of Judaism and we see in this element the very perpetuation of Judaism . . . therefore we established the Vaad Hatzala. 43

We have underlined the key sentence for it stands at the heart of the matter. Those rabbinical scholars in America, like Rabbi Silver and the newly arrived Rabbis Kalmanowitz and Kotler, realized that the fateful swing of history was about to create a new world based on the remnants of the old world that was smoldering. It was not a new experience in Jewish history. Neither was it a new experience in the tortuous struggle to survive of Jewish education as it existed for thousands of years.

Thus we find the rabbinic leaders in Europe during the war talking in terms not unfamiliar to students of Jewish history. When the European roshei yeshivah learned of plans to transfer various scholars en masse to the United States, they decided that all the yeshivahs should be dealt with as one institution. On July 7, 1940, Rabbi Kotler wrote to Rabbi Silver:

We rejoice to learn of the noble idea to transfer the sanctuaries of the Torah, the sacred yeshivot, to the United States. These holy intentions can be compared to the deeds of Rabbi Johanan ben Zakkai at the time of the Temple's destruction. For the sake of the soul of our nation and its survival, action must be quickly undertaken. This is an instance when punctilious individuals rush to do the mitzvah.

Nevertheless, we all plead with you to act for the salvation of all the schools together. There are many important reasons for this, but above all, the merit of all the yeshivot is greater than the merit of any individual one. 44

In spite of the iron barriers erected to keep "undesirables" at bay, a few managed to elude the watchmen. America, like Jerusalem besieged by the Romans, was controlled by those who knew not how to listen to the counsel of the Torah's sages. It was left to individual sages here and individual sages there to salvage the remnants of the Torah scholars and Torah scholarship.

Footnotes

1 Irving Howe, World of Our Fathers (New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1976), pp. 626-627.
2 Max I. Dimont, The Jews In America: The Roots, History, and Destiny of American Jews (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1978), pp. 233-234.
3 Bernard Martin, A History of Judaism: Volume II: Europe and the New World (New York: Basic Books, 1974), p. 426.
4 Ibid., pp. 424-427.
5 Joseph Elias, "Dealing With 'Churban Europa' ", The Jewish Observer, October 1977, pp. 10-12.
6 Ibid., p. 13.
7 Aaron Rakeffet-Rothkoff, The Silver Era in American Orthodoxy: Rabbi Eliezer Silver and his Generation (Jerusalem: Phillip Feldheim, 1981), pp. 157-159.
8 Ibid., p. 161.
9 Ibid. pp. 162-163
10 Agudath Israel of America, The Struggle and the Splendor: A Pictorial overview_of Agudath Israel of America (New York: Agudath Israel of America, 1982), p. 55.
11 Rothkoff, The Silver Era, pp. 174-175.
12 Ibid., p. 176.
13 Walter Laqueur, The Terrible Secret: Suppression of the Truth about Hitler's "Final Solution" (New York: Penguin Books, 1980), pp. 202; 65.
14 Ibid., pp. 204-208. 
15 Druks, Failure to Rescue, pp. 68-70.
16 Morse, While Six Million Died, p. 272.
17 Ibid., pp. 274-275.
18 Druks, Failure to Rescue, p. 11.
19 Ibid., pp. 11-12.
20 Hilberg, Destruction of the European Jews, p. 725
21 Hecht, Perfidy, p. 223.
22 Druks, Failure to Rescue, pp. 12-16.
23 Shonfeld, Holocaust Victims Accuse, pp. 49-52.
24 Lucy S. Davidowicz, "American Jews and the Holocaust", The New York Times Magazine, April 18, 1982, p. 111.
25 Rothkoff, The Silver Era, p. 219.
26 Ibid.
27 Ibid., p. 222.
28 Ibid., pp. 220-221.
29 Ibid., pp. 222-223.
30 Davidowicz,"American Jews", p. 109.
31 Elias, "Dealing With 'Churban Europa' ", p. 15.
32 Morse, While Six Million Died, pp. 302-309.
33 Davidowicz, "American Jews", p. 114.
34 Hecht, Perfidy, pp. 191-192.
35 Nora Levin, The Holocaust: The Destruction of European Jewry 1933-1945 (New York: Schocken Books, 1973), p. 671.
36 Ibid., p. 675.
37 Rothkoff, The Silver Era, pp. 202-203.
38 Ibid.
39 Ibid., p. 204.
40 Levin, The Holocaust, p. 669.
41 Morse, While Six Million Died, pp. 76-80
42 Rothkoff, The Silver Era, p. 210.
43 Ibid., pp. 208-209.
44 Ibid., p. 195.

PART III
REVIVAL IN AMERICA

The Torah is yet destined to wander to America.

Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin 
(1749-1821), 
upon founding of the 
Volozhin Yeshiva
in Lithuania.

CHAPTER VI
AMERICAN HAVEN FOR "YAVNEH AND ITS SAGES" 

Topics of Interest

The Key to Jewish Survival 
Rabbi Aharon Kotler and Lakewood 
Mir to New York Via Shanghai
Telz 
New York Re-Newed

The Key to Jewish Survival

The Talmud in Tractate Gittin (56a-b), relates that when Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai escaped from Jerusalem besieged by the Romans, (c.70 C.E.), he requested of Vespasian to spare the lives of leading Torah scholars in Yavneh in the Land of Israel. By saving a nucleus of sages, Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai followed a time honoured principle of Jewish survival: No matter how great the extent of destruction, if Torah scholars can be saved, the Jewish people have hope of survival. The high level of Jewish learning attained by the scholars of Yavneh is attested to by the redaction of the Mishnah over a hundred years later, (c.200 C.E.), followed by the redaction of the Palestinian Talmud, (c.250 C.E.). When Jewish life diminished greatly in Palestine, the academies of Babylon ascended in scholarship, culminating with the redaction of the Babylonian Talmud, (c.500 C.E.).

M. Friedlander, writing on "The Life of Moses Maimonides", (1881), described in classical terms the process whereby the flame of Jewish scholarship was transmitted from generation to generation, and from era to era. "Before the sun of Eli had set the sun of Samuel had risen." In retrospect, before the prophets had ceased to guide the people, the Talmudists commenced their labors. Before the academies of Sura and Pumbadisa in Babylon were closed, centers of Jewish thought and learning began to flourish in the West. Friedlander states that the circumstances which led to the transference of the headquarters of Jewish learning from East to West in the tenth century are narrated in the 
Sefer haKabbalah by Rabbi Avraham ben David:

After the death of Hezekiah, the head of the Academy and Prince of the Exile, the academies were closed and no new Geonim were appointed. . . . Heaven had also decreed that a ship sailing from Bari should be captured by Ibn Romahis, commander of the naval forces of Abd-er-rahman al-nasr. Four distinguished Rabbis were thus made prisoners--Rabbi Hushiel, father of Rabbi Hananel, Rabbi Moses, father of Rabbi Hanok, Rabbi Shemarjahu, son of Rabbi Elhanan, and a fourth whose name has not been recorded. They were engaged in a mission to collect subsidies in aid of the Academy in Sura. The captor sold them as slaves; . . . These slaves were ransomed by their brethren and were soon placed in important positions. When Rabbi Moses was brought to Cordova, it was supposed that he was uneducated. . . . Rabbi Nathan, renowned for his great piety, was the head of the congregation.

The members of the community used to hold meetings at which Talmud was read and discussed. One day when Rabbi Nathan was expounding the Talmud and was unable to give a satisfactory explanation of the passage under discussion, Rabbi Moses promptly removed the difficulty and at the same time answered several questions which were submitted to him. Thereupon Rabbi Nathan thus addressed the assembly: 'I am no longer your leader; that stranger in sackcloth shall henceforth be my teacher, and you shall appoint him to be your chief '.

Henceforth, continued Friedlander, the schools in the West asserted their independence and even surpassed the parent institutions:

The Caliphs, mostly opulent, gave every encouragement to philosophy and poetry; and, being generally liberal in sentiment, they entertained kindly feelings towards their Jewish subjects . . . . Ibn Gabirol, Ibn Hasdai, Judah ha-levi, Hananel, Alfasi, the Ibn Ezras, and others who flourished in that period were the ornament of their age, and the pride of the Jews at all times. The same favorable condition was maintained during the reign of the Omeyades; but when the Moravides and the Almohades came into power, the horizon darkened once more, and misfortunes threatened to destroy the fruit of several centuries. Admist this gloom there appeared a brilliant luminary which sent forth rays of light and comfort: this was Moses Maimonides. 1

At the time of Moses Maimonides (1134-1204), Central and Eastern Europe became centers of Jewish scholarship. This ascendancy was to last over a thousand years, ending 
with the period of the Third Reich. William B. Helmreich in The World of the Yeshiva: An Intimate Portrait of Orthodox Jewry (1982), has written that the outbreak of the Second World War meant that one of the most productive eras in Jewish scholarship and leadership ended in the flames of Hitler's drive against the Jews. But, "the flight of the survivors and their determination to preserve their heritage meant that a long and ancient history of the yeshiva would continue in still another country." He furthermore affirms the foundations of our study, that:

The outbreak of World War II had a lasting impact on the development of Jewish education in America. With it, a thousand-year-old culture that had existed in Europe came to an abrupt and tragic end for its Jewish communities. Millions of Jews were slaughtered, especially in Eastern Europe, the home of the advanced yeshivas, and only those fortunate enough to have left in time, or lucky enough to have survived the Holocaust, remained. Among this group were the leaders of numerous European yeshivas, most of which were in Lithuania, who came to the United States and founded institutions or academies of higher learning modeled after their European predecessors.

These leaders, or rosh yeshivas, as they are commonly known, were successful beyond their wildest dreams . . . .

Today, thirty-five years later, advanced, "Lithuanian-style" yeshivas are solidly entrenched in America. . . . 2

Before the Second World War, a vast body of Jews had found a bastion of freedom in America. What was to become of that body? What style of life did it seek? What was its destiny? The historical and educational example of Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai meant that for the body to continue defining itself as Jewish it must cling to the traditional educators. Jewish scholars and learning, meaning Jewish education as a totality, must be found at the heart of any attempt at Jewish survival.

The rise of Jewish education in America followed in the wake of the unsettlement of the world order. Nowhere is this clearer than in the period of the twentieth century. The unsettlement of Europe following the First World War re-defined the settled state of American life. The relative isolation of America and its unified land mass allowed for greater calm. Great projects could be carried out without the threat of cross-border conflict. Whilst Europe was in turmoil, at least nine major advanced Lithuanian-style yeshivahs were founded in America between 1926 and 1946. Looking closer, the years in which these yeshivahs were founded run parallel with the rise and fall of the Third Reich.

On November 8, 1923, at the Burgerbrau-Keller in Munich, Hitler began the abortive putsch which propelled him to "fame": "The National Revolution", he shouted, "has begun." At the end of 1926 the second part of Mein Kampf was published, 3 wherein the "national revolutionary" openly presented his future plans for the solution of the “Jewish question”. On the other side of the Atlantic, in Brooklyn, New York, the Yeshivah Torah Vodaath decided to open an advanced division in 1926. Founded as an elementary school in 1917, it appointed Rabbi S. F. Mendlowitz as its principal in 1921. The restrictive immigration laws of America from 1921 to 1925 reduced the inflow of immigrant scholars from "a trickle into almost nothing". 4 The emergency nature of the situation convinced Rabbi Mendlowitz to found a yeshivah high-school, at the very time when Germany was getting its first taste of National Socialism.

In 1933, Hitler became the Reich Chancellor of Germany, beginning the twelve-year Third Reich. In that same year, in Baltimore, Md., the Ner Israel Rabbinical Academy was founded; and in Queens, N.Y., the Rabbinical Seminary of America was established. Great barriers stood in the way of Rabbi Y. Y. Ruderman as he fought to establish his yeshivah in Baltimore. He has described to Helmreich the skepticism that greeted his efforts to recreate a yeshivah modeled after those in Lithuania:

When I first came to Baltimore in the early thirties, many non-observant Jews didn't know what a yeshiva was. They (the Jewish community) didn't believe it could be built. After all, people came here to learn English, not to attend a yeshiva.

When asked what he felt were the implications of the Holocaust, Rabbi Ruderman replied:

People think the Holocaust made the world feel sympathy for the Jews but it really didn't result in sympathy. It just showed that it could be done. There is more anti-Semitism than ever before. 5

Those who strove to rebuild in America, had clear and deeply-held views about the nature of the evil that Jewry faced. This is evident from Rabbi Ruderman's words.

The year 1939 marked the outbreak of war, but also saw the establishment of an advanced division at the Yeshivah Rabbi Chaim Berlin, with Rabbi Isaac Hutner as its Rosh Yeshivah. He too had firm beliefs about the causes of anti-Semitism, and what it entailed for Jewry. "On the subject of a Memorial to the Martyrs of the European Destruction" in The Jewish Observer (December 1981), he revealed deep-felt views on how Jews should view the history of the period:

. . . We believe with full faith that the inner source of genocide directed against Jews, the murder and the destruction, is, in the final analysis, the principle of ". . . for your sake we are killed all day long, we are considered as sheep for the slaughter" (Tehillim 4 4 : 2 3) .

Wherever a Jew is found, can be found testimony to Hashem. . . .

Wherever a faithful Jewish congregation is found, there can be found Divine inspiration (Sanhedrin 39b). The evil among the nations understand and feel this, and in pursuing their illusory goal to uproot every testimony to Hashem, they kill, they burn, they annihilate Jews . . . . 6

Helmreich describes Rabbi Hutner as "one of the most brilliant and dynamic figures ever to head an American yeshiva . . . . To the extent that successful movements often have great leadership, Rabbi Hutner exemplified this requirement." 7 Rabbi Hutner understood the nature of European, and international, anti-Semitism. He embodies the proper Jewish response: The pursuit of intense and advanced Torah education which ensured Jewish survival in the face of intense anti-Semitism.

1941 saw the establishment of the Telshe Yeshivah in Cleveland, Ohio, and the Beth Joseph Rabbinical Seminary in Brooklyn, N.Y. It was also the year Hitler declared: "I am convinced that 1941 will be the crucial year of a great New Order in Europe. The world shall open up for everyone. Privileges of individuals, the tyranny of certain nations and their financial rulers shall fall . . . . When the other world has been delivered from the Jews, Judaism will have ceased to play a part in Europe." This was in preparation for his Russian campaign: "When 'Barbarossa' begins, the world will hold its breath and make no comment." 8 The world held its breath, and America sought to sit on the sidelines. Pearl Harbor came in 1941, and America could no longer hold back its breath and refrain from commenting: It too became embroiled in the Second World War.

1943 was a year of Axis defeats in North Africa, Europe, and the Far East. But it was also the culmination of the European Jewish Tragedy. It was also the year in which Rabbi Aharon Kotler established what was to become perhaps the largest single advanced yeshivah in modern times, in Lakewood,.N.J. 1944 saw the war drag on as the Nazis resisted the Allied onslaught. In America, Orthodox Jews were already planning for the aftermath. In June 1944, the organization fostering the growth of Hebrew all-day schools in America--Torah Umesorah--was born. It was also the year that the Chofetz Chaim Yeshiva founded an advanced division for Talmudic education. Thus as European Jewry succumbed to genocide, there were clear signs of revival in America.

In reviewing the literature of the war years, we find rabbinic leaders talking in the very terms of Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai. One example is that of Rabbi Avrohom Yitzchok Bloch, Rabbi of Telz and head of its Yeshivah. In acknowledging efforts in America to rescue the yeshivah from Europe and transfer it to America he wrote to Rabbi Bernard Revel, himself a graduate of Telz, that: "I rejoiced to hear that you are attempting to transfer our yeshiva to the United States. This act resembles the deed of Rabbi Johanan ben Zakkai at the time of the Temple's destruction." 9 Rabbi Avrohom Bloch died, together with his yeshivah, at the hands of the Nazis. But, his brother, and brother-in-law, escaped via Siberia to America. In Cleveland, Ohio, the two "sages of Yavneh" re-established and rebuilt Telz, making it into one of the premier Talmudical Academies. It was a pattern and formula that was repeated all over America.

Helmreich has written that the year 1941 was marked by several developments which were to have "a profound impact upon the future of advanced yeshivas in America". These were: (i) Rabbi J. B. Soloveitchik was elevated to the post of rosh yeshivah at RIETS; (ii) Leaders of an important European yeshivah, Telz, came to America and re-established the school in Cleveland; (iii) Rabbi Aharon Kotler, head of the yeshivah in Kletsk, Poland, was among several scholars who arrived in America. "He was destined to transform higher Jewish learning in America." The "monumental task" of rebuilding the yeshivahs in America, "demanded men of exceptional talents and energies. That such individuals came to the fore at this time is one of the most important factors in the growth of yeshivas in America . . . . The most prominent of these extraordinary men was Rabbi Aharon Kotler." 10

Great individuals, institutions with ancient histories, time-honoured traditions of communal life, and the sweep of world events contributed to a more confident definition of Orthodox Jewish education in the post-war years. An enormous undertaking with major implications for the future of Jewish education and survival in America came into full swing.

Rabbi Aharon Kotler and Lakewood

On April 10, 1941, Rabbi Aharon Kotler (1891-1962) arrived in San Francisco, California, with the assistance of the Vaad Hatzola organization. On July 7, 1940, Rabbi Kotler had written to Rabbi Eliezer Silver, President of Vaad Hatzola: "We rejoiced to learn of the noble idea to transfer the sanctuaries of the Torah, the sacred yeshivot, to the United States. These holy intentions can be compared to the deeds of Rabbi Johanan ben Zakkai at the time of the Temple's destruction." 11 Finally finding refuge in America, Rabbi Kotler emulated the example of Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai almost two thousand years later.

The need to rescue those trapped in Europe became Rabbi Kotler's overriding concern. Twenty days following his arrival in America, we find him addressing the convention of the Agudas Harabonim, the rabbinical association. His plea was urgent: "With all due gratitude to the Agudat Harabanim and the Vaad Hatzala for the past, not enough has been done. Little time is left and we must immediately act. Everyone must volunteer for this sacred task." 12 At that convention of those who aided his own rescue, he berated his listeners for not doing more. He was only an individual, what of the others who cried out for salvation? Having come out of the furnace he was alarmed at the complacency of American Jewry. His attitude did not change when meeting with the highest U.S. government officials. In a meeting with Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau, he vociferously declared that “the Secretary's position (in Washington, D.C.) is not worth a single Jewish life”. 13 The effectiveness of Rabbi Kotler's tactics was testified to upon his death, when Rabbi Silver declared in a eulogy: "During the Holocaust, we accomplished much through the Vaad Hatzala. I wish to testify that the maximum was attained when we followed the viewpoint of the gaon, Rabbi Aharon Kotler. He was the dynamic spirit behind all our endeavors." 14

During the war, Rabbi Kotler had a far-flung student body to tend to. A printed letter-head, on which he wrote, in 1945 reads:

RABBINICAL COLLEGE OF KLETSK
Now in Siberia and Shanghai
BRANCH OF YESHIVAH
In Pardess-Hanna, Palestine

RABBI A. KOTLER, Dean
43 West 93RD STREET
NEW YORK 25, N.Y. 15

Kletsk, in Europe, Siberia and Shanghai in the Far East, Palestine, and America were the havens where his students were either based or had found refuge. In America he was the center of gravity for all efforts to save the remnants of these students.

Writing on "Orthodoxy After the War", Rothkoff states that when Rabbi Kotler concluded his initial work with the Vaad Hatzola, he reopened his yeshivah in the "quiescent location" of Lakewood, a small town in New Jersey. Commencing with a nucleus of fifteen students, he continued the role he cherished most: Torah scholar and Rosh Yeshivah. Given his stature as Talmudic teacher and his powerful personality, he soon attracted larger numbers of students. To them he was known as "the Rosh Yeshivah" par excellence. "Totally committed to the Lithuanian tradition of Talmudic study exclusively, the 'Rosh Yeshivah' refused to allow his disciples to pursue collegiate studies. His influence rapidly spread beyond Lakewood, and students in many American yeshivot considered Rav Aharon their mentor. Both his erudition and ethical perfection were widely admired." 16

An Agudath Israel publication, The Struggle and the Splendor (1982), claims that more than any other person, Rabbi Aharon Kotler was responsible for the dynamic growth of Torah consciousness and yeshivah education in post-war America. "Genius, sage, and tzaddik, his dedication and self sacrifice were boundless." He "laid the groundwork for an explosion of higher Torah education." Thus, the Beth Medrash Govoha in Lakewood was "his own institution". But, the thousands of Torah scholars and kollel, post-graduate, fellows in America at the present time are his "lasting monument". In addition, he headed other educational organization, such as Torah Umesorah in America, and Chinuch Atzmai in Israel. 17

Rabbi Kotler was therefore viewed as an embodiment of the flame of Jewish learning as it came over from Europe to America, and beyond, back to its original starting-point: the Land of Israel. It is reported that in 1940 as Torah Jewry was emitting its last "dying breath" on the European continent, Rabbi Chaim Ozer Grodzenski, the leader of Orthodox Jewry in Europe, told Rabbi Elchonon Wasserman: "Reb Aharon (Kotler) will build Torah in America." 18

In America, Rabbi Kotler represented an ideal in Jewish education. He maintained that only by strictly adhering to a curriculum which remained faithful to traditional Jewish education could Judaism survive. He represented it in its purest unsynthesised form. For a complacent American Jewry this was a "revolutionary" approach to Judaism. No yeshivah could have survived without acknowledging the need of its students to study secular subjects. Rabbi Kotler openly scorned this mentality viewing it as a danger to Jewish studies. In the climate that existed in the post-war era, he nurtured his yeshivah dedicated to Torah learning to the exclusion of all other secular studies be they on the secondary or tertiary level.

Rabbi Kotler stated his educational principles, as reported by Helmreich quoting from the 1977-1978 Bulletin of Beth Medrash Govoha, as follows:

The perpetuation of Jewish peoplehood depends on the development and growth of authentic Torah scholars. . . . In the absence of Torah scholars, Jewry lacks the great teachers who are the links in the great chain of Tradition, spanning the ages. It lacks the educators to instruct the coming generations in the purity, wholeness and perfection of Judaism. And it lacks those who can intuitively articulate the unique wisdom and insights of Torah and make them relevant and available to Jewish youth. 19

When Rabbi Kotler spoke out, few in the world of American Orthodoxy defied him. Even when many did not share his particular views they would not openly defy his leadership. Wherein lay his power? What was the "secret" of his success? S. Kagan, in "From Kletzk to Lakewood, U.S.A." has written that Rabbi Kotler's strength as a teacher was the living example he provided of Torah rooted in his every fiber. When he taught he became completely immersed in the subject: "His face earnest and strained . . . . The fires, burning in his soul, mirrored in his eyes--those brilliant, piercing blue eyes that were a study in themselves--glowing like embers. The movements of his hands following the flow of his words--his words like hammer blows, . . . questioning, explaining, expounding in a mounting crescendo. . . . exclaiming, exulting in the eternal fulfillment of Torah.” Kagan asserts that Rabbi Kotler's success in transplanting Torah "from one set of conditions to another more difficult one", was an achievement that goes beyond greatness, for he became a living link in the chain of Tradition "stretching from Moshe to Moshiach, achieving immortality within his own lifetime." 20

William B. Helmreich has written that it was not easy for Rabbi Kotler to explain and popularize his approach to Talmudic education in the United States, "for the Orthodox community was quite Americanized." He points out that even the "right-wing" yeshivahs, such as Torah Vodaath, had adopted to some extent the utilitarian view that Talmud study should be oriented toward producing rabbis and teachers. "While well aware of the tradition of European yeshivas, they had accommodated themselves in certain areas to life in America and the values of the new American Orthodox communities." The problems facing Rabbi Aharon Kotler with respect to education in America were articulated to Helmreich in an interview with Rabbi Kotler's son, and successor, Rabbi Shneur Kotler (1918-1982):

The main difficulty was that the level of learning wasn't that high and our desire was to develop a generation of gedolei Torah (giants in Torah knowledge) who were American-trained products.

The second obstacle was that my father, may he rest in peace, felt that there should be Torah lishmo (for a higher, spiritual purpose) and that all practical benefits would come from it anyway. He felt that Torah lishmo tremendously raises the general level of the Jewish community. People asked: What's the tachlis (purpose) of studying Torah? What can be gained from it? This was the attitude. It was hard to explain that sometimes the most lasting things seem to come out from things which seem to have no purpose.

Yet, concludes Helmreich, aided by a cadre of people,whose loyalty was total, and unquestioning, "Rabbi Kotler's dream eventually became the central approach to Talmud study in the yeshiva world." 21

What transpired during Rabbi Aharon Kotler's lifetime was only part of the story. In 1962 it was Rabbi Shneur Kotler who took over as Rosh Yeshivah of Lakewood upon his father's passing away. Whereas his father had actively restricted enrollment to a relatively select group, Rabbi Shneur Kotler opened the gates to a broader range of students and post-graduate fellows. From a group of approximately 150 students, the yeshivah grew to almost a thousand students in 1981. What the father had planted, the son reaped, with manifold returns. Since "Lakewood" represented a clear-cut approach, not confusing the prospective student about what it stood for as a yeshivah, it became even more appealing. As more students enrolled, the scope of study broadened to the point where a student could join any number of groups studying all the tractates of the Talmud.

Overseeing this massive expansion was Rabbi Shneur Kotler (d. 1982). He was of the same historical and educational mould as his father, and was the literal heir to his father's educational legacy. In "Remembering Reb Shneur Kotler" (1982), Y. Y. Reinman writes that the roots of Rabbi Shneur Kotler's greatness and the leadership role he acquired reach back to the earlier generations of his family. Born in 1918 to Rabbi Aharon Kotler in Slutzk, where his maternal grandfather, Rabbi Isser Zalman Meltzer was the Rosh Yeshivah and Rabbi, and, who subsequently moved to Jerusalem. In 1940 Rabbi Shneur Kotler escaped to Palestine where he continued to study with the leading scholars of Jerusalem. In 1947 he came to America to be with his father.

When "Reb Shneur" took over the yeshivah in 1962, "he found a world that was ripe for Torah expansion". His style though, differed from that of his father's. Whereas his father challenged, he acted as conciliator. "Under Reb Shneur, Bais Medrash Govoha developed into more than just a yeshivah. It became a center of learning such as the world perhaps has not known since the days of the yeshiva in Pumbadissa in Bavel." Reinman adds that Rabbi Shneur Kotler was like his father: "Driven by a boundless sense of responsibility for the furtherance of Torah everywhere. Using the Yeshiva as a base, he spread Torah in countless communities." 22

With Rabbi Shneur Kotler's passing in 1982, his son Rabbi Malkiel Kotler took over the leadership of the yeshivah, assisted by three other grandchildren of Rabbi Aharon Kotler. The death of "Reb Shneur" signalled the end of part two of the role of the Lakewood Yeshivah in the revival of Jewish education in America. The third stage represents the potential of ever-widening opportunities. Whether it be through training Torah teachers, establishing new educational institutions, or pursuing the pure Jewish scholarship of Torah lishmo, the saga has yet to be completed.

Mir to New York Via Shanghai

David Kranzler, in the Introduction to his epic Japanese, Nazis and Jews: The Jewish Refugee Community of Shanghai, 1938-1945, (1976), writes that Holocaust studies have thus far focused primarily on the catastrophic fate of the Jews on the European continent. In contrast, he seeks to shift the focus from “how Jews died, to how they survived in the Far East where thousands of potential victims built a new life and successfully, transplanted their communal institutions.” This mirrors our own aim, but the general area of focus is the American mainland. It is an illustration of how at the height of the war, the Jewish people held on firmly to the key of survival. The Jewish sense of survival demanded the establishment of a traditional communal structure with educational institutions playing key roles. The Shanghai community was a "half-way station" to America for a relatively small, yet nevertheless significant, group of Jewish pioneers and survivalists.

Kranzler writes that while the Nazis were carrying out their "Final Solution" to the Jewish problem, about 18,000 Jewish refugees found a haven in the only place in the world whose doors were open without a visa: the International Settlement of Shanghai. This is related to what he calls one of the central themes of his work: "An extraordinary and ironic twist of fate, or Hashgocho Protis (Divine Providence),.. ..the incredible role of Japan, in actually making possible the survival of 18,000 Jews." Amongst this group we find "the gripping saga of the Mirrer Yeshiva from its first refuge in Kovno to Shanghai through Siberia and Japan." 23 The ultimate destination of this yeshivah was to be Brooklyn, N.Y., where it arrived almost intact in February 1947.

The odyssey of the Mirrer Yeshiva is a blend of high drama, power politics, international relations, and above all, the commitment of a yeshivah in exile to the highest ideals of Jewish learning and educational life. With its 250 students and faculty it was one of the oldest of Europe's yeshivahs. "It had made its way from the little town of Mir in Poland . . . . across Lithuania, through Russia to Siberia, and then to Kobe, and ended its odyssey in Shanghai." Combined with other individual Talmudic students, the Orthodox group of over 400 students of Talmud "comprised an elite of East European Jewry in all its partisan divisions." 24 At the war's end, they were to bring a passionate approach to Talmudic learning in America.

In August 1941, on the eve of the High Holy Days, almost the entire Mirrer Yeshiva arrived in Shanghai. It so happened to be that in the 1930s an assimilated Jewish magnate of Sephardic origins had built a beautiful, and sturdy synagogue called 'Beth Aharon'. It was not used since 1937 when as a result of hostilities, many Jews moved to other parts of Shanghai. The Mirrer Yeshiva viewed this as another act of Divine Providence: "Since the seating capacity of the synagogue was exactly the same as the number of students, and the building had been used relatively infrequently in recent years, the students felt the synagogue was now fulfilling its true destiny." 25

The yeshivah's president, Rabbi Avrohom Kalmanowitz (1891-1965), had found his way to America, and devised means to channel financial support to his institution in the Far East. This was no easy task after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Shapiro has written that the American people were bitter against the Japanese, as thousands of Americans were dying in battle against them. It was in this "negative climate of opinion" that the elderly Rabbi Kalmanowitz searched for avenues to send large sums of money to his yeshivah surrounded by Japanese controlled terrain. He arranged to see Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau, Jr., and a curious dilemma presented itself: How could an old rabbi with a limited English vocabulary explain to an assimilated Jew that he too suffered a "Pearl Harbor", that his "children", the Torah scholars of Mir, were starving and endangered in Japanese captivity? While presenting his case, Rabbi Kalmanowitz fainted. That "broke the ice", a rapport was established, and eventually Morgenthau found the means to allow the funds out of America. 26 Kranzler records, that a steady subsidy was sent to the Mir and other yeshivahs and rabbinical groups, by Rabbi Kalmanowitz and the Vaad Hatzolah via neutral Switzerland, Portugal, Sweden, Argentina, and Uruguay, despite "many" obstacles. 27

What is of importance to our thesis is the spirit and quality of Jewish scholarship that the Mirrer Yeshiva eventually brought to America. The zeal for Torah learning that was enhanced by the Shanghai interlude was an inspiration for those who witnessed the yeshivah's arrival in New York. In Shanghai the yeshivah remained loyal to a major goal of Jewish education: deepening involvement with the original sources. Kranzler writes that in Shanghai, the yeshivah quietly continued its uninterrupted schedule of study of fourteen to twenty hours a day. Adversity had strengthened their resolve:

In the face of, or perhaps to some extent because of, discomfort and sickness and an alien environment, they delved all the more deeply into the "Sea of the Talmud" and its commentaries, which became a substitute for their lost families and homes. Study of the Torah also became their sole source of hope for the future. . . .

Their unflagging spirit and enthusiasm became a source of awe and wonder to all who saw the Yeshiva at study. Their faith in eventual redemption was perhaps best illustrated by the words of a Niggun (melody), sung hours on end during one Simhat Torah (festival). While dancing with the Torah scrolls in-their hands, they sang in Yiddish:..... (here we are driven out; And there we may not enter; Tell us, dear Father . . . How long can this go on?)” 28

It went on for several years, and the yeshivah had to rely on its own resources and creative spirit to exist. For example, in the face of the shortage of texts, the yeshivah resorted to printing Rabbinic works. Close to one hundred titles in Rabbinic scholarship were reprinted in Shanghai. The printing of one Talmudic tractate was followed by the entire Talmud (except for one title), Bible and commentaries, Maimonides' works, and classics of Jewish ethics and philosophy:

The first offset volume was the Tractate Gittin, a run of 250 copies being made during May 1942. The completion of this first Tractate, marking a milestone in the history of Jewish printing in the Far East, became a cause of public celebration in the Russian-Jewish Club, which was attended by dignitaries of the Ashkenazi community. Such an event would hardly have been dreamed of even a year before. One Polish non-observant journalist who witnessed this scene, remarked that one who did not witness the Amshenover Rebbe and Yeshiva students dance at receiving this marvelous gift, has never seen true Jewish joy and felt the secret of the Jew's eternity. 29

The striving to remain eternal, given even only a modicum of freedom, soon came to the surface wherever Jewish communities dedicated to the higher ideals of Jewish education were found. So too, a nucleus of individuals became a source of wonderment as they followed their destiny from Lithuania to America, via China. The uniqueness of the Mirrer Yeshiva is that while individual leaders in America gave direction to groups of followers that arose, it served as an example of an entire "community of scholars" who had continued to study during the war years. They provided a model for others to emulate, and even envy. When the yeshivah reestablished itself as a unit in Brooklyn:

The sight of men in their thirties and forties studying full time was an inspiration for younger students, who viewed them as culture heroes from a world known to them only from stories told by their teachers or parents. 30

Rabbi Shraga Moshe Kalmanowitz, son of Rabbi Avrohom Kalmanowitz, and an heir to his father's position, has given Helmreich a "vivid portrayal" of how the yeshivah was set up in America:

Today people have contact with the outside world. In China we were isolated and this was good because it strengthened our commitment. As a result we were able to preserve our ruach (spirit). Since we were many, American boys had to adapt to us and little by little they did. You know, of course, that it was unheard of in America that boys learned after marriage. But we did it, as did others. Those who came had real dedication. 31

The Mirrer Yeshiva's contribution to Torah learning whilst Europe burned remains incalculable. Its ardent pursuit of the most intense form of Jewish education in a world at war remains a key to understanding the great expansion of Orthodox education in America in the post-1945 era.

Telz

The demise f Telz and its yeshivah in Lithuania is recorded by Isaac Lewin in "These Will I Remember!": Biographies of Leaders of Religious Jewry in Europe who Perished During the Years 1939-1945, Volume 1, (1956). The entry of the Germans into Lithuania, following their attack on their erstwhile allies the Soviets in June 1941, unleashed a torrent of savage anti-Semitism. In the latter half of 1941, local residents attacked the Jews of Telz. The Lithuanian anti-Semites need not have feared any rebuke from the Nazis. They wrecked and destroyed Jewish property and slaughtered many Jews.

The worst day was the killing on the twentieth of Tamuz 5741 (1941), when with exceeding cruelty all the Jews of Telz were savagely killed with indescribable afflictions and tortures. Amongst the killed was the Rabbi of the town who was also the Rosh Hayeshivah, Rabbi Avrohom Yitzchok Bloch, together with the members of his family and students. The only members of the Rabbi's family who survived were his brother, Rabbi Eliahu Meir Bloch (1895-1955), and his brother-in-law, Rabbi Chaim Mordechai Katz, who had left Lithuania almost a year earlier. After wandering across Russia and Japan, they reached secure shores in America. On 28 October, 1941, together with a nucleus of their students and several other young men, they established the Telshe Yeshiva of Cleveland. This school of Jewish learning was to become one of the largest Torah institutions in America. 32

The opening of the Telz, or Telshe, Yeshiva of Cleveland by Rabbis E. M. Bloch and C. M. Katz, was part of a repeated pattern, notes Rothkoff. Yeshivahs conducted in the traditional fashion were opened by those who reached America's shores. In Cleveland, Telz under the tutelage of Rabbis Bloch and Katz retained the "Telz method" of Talmudical analysis, stressing "precise inductive reasoning". Rabbi Eliezer Silver was soon traveling to raise funds for Telz. After a visit to the Telz Yeshiva in 1946, Rabbi Silver published a statement of support revealing his happiness that at last America was home to "Yavneh and its sages":

My soul rejoices and my heart is elated every time I visit the holy Telz Yeshivah in Cleveland. It is rapidly becoming one of the leading American yeshivot, by virtue of both its large student body and the high level of its curriculum. The illustrious name of Telz has been restored on these shores. From day to day the school grows stronger to the joy of all those who esteem Torah and "fear of the Lord". 33

The men who "engineered" the remarkable transplantation of Telz from Lithuania to America were a rare breed. In 1940, when the Russians occupied Lithuania, the Telz Yeshiva was subjected to relentless persecution. The yeshivah was forced to close, and Rabbis E. M. Bloch and Katz set out to find a new sanctuary for Telz. By the time the Nazis moved into Lithuania, the two rabbis were well on their way to America, crossing the Pacific. They had come to realize that to bring their yeshivah over from Europe had become impossible. They would have to start from the beginning all over again. Keller, in "He Brought Telshe to Cleveland", describes this realization: "From that time on, they acted as men possessed. Although they had no idea of the fate of their own families (Reb Elya Meir's wife and four children, Reb Mottel's wife and ten children), their working hours were devoted exclusively to reestablishing the yeshivah." 34

A location far from New York was deliberately chosen. Rabbi Bloch announced that the yeshivah would relocate in a Jewish community which needed strengthening, and which suited the "spirit of the yeshivah" better than metropolitan New York. When objections were raised, Rabbi Bloch is reported to have replied: "When one recognizes God's 'hashgachah (Providence) in all that occurs, he realizes that when people are impelled to leave a place because of impending danger, this is not flight but a signal of a mission on which they are being dispatched. We are not only refugees! We were sent by the Almighty to replant the Yeshivah of Telshe in America." In the span of forty years the yeshivah grew to become one of the world's "great Torah centers and stands as a living monument to the dedication and vision" of Rabbi E. M. Bloch and Rabbi C. M. Katz. 35

A first-hand account of the impact Telz had on American-born youth is recounted by Rabbi Dov Keller, Rosh Yeshivah of a Telz "branch" in Chicago.. He recalls that the original student body consisted of a few students that had escaped from Europe and some Americans sent from Baltimore. "The Americans had no idea of what Telshe signified. They were even novices in the learning of Gemara and the two Roshei Yeshiva had to literally introduce them to advanced Torah study." The rabbis lived and ate in the yeshivah, educating their students in the broadest possible manner. This was in spite of the personal losses they had suffered.

The spirit of that time is captured in the lecture notes of Rabbi Bloch, when upon receiving confirmation of the fate of Telz in Lithuania, he wrote in 1945:

I am not able to concentrate (on this writing) as I should, for that which I feared has reached me--the terrible news of the death of..... at the hands of the cursed German murderers.......... I feel that I can never come to peace (with myself) without the toil of Torah... without fulfilling the sacred duty which now falls upon the survivors. Having learned of my awful tragedy, my first call of duty must be laboring in Torah. I am indentured in the service of my people . . . of what importance are the woes of the individual when compared to the duties of the Klal (Community)? 36

The spirit contained in Rabbi Bloch's words was carried forth into the future and touched all elements of the Orthodox educational configuration in America. An example of this direct inter-action is the influence of the yeshivah leaders on the day school movement. The later Rosh Yeshivah of Telz, Rabbi M. Gifter addressed a Torah Umesorah National Planning Conference on the function of Torah education (chinuch) in modern times, reported in June, 1964. Rabbi Gifter typifies the zeal of the yeshivah founders when he declares that: "The function of Torah chinuch is the creation of a society where Torah will not merely be one of a vast number of human interests but rather a society where all human interest, all human endeavor centers in and emanates from Torah.” 37

Rabbi Gifter stresses that in an age of specialization there is a need to implant into the young minds and hearts of Day School children the dream of becoming a "Torah specialist". He asks: "How many of them dream of becoming a Chofetz Chaim, a Reb Chaim Brisker, a Reb Mayer Simchah, a Chazon Ish?" All these were illustrious sages of recent times whose rise to prominence was in great part due to their "laboring" in Torah studies. He concludes:

Much indeed has been achieved. . . . But with the great change that has been wrought we have not yet brought this generation to Sinai. . . .

The challenge of Torah chinuch (education) is that "we come close to the mountain" and that we take our children with us to see and hear what our forefathers saw and heard. We must become witness to the great Reality of Emunah (faith), with renewed intensive efforts in consolidating positions already won, and in the continued conquest of new horizons for Torah. 38

Thus, the challenges that the survivors of Lithuanian Telz, who were also the founders of American Telz, presented to American Jewry were thrust forward into the broader arenas of Jewish education. From its "fall" in Europe, it demanded a "rise" in America. The efforts to revive Torah education amongst the masses of American Jewry became the powerful and broad challenge of a handful of survivors. They demanded that their survival create a better and broader Jewish education in America.

New York Re-Newed

In 1189 the Jews of York, in England, decided to take their own lives rather than submit to the frenzied mobs of the Third Crusade. The cry of the Jew-killers was "Kill a Jew and save your soul!" The Jews of York preferred to suffer salvation on their own terms. One hundred years later, in the autumn of 1290, the Jews of England were expelled by King Edward I. 39

It was an irony of history that in the New World, the "new" York was to become haven to the largest single concentration of Jews in the world. When mass immigration was cut off by the U.S. government in 1925, over 4,500,000 Jews were already resident in America. New York was the first port of entry for most, and the majority settled in the metropolitan area of New York City. They struggled to re-new their lives, often at the expense of their commitment to Jewish education and hence to Judaism. America was different, they claimed; tradition was part of the Old World. This type of "renewal" was in fact a calamitous "fall" for and from the time-honoured Jewish way of life.

The "Most Savage Crusade" of modern history, from 1939 to 1945, came as a horrible shock to American Jewry. The vulnerability of Jews to destruction brought the realization that ultimately no Jews were safe anywhere in the world. The new wave of refugees who came to America after the war brought not only concentration-camp numbers tattooed on their skin, but a will to re-new their lives. Many tragically forsook their faith saying: "There is no God." Others were determined to re-new the ways they had known in Europe. New York's Jewish life was to be re-newed once more, along more Orthodox lines. Jewish education in America was directly influenced by these trends. M. Sherer, writing on "25 Years: A New Jewish World" (1979), remarks that the survivors that came to America, in spite of their physical scars, were nevertheless strong enough in spirit to revitalize other Jews.

Thus, maintains Sherer, two factors were the chief causes that brought about the much desired "spiritual revolution" in America: Firstly, the saving of a number of great Torah scholars; and secondly, the arrival of the survivors from the enormous destruction in Europe. In 1941, upon his arrival in New York, Rabbi Aharon Kotler declared "Torah has a future in America". Together with other leading scholars who had found refuge in America during that period, a message came forth: America is not "extra-territorial" when it comes to Torah education and practice. 40

There was initial success, as recorded by several histories of Jewish education. For example, Gartner writes that a significant feature of the day school movement was the rise of not only yeshivah high schools, but of yeshivahs for advanced students. "Most of them were founded by refugee rabbinic scholars during and after World War II. The curriculum was exclusively talmudic, and the general outlook was transplanted from nineteenth-century Eastern Europe." Thousands of young men "mostly of American birth" entered into the yeshivah world's regimen of Talmud study. 41

Not only were new institutions founded but existing institutions were subjected to change. One of the oldest yeshivahs in New York was the yeshivah section of Yeshiva University. Rothkoff, in Bernard Revel (1972), writes that as the Nazi menace grew, Revel realized that Yeshiva University's responsibilities to European Jewry were increasing. "The school now had to be prepared to accept refugee students and faculty." By 1939, time was running out as Revel frantically sought to bring as many survivors to America. Among those aided by Revel were Rabbis Joseph Arnest and Samuel Volk, both of whom assumed leading positions at Yeshiva University in 1939. Other famous rabbinical leaders who were brought to America with Revel's aid were Rabbi Dr. Joseph Breuer (1882-1980), who subsequently founded his own yeshivah in Washington Heights, N.Y.C.,. and Rabbi Mendel Zaks, who was the head of the Radin Yeshiva founded by his father-in law the Chofetz Chaim (Rabbi Israel Meir Kagan). 42

The figure of Rabbi Joseph Breuer extended the notion of renewal. He was not satisfied with renewing extant institutions. His notions of Jewish education were part of a broader notion of community, or kehillah, that had existed amongst Orthodox Jews in Germany. Bodenheimer has written that Rabbi Breuer's vision of kehillah required that it serve all the needs of its membership. "Synagogue, yeshivah, girl's school, . . . charity funds . . . . adult education, . . . general attitude toward life--everything was part of the classic kehillah structure, so it had to be incorporated into K'hal Adas Yeshurun" established in Washington Heights, Manhattan. 43

Other well known yeshivahs in the New York area experienced renewed vitality during the war years. The Mesivta Torah Vodaath Yeshiva extended an invitation to the newly arrived head of the Kamenitz Yeshivah, Rabbi Reuvain Grozovsky (1896-1958), to become its own Rosh Yeshivah. From 1935 to 1944, Rabbi Shlomo Heiman had served as head of Torah Vodaath. During these years the yeshivah "entered a period of significant growth and expansion", notes Helmreich. Rabbi Heiman had served as head of the famous Baranowicz Yeshivah in Poland. In America, he attempted to maintain the high standards of Baranowicz. "His goal was to elevate the American yeshiva bochur (student) to the point where he was a serious student of the Talmud, not simply a young man acquiring a basic education." Thus, many graduates entered the rabbinate and careers in Jewish education, "but an even greater number became lay leaders of the Jewish community, professionals in other areas, and businessmen." 44 The void left by Rabbi Heiman's death in 1944, was filled by Rabbi Grozovsky's arrival.

Rabbi Reuvain Grozovsky was the son-in-law of the famous Rabbi Boruch Ber Leibowitz (1870-1941). They had visited America in 1929 to collect funds for their yeshivah. It was a difficult mission, and the challenge of American life was not an unknown factor to Rabbi Grozovsky when he came to America in 1941. Following the outbreak of the war Rabbi Grozovsky eluded both Nazi and communist forces, following the trusted route across the Pacific to raise funds and secure affidavits for his students. He landed in Seattle, Washington on May 2, 1941, and proceeded quickly to New York, joining Rabbi Aharon Kotler and Rabbi Avrohom Kalmanowitz in rescue work through the Vaad Hatzolah (Rescue Committee). Wolpin reports that it was an ongoing struggle which involved fund-raising, lobbying, and clandestine transferring of funds. In addition, Rabbi Grozovsky managed to save some 110 members of the Kamenitz Yeshivah community. At Torah Vodaath, from 1944 onwards, "a new generation of Torah scholars became exposed to his shiurim (lectures)." 45 He infused the yeshivah with great life and enthusiasm. At the height of the war Torah education was witnessing renewal.

The influence of Rabbi Grozovsky extended beyond the yeshivah he headed. He was at the helm of the American Council of Torah Sages of the Agudath Israel, and chairman of Torah Umesorah's Rabbinical Advisory Council. The efforts to renew Orthodox life in New York extended outwards, towards for example, the establishment of day schools. At a founding ceremony of such a school in Providence, Rhode Island, he stated:

What role does a Rosh Yeshivah have at the establishment of a kindergarten? Doesn't he have other things on his mind? But that isn't the case. There's a longstanding rule in the Torah, that saving lives assumes a higher priority over everything else. Without Torah study, the children of this community are being buried alive. . . . Thus, the item of foremost priority on my agenda is to be here and ascertain that these children will indeed live. 46

The same spirit of dynamism and sense of urgency was to be found in other established yeshivahs in the New York area. The Mesivta Tifereth Jerusalem (MTJ) and Yeshivah Rabbi Jacob Joseph (RJJ), experienced an unusual surge in the desire for advanced Talmudical studies. Helmreich records that RJJ had in fact had an elementary school since 1899. It was only in the late 1940s and early 1950s that it developed into an important advanced yeshivah, producing hundreds of rabbis and community leaders. It was also an important feeder school for the Lakewood Yeshivah established by Rabbi Kotler in 1943. Helmreich connects the rise of advanced studies with the sense of vibrancy brought by those who rebuilt the yeshivahs in America. It was a "Weltanschauung that challenged and ultimately overcame the prevailing trend toward compromise with secular American values that existed in the Orthodox camp." 47

The Mesivta Tifereth Jerusalem was in operation as an advanced yeshivah by the early 1930s. In 1938 it appointed Rabbi Moses Feinstein as its head, "who is probably the foremost halachic (legal) authority" of recent times, "and whose decisions are crucial for hundreds of thousands of Jews". When asked about the significance of the post-war period in Jewish education, Rabbi Feinstein observed: "When the great people started arriving . . . the people began to see that there was a different type of learning, not the sort they had thought of earlier. . . . They began to see that one can become great from such study." 48

In a tribute to Rabbi Yitzchok (Isaac) Hutner (1904 - 1980), "HaGaon Rav Yitzchok Hutner" (1980/81), Pinchos Stolper has written that as Torah institutions and communities in Europe went up in flames, Rabbi Hutner as head of the Yeshivah Rabbi Chaim Berlin in New York, realized that Jewish survival was dependent upon the creation of American born Torah personalities. "To accomplish this required a force that could motivate young students to make a qualitative jump in their commitment and lifestyle in a relatively short period of time." Stolper concludes that Rabbi Hutner succeeded to influence his students by concentrating all his talents on the students' talents. "The key to this success was the intensive relationship he developed with individuals and his 'campaign' to convince as many students as possible that they could indeed become Gedolei Yisrael (scholars). The number of individuals with whom he developed and retained a close and intimate relationship is astounding. Each of these diverse individuals felt that he was a ben yochid, the only son of the Rosh Yeshiva. 49

Thus, those Torah educators already in America, joined together with newly arrived personalities, to create a cadre of Jewish educators and leaders who would in turn transform the face of Orthodox Jewish life and education in America.

FOOTNOTES

1 M. Friedlander, transl., Moses Maimonides: The Guide for the Perplexed (New York: Dover Publications, 1956), pp. xv-xvi
2 William B. Helmreich, The World of the Yeshiva: An Intimate Portrait of Orthodox Jewry (New York: The Free Press, 1982), pp. 17; xi
3 Alan Bullock, Hitler: A Study in Tyranny (New York: Harper Colophon Books, 1962), pp. 106-113; 133
4 Helmreich, World of the Yeshiva, p. 26.
5 Ibid., pp. 32-33; 314
6 Yisroel Mayer Kirzner, "By the Writing Desk of the Master: Reflections on Pachad Yitzchok: Igaros Ukesavim", The Jewish Observer, December 1981, p. 10.
7 Helmreich, World of the Yeshiva, p. 34
8 Bullock, Hitler, pp. 633-634; 640.
9 Rothkoff, Bernard Revel, p. 213
10 Helmreich, World of the Yeshiva, pp. 37-38; 301.
11 Rothkiff, The Silver Era, p. 195.
12 Ibid., p. 204
13 Shaul Kagan, "From Kletzk to Lakewood", in The Torah World: A Treasury of Biographical Sketches, ed. Nisson Wolpin (New York: Mesorah Publications, 1982), p. 194.
14 Rothkoff, The Silver Era, pp. 298-299.
15 Aharon Surasky, Marbitzei Torah Umussar (New York: Sentry Press, 1977), p. 251.
16 Rothkoff, The Silver Era, pp. 289.
17 Agudath Israel, The Struggle and the Splendor, pp. 87-88.
18 Kagan, "From Kletzk to Lakewood", p. 185
19 Helmreich, World of the Yeshiva, pp. 266: 378.
20 Kagan, "From Kletzk to Lakewood", pp. 191-192; 193.
21 Helmreich, World of the Yeshiva, pp. 43-44.
22 Yaakov Yosef Reinman, "Remembering Reb Shneur Kotler", The Jewish Observer, October 1982, pp. 4-7
23 David Kranzler, Japanese, Nazis & Jews: The Jewish Refugee Community of Shanghai, 1938-1945 (New York: Yeshiva University Press, 1976), pp. 19-24.
24 Ibid., p. 348
25 Ibid., pp. 450; 431.
26 Chaim Shapiro, "The Last of His Kind", in The Torah World, ed. N. Wolpin, pp.242-243.
27 Kranzler, Japanese, Nazis & Jews, pp. 467-468.
28 Ibid., pp. 432-433.
29 Ibid., p. 434.
30 Helmreich, World of the Yeshiva, p. 303.
31 Ibid.
32 Isaac Lewin, ed., "These Will I Remember!" Biographies of Leaders of Religious Jewry in Europe who Perished During the Years 1939-1945, Yiddish original: Eilah Azkerah (New York: Research Institute of Religious Jewry, 1956), p. 33.
33 Rothkoff, The Silver Era, pp. 273-274.
34 Chaim Dov Keller, "He Brought Telshe to Cleveland", in The Torah World, ed., N. Wolpin, p. 265.
35 Ibid., pp. 265-266. 
36 Ibid., pp. 266-267. 
37 Mordecai Gifter, "The Function of Torah Chincuh in Our Generation", in Hebrew Day School Education: An Overview, ed., Joseph Kaminetsky (New York: Torah Umesorah, 1970), p.18.
38 Ibid., pp. 23-24.
39 Grayzel, History of the Jews, pp. 341-344; 356-357.
40 Moshe Sherer, "25 Yor: A Neie Idishe Velt", Yiddish original in Dos Yiddishe Vort, June 1979, pp. 3-4.
41 Gartner, Jewish Education, p. 30.
42 Rothkoff, Bernard Revel, pp. 210-211.
43 Ernst J. Bodenheimer, with Nosson Scherman, "The Rav of Frankfurt, U.S.A.", in The Torah World, ed., N. Wolpin, p. 227.
44 Helmreich, World of the Yeshiva, pp. 29-30.
45 Nison Wolpin, ed., "From Kamenitz to America", in The Torah World, p. 212.
46 Ibid., p. 219.
47 Helmreich, World of the Yeshiva, pp. 360; 46.
48 Ibid., pp. 30-31; 301.
49 Pinchas Stolper, "HaGaon Rav Yitzchok Hutner", in Jewish Life, Winter 1980-81.

CHAPTER VII
REBBES, HASIDIM, AND AUTHENTIC KEHILLAHS 
Topics of Interest
Configurations of Education
Hungarian Hasidim
Boro Park: An Inter-linking of Configurations
The Lubavitch Experience
"Out-of-Town" Kehillahs

Configurations of Education

Lawrence Cremin, in Public Education (1976), calls for an awareness of the multiplicity of institutions that educate. He defines education as "the deliberate, systematic, and sustained effort to transmit, evoke, or acquire knowledge, attitudes, skills, values or sensibilities, as well as any learning that results from the effort, direct or indirect, intended or unintended." 1 He intends this definition to project beyond the schools and colleges to the "multiplicity of individuals and institutions that educate--parents, peers, siblings, and friends, as well as families, churches, synagogues, libraries, museums, summer camps, benevolent societies, agricultural fairs, settlement houses, factories, radio stations, and television networks. 2

In tracing the historiography of the "configuration of education", in Traditions of American Education (1976), Cremin notes the tendency of educative institutions at particular times and places to relate to one another. Each of the institutions within a given configuration interacts with the others and with the larger society that sustains it and that is in turn affected by it. Cremin goes further, that beyond the individual institutions of education, "a new problematics for the history of education must concern itself with clusters, or constellations, or configurations of related institutions." 3 

The history of Jewish education is of interest in this regard. By looking at the configuration of education that arose amongst Orthodox Jewish circles in America, with its stress on community, we see the very notion of "configuration" come to life. Indeed, Cremin states that at a general level, the phenomenon of the educational configuration is illuminated by the study of communities, "of the various ways in which communities educate so as to perpetuate themselves and of the relationships among the several educative institutions involved in the process." Cremin concedes that the "quickest approach to these phenomena is through secondary analysis of extant community studies." 4 We shall therefore refer to several community studies of Orthodox Jewish communities that gained prominence after the Second World War. This will enable us to observe the internal workings of their "configurations" as well as the external influences to which they were subjected.

In "The Metropolitan Experience: 1876-1976" Cremin points out that nineteenth century New York had already developed a complex educational configuration. By the 1930s, New York City was "of a size that virtually no one could grasp, conceive, or comprehend the whole. There were more Italians in New York City than in Rome, more Irish than in Dublin, more blacks than in any African city, and more Jews than in any other city of the world." Cremin concludes that for all intents and purposes, a person experienced New York through one or another of its neighborhoods or its ethnic or religious communities.

Thus Cremin arrives at what he calls "subconfigurations of education". For, in twentieth century New York, the power of "subconfigurations of education" had increased. Here, Cremin cites the example of the Lower East Side with its large Jewish population, where a Jewish person could grow up within a network of institutions that was referred to as "the New York Kehillah (the Hebrew word ‘kehillah’ means 'community') and have little to do with the outside world until going to the public library, or taking a job, or being drafted into the army, and if one didn't go to the library, or worked in an all-Jewish factory, or managed to avoid military service, one could live one's entire life in the kehillah aware of external influences only as intrusions. 5

We have already studied the establishment and difficulties of the New York Kehillah experiment of 1908-1922. We have shown that it was not an inviolable entity, often with the deliberate connivance of its purported leaders and its educators. The configurations of the broader "open society" had increased in potency. The "subconfiguration" of the New York Kehillah was subject to the power of the larger clusters, or constellations, or configurations" of education in twentieth century America.

In "Toward an Ecology of Education" Cremin notes that the relationships among the institutions that constitute a configuration may be:
1. Political: There may be overlapping lines of support;
2. Pedagogical: Substantial influence extending from one institution to another;
3. Personal: There may be decisive personal influence deriving from the same people moving as teachers or students through more than one institution.
"Such has always been the case with the configurations of education maintained by small sectarian communities like . . . the Hasidic Jews. . . . 6

There are several observations to be made. Firstly, we see that the notion of a "configuration of education" is directly applied to "Hasidic Jews". Their "subconfiguration" is itself a unique "configuration". We therefore see that the term "subconfiguration" is relative to a larger configuration but is a legitimate configuration in its own right. Secondly, Hasidic Jews are referred to as having a configuration that is based on personal relationships within it. Whereas the Jews of the Lower East Side had a "subconfiguration" that did not survive the test of time following the First World War, the Hasidic configurations following the Second World War survived and grew. This is an ironic, though certainly unintended, observation by Cremin. The question therefore arises: Why did the Hasidic Jews succeed whereas others failed?

It is incredible that prior to 1945 there were no large-scale Hasidic communities, let alone 
configurations, in America. The war and its aftermath brought the Hasidic communities as recognizable entities to America. Writing for National Geographic on the Hasidic community of Williamsburg in Brooklyn, N.Y., H. Arden describes "The Pious Ones" as obeying the commandments (mitzvahs) "with a devotion so vibrant that the tablets of the law might have been carried down by Moses to Lee Avenue this very morning". He notes:

To these Brooklyn streets after World War II came several thousand Hasidim, remnants of a widespread movement within Judaism that flourished in eastern Europe from the mid-1700s until--but only until--the Nazi catastrophe. The survivors arrived in America and Palestine with blue concentration camp numbers tattooed on their forearms, and the searing horror of Hitler's death camps branded on their souls. 7

Marshall Sklare in America's Jews (1971) has described the phenomenon whereby "Hasidism" came to America. He notes that while some of the earlier East European immigrants had come from families with a Hasidic tradition, Hasidic life was never established on American shores. "The courts of the rebbaim (plural of rebbe, Hasidic leader) remained in Eastern Europe. . . . The emergence of Hasidism during World War II and shortly thereafter was made possible by the arrival of a number of rebbaim, together with small circles of their followers." 8 Unfortunately this phenomenon has not received the attention and credit it deserves. Helmreich asserts that even though there are several works on the Hasidic communities of a sociological nature, "there is no study focusing on the history of the post-World War II immigrant generation in general and certainly none on the Orthodox community as a whole during this period . . . . This is unfortunate because it is a group whose impact has been considerable, especially on Jewish education." 9

Helmreich maintains that there has been no serious research on the "historical and sociological development of the Orthodox in America since world War II". Such a study must include the influence of the Hasidic communities, "such as Satmar, Ger, Belz, and Bobov, many of which came with their rebbes . . . . inasmuch as they demonstrated that right-wing Orthodoxy could be successfully transplanted to the treifene medinah (literally, nonkosher country)." Thus, maintains Helmreich, within the larger Orthodox community, the influence of the highly committed and visible Hasidim, especially the Satmarer, must be taken into account. "Their lifestyles and strict adherence to the letter of the law have probably made others more aware of previously neglected areas in religion." 10

Our thesis is an attempt to deal with the lack decried by Helmreich. We seek to look at the totality of the Orthodox world in America with the events of 1939-1945 as a turning point. We recognize the need to study the history of the rise of Hasidic configurations, for they represent the rebirth, and rise, of Orthodox Judaism after the war. Since then, the Hasidic leaders--the rebbes--and the communities--kehillahs- they have nurtured, have grown in size and influence. As an example, in December 1979, President Carter received a delegation of Hasidic leaders at the White House. A Jewish newspaper of the time, The World Jewish Tribune (Friday, December 28, 1979), reported that:

Sitting across from Mr. Carter during the 22-minute meeting last Monday afternoon were three of the most important leaders in the Jewish world: Rabbi Solomon Halberstam, The Bobover Rebbe, Rabbi Moshe Teitelbaum, the Sigeter and now Satmar Rebbe, and Rabbi Mordechai Hager, the Viznitzer Rebbe.

The three men represented 150,000 of their followers throughout the United States. 11

The pattern that has emerged shows the growth of confidence and influence of the various Hasidic communities in America. It shows how from the ashes of Auschwitz and in spite of Hitler's genocidal attacks, traditional Orthodox Jews were determined to rejuvenate Judaism in America. It shows too, that their growth and success rest on a viable configuration of Torah educators.

Hungarian Hasidim

Alvin I. Schiff, in The Jewish Day School in America (1966), has stated that the "relatively large influx of Hungarian Jewish immigrants immediately following World War II resulted in the founding of several yeshivot, particularly in New York." In retrospect that would appear to be an understatement. Schiff highlights the rise of the Hasidic configuration based on a kehillah structure:

At the end of the 1940s members of various Hungarian Hasidic sects arrived in this country. Each of these sects, deriving largely from the community in which its rebbe (religious leader) lived, formed a kehillah (community) whose focal point of activity was the rebbe's shtibel (house of prayer). In the various shtibels, schools were formed for the children of the rebbes' adherents. The schools grew rapidly. Residing, in the main, in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, the Hasidim bought old community centers, old public school buildings, business establishments and brownstone houses which they converted into yeshivot. 12

The zeal, industriousness, and single-mindedness of the various rebbes is remarkable. They came out of the hellish fires of war, with one aim: Survival. Not a cowering kind of survival, nor an escapist and iconoclastic survival denying the past, but one that strove for grandeur and majesty. For the Hungarian Jews, at the apex of this majesty there stood the person of the Satmar Rebbe, Rabbi Yoel Teitelbaum (1887-1979).

In Piety and Perseverance: Jews from the Carpathian Mountains (1981), Herman Dicker writes that in 1934, Rabbi Yoel Teitelbaum established himself in Szatm'ar (Satmar), in Northern Transylvania, then part of Roumania. This area was annexed by Hungary in 1940. On the nineteenth of March, 1944, Hungary was occupied by Germany, and deportations to Auschwitz began. Rabbi Teitelbaum tried to escape from Hungary, but was caught. He was kept in the ghetto of Cluj, and subsequently deported to Bergen-Belsen. There then occurred one of the most bizarre episodes of the war, which we have dealt with in an earlier chapter, (v. Chapter IV: 'Survival').

A prominent secular Jewish leader, Rudolf Kastner working as go-between between the Jewish Agency of Palestine and the Nazis, arranged for 1,368 Jews, Rabbi Teitelbaum included, to be transported to Switzerland. Raul Hilberg has written that there were 1,600, out of 750,000 doomed Hungarian Jews, whom Adolf Eichman had agreed to release. Why did Eichman allow Jews to escape? Hilberg quotes an interview with Eichman by Life (December 5, 1960, p. 146), Eichman's "memoirs", that Kastner "agreed to keep the Jews from resisting deportation--and even keep order in the camps--if I would close my eyes and let a few hundred or a few thousand young Jews emigrate illegally to Palestine. It was a good bargain." 13 We have previously noted other possible motives for Eichman's "magnanimity". For Kastner it was a bitter bargain struck with a latter-day Mephistopheles.

Ironically, it was the Nazis who objected to the Jewish leadership’s plans to select only children, which would be too noticeable. Only then, reports Hilberg, did the Jews proceed to compile a list of ten categories: "Orthodox Jews, Zionists, prominent Jews (Prominente), orphans, refugees, Revisionists, etc. One category consisted of 'paying persons'. The geographic distribution was a bit lopsided: 388 persons, including Kastner's father-in-law, came from the Transylvanian city of Cluj. 'Eichman knew', reports Kastner, 'that we had a special interest in Cluj' (dass Klausenburg uns besonders nahestand). The transport left, at the height of the deportations, for Bergen-Belsen. In the fall of 1944 some of the rescued Jews arrived in Switzerland." 14 And so it came to be that at the peak of the deportations, Rabbi Teitelbaum was taken out of detention in Bergen-Belsen and placed on that train to Switzerland.

It is a long way from Bergen-Belsen to Brooklyn, but in 1946 Rabbi Teitelbaum arrived in America determined to rebuild a kehillah. Herman Dicker observes that "had Rabbi Teitelbaum's attitude and struggle been merely one of being against something, in this case, Zionism, a historical reviewer could have found it easy to join those rejecting him and his philosophy. One, however, is forced by the facts to report the other side of the Satmar story, a side based on the very solid accomplishments of Rabbi Teitelbaum and his followers." 15 The success of Rabbi Teitelbaum and his followers was based on the unity of two themes: survival and reconstruction. Hasidic life was to be rebuilt through Jewish educational efforts. All parts of the configuration, be they parents, societies, or businesses, were to work for the rehabilitation of Hasidic life with the same educational goals. The unity of the themes of survival and the need to further Hasidic education was exemplified at the annual celebrations commemorating Rabbi Teitelbaum's release from Bergen-Belsen. One such celebration, and the nature of the event was described in 1975, four years before the Rebbe's death:

Now, through the loudspeakers, came the Rebbe's voice --the merest pin-scratch on a slate of silence. Yet that parchment-thin, otherworldly voice was instantly compelling. His disciples, many rocking and swaying as if in prayer, hung on each word as he thanked God for liberating him from the Nazis and for enabling him to be here with his beloved Hasidim. He spoke of the crucial importance of educating their children in Hasidic schools and reminded them that charity, which made such education possible, was one of the noblest of virtues. He then sat back, a benign expression lighting his face, and allowed his aides to take over the fund-raising activities. 16

The war in Europe, survival in America, and Jewish education blend into a unified and total experience. At the height of a celebration commemorating liberation, the appeal was for more and better Jewish education. The fall of Jewry in Europe becomes a prelude to the rise of Orthodoxy in America.

Rabbi Teitelbaum's achievements have amazed some observers. Dicker writes that it is amazing that Rabbi Teitelbaum managed to overcome the bitter experience of the Holocaust and rebuild a large following with "a wide ranging chain of religious, educational, and social institutions". Dicker states that Rabbi Teitelbaum's views on education did not change upon coming to America. "On the contrary, they became stronger in face of the ever present threat of assimilation." He reports that the Satmar private school system is described as the "largest in the world" educating about 7,000 students. Rabbi Teitelbaum was intimately involved in all the decision making processes of education. By the time of his death in 1979, it is estimated that he left 50,000 followers in the New York area, making it one of the largest Hasidic groups.

In discussing "The Educational Pattern", in Williamsburg: A Jewish Community in Transition (1961), George Kranzler characterizes the period 1949-1954 as evidencing a trend towards more and deeper Torah study, "as the masses of new immigrants from the camps settled in Williamsburg". He writes that though the general goals of established yeshivahs such as Torah Vodaath were "identical with theirs" (which is a debatable point), the new "Hungarian Yeshivoth" developed some essential differences of method and content. Namely: 
1. A greater stress on the quantity of learning;
2. Greater stress of "practical topics and tractates";
3. Greater knowledge of "Shulchan Oruch", meaning halachah or law;
4. Instruction in Yiddish;
5. Early commencement of formal schooling.

Writing in 1961, Kranzler concluded:

It is important to note that both patterns of Williamsburg's intensive Jewish education have been exported to other Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods of New York, and even beyond it to other cities where the day school movement has mushroomed . . . . The developments there are similar, and are worth watching for their influence on the future of the Jewish communities in America. In this respect Williamsburg may perhaps become the center of a renaissance of a well educated Jewish American community, whose sons, unlike the "lost generation" of their elders, have returned to the high level of Jewish scholarship that was typical for the immigrant generation, of the Old World, thanks to the work of the day schools. 17

Williamsburg in fact became the bastion of the Hungarian Hasidim, with Rabbi Teitelbaum at their helm. Their impact on the Orthodox world was great by dint of their large numbers and cohesion, as described by Kranzler. At its root lay the Satmar Rebbe's painstaking rehabilitation of thousands of fellow survivors and molding them into a kehillah. In The Torah Personality: A Treasury of Biographical Sketches (1980) it is recorded that at the time of his passing, the Rebbe presided over a tight-knit, highly disciplined community numbering in the thousands. The Satmar communities are all distinguished by a kehillah system that includes complete control of synagogue, kosher food supervision, education, and even social welfare. 18

Rabbi Teitelbaum's "personal warm concern" for each individual, was a key factor in the low drop-out rate among his kehillah's members. He was convinced that a viable community could only take shape if it was self-supporting on a level comparable to its surroundings. He encouraged his followers to donate generous sums of money. This aided the growth of the community's school system. Rabbi Teitelbaum founded the Yeshiva Yetev Lev and the Bais Rochel School for Girls, "both adhering to the syllabus of pre-World War II Satmar". As we have mentioned, their yeshivah emphasizes "a rapid pace of study, familiarity with a broad range of topics, and an eye on practical application, through halachah. The girls' school follows a strictly prescribed Hebrew curriculum." 19

Solomon Poll, in The Hasidic Community of Williamsburg: A Study in the Sociology of Religion (1962), analyses the complete gamut of units within the Williamsburg Hasidic configuration. He shows how the Hasidic family, social stratification, organization, social control, economic behavior, and occupational hierarchy, are all inherently inter-linked.
In the final chapter he concludes:

. . . In the Hasidic community religion as a unified system of beliefs and practices exerts a cohesive integrating influence upon the actions and thoughts, both public and private, of its members. It creates a reciprocity between religion and all other community affairs. Religion determines the characteristic form of most activities, so much so that even secular activities have come to acquire a religious meaning. . . . The main object of the group's existence is the perpetuation of Yiddishkeit, traditional religious Judaism, through Hasidic behavior. 20

Poll explains how this came to be in the midst of twentieth century America. In the chapter "The Transplantation of Hasidic Culture" he states:

In 1943, the Jews were evacuated from the various Jewish communities in Hungary into German concentration camps. In the concentration camps they continued to adhere to traditional practices to the extent possible under the circumstances. Many suffered starvation and extreme maltreatment, and many died in the camps. When the war ended, some of the religious leaders went from one concentration camp to another to reorganize the group and to encourage their continued loyalty to the "tradition of their fathers". The younger element among the survivors of Nazi atrocities sought to migrate to the United States. Upon their arrival in the United States they settled in Williamsburg, which was already the center of the more religious Hungarian Jews in America. 21

It would be safe to conclude that without the upheaval of the Second World War, Hasidic life would never have appeared and flourished on the scale evident today. Kehillahs like those which arose in Williamsburg were deliberately reconstructed by those such as Rabbi Yoel Teitelbaum to ensure the continuity of Judaism through Orthodox communal life. "I hope to establish a broad Klal Yisroel. I dare not sacrifice the average students for the sake of the isolated individual of rare promise", 22 said Rabbi Teitelbaum. The statement epitomizes the educational goal he pursued in order to achieve his aim of creating an independent, yet influential, kehillah. 

Boro Park: An Inter-linking of Configurations

The emergence of the Orthodox community of Boro Park in Brooklyn, has been labeled as both a "testimonial" and a memorial to what had been lost in the Nazi Holocaust, in Egon Mayer's From Suburb to Shtetl: The Jews of Boro Park (1979). Whereas pre-war Russian and Polish immigrants "had to make the most of their adjustments to modernity as immigrants", those who came after World War II "were conscious of being the remnants of a group that had been nearly exterminated in the Nazi Holocaust". 23 Mayer reports that the community they formed was intended not so much as a testimonial to their own achievements in the new world, but rather as a memorial for what they had lost.

In the course of conducting his research, Mayer noted that the theme of the Holocaust emerged in nearly every interview he conducted. The Holocaust in particular served as an explanation for the need for a tight-knit and strong Jewish community like Boro Park in Brooklyn. Strange as it may sound, Mayer also found that this community is "simultaneously growing more 'American', more middle-class, and, religiously, more Orthodox." This has run counter to the assumption amongst many social scientists that Orthodox Jewish life would inevitably disappear with the "Americanization" of the immigrants' descendants. 24

The radical departure of the post-World War II immigrants from those who came before them, was marked by their strong adherence to Orthodoxy. This was directly related to their war-time experiences. Ironically, the war served to strengthen Orthodoxy in America. Boro Park became the "showcase" community in exemplifying the phenomenon of renewal. Mayer cites this as one of the reasons he chose to study the Jewish community of Boro Park: It is, in the 1970s, the largest and most dynamic of all Orthodox Jewish communities in America. This trend has continued into the 1980s.

The New York Times, in a May 1982 report: "Housing Surge Alters Borough Park", found that with the high birthrate and migrations from such areas as Williamsburg, the Lower East Side, and Crown Heights, the Jewish population of Boro Park had grown by about 25 percent since 1978. "It is now estimated at 65,000 in an area of 100,000 people." Furthermore, the report found, that spurring the activity is a steady expansion of Boro Park's population of Orthodox Jews about half of whom are Hasidim. "They require large apartments for large families, and accommodations near synagogues and denominational schools." 25

Mayer maintains that the renaissance of Orthodox Judaism can be best understood in microcosm, at the level where people actually live out such things in the community. His book aims to describe the social history and contemporary social profile of the Orthodox community in Boro Park. 26 What emerges is an amalgum of kehillahs with a vast array of educational "institutions" both formal and informal. In nature and goals, these institutions are similar to those of the Satmar Hasidim of Williamsburg, sharing a similar history and a common destiny.

Immediately after the war, many Hasidic groups first established themselves in Williamsburg. By the 1970s most had relocated themselves and their kehillahs in Boro Park. These included the Vizhnitzer, Sigiter, Pupper, Krasner, Belzer, Bobover, Sanzer Hasidic groups each led by their own Rebbes. Mayer notes that this group of people was composed largely of post-war immigrants who for a variety of reasons had chosen to remain in the "ambiance" of the Orthodox communities. 27

One of the leading figures in the growth of Boro Park's Hasidic life was Rabbi Shlomo Halberstam, leader of the Bobover Hasidim. Following in the footsteps of his father, Rabbi Ben Zion Halberstam, he rebuilt a Hasidic kehillah after a world war. Just as his father had established a large chain of yeshivahs for thousands of students all over Galicia in Europe, Rabbi Halberstam established a network of schools for boys and girls in Boro Park. Following the First World War, Rabbi Ben Zion Halberstam saw the yeshivahs as the only secure means of spreading Judaism and Hasidic life among the Jews of Galicia. He used all his talents, strength of character, and personal charm, to captivate and take hold of students. They viewed him as their "father" because of the intense personal interest he took in each of them, "it is therefore no wonder, that the students of Bobov clung to their rebbe and loved him with all the fibres of their souls". The yeshivah of Bobov achieved literal wonders. Even the most light-hearted of students learnt the meaning of Judaism with its stress on Torah study. 28 This remarkable educational undertaking was brought to an end in Europe when the Nazis and their cohorts invaded Eastern Europe.

When the Nazis invaded Poland in 1939, the Rebbe of Bobov, Rabbi Ben Zion Halberstam, and his family, fled to Lvov in the Russian sector. All contact was cut off between him and the thousands of his followers caught in the German sector. In the United States there were some who knew of his high standing in Jewish life, and sought to bring him to America. This was not to be, for when the Nazis finally attacked Soviet Russia, entering Lvov in July, 1941, they burst into Jewish homes, deporting thousands of Jews:

Amongst those who were caught on that day were also the Rebbe Ben Zion Halberstam, his youngest son Moshe Aaron, and his three sons-in-law. . . . This occurred on the Sabbath eve before sunset. An eye-witness saw from his window how the Rebbe, dressed in his Sabbath clothing, was attacked by the soldiers. The cruel Ukranians beat him on his head with their rifle-butts and his skullcap fell to the ground. From time to time the Rebbe bent over and stooped to pick it up, and they beat him even more. His pure soul went up to Heaven, together with his sons and sons-in-law, on the fourth of Menahem-Av 5701. (1941) 29

Rabbi Shlomo Halberstam was a son who survived, and upon coming to America after the war, set out to complete his father's work in Jewish life, this time in America. He sought out many of his father's followers who had survived the concentration camps, but whose faith had begun to wane. Using all the considerable personal traits that had distinguished his father, he won them over. They contributed to his charitable and educational undertakings whilst sending their children to the newly-founded Bobov institutions in America. Centered primarily in Boro Park, these educational institutions cater to several thousand students ranging in age from kindergarten children to post-graduate Talmudic scholars.

Thus, as Mayer shows in his work, the impact of the new arrivals in Boro Park was great indeed. He emphasizes that the most significant way in which this community differed from previous immigrant Jewish communities was that the first generation immigrants who settled in Boro Park entered the United States after the war. Given its diversity, Mayer asks, what are the "core elements" of the community, and how do they "cement" the community? The answers he provides give credence to Cremin's notion of a "configuration of educators". 30 There is a blending and interplay between "Holocaust"--Survival--The American Experience--and, Configurations of Education: Refugees from war-ravaged Europe, headed by dynamic and resourceful rabbis and laymen, rebuild Orthodox Jewish kehillahs and "life" in America.

The elements of this inter-linking of configurations is sketched by Mayer. In "Ingredients of Holiness", dealing with "The Social Construction of Religious Life in Secular Society", he observes that it is "more or less" common knowledge that the Jewish people are often called the "Chosen People". But, it is less commonly known that "in the Old Testament they are frequently referred to as a Holy People or a Holy Community". The "ramparts" of this "holiness" are given as: 1. Family; 2. Yeshivah; 3. Synagogues; 4. Youth organizations; 5. Self-help organizations; plus others. Each element of the configuration complements the others for the purpose of maintaining the pre-eminence of the notion of a "Holy Community". Its apparent success, concludes Mayer, was because "the immigrants who revitalized the acculturating and assimilating Jewish communities in the United States after World War II were sadder, but a great deal wiser about both the ways of the world and the possibilities of sustaining an exclusive and isolated Jewish community in the host society." 31

The growth of the kehillahs within Boro Park were not separate from the growth of the other Lithuanian-style yeshivahs. The latter drew the bulk of their students from kehillahs such as existed in Boro Park. Whereas Williamsburg was associated with the Satmar, and Crown Heights with Lubavitch, Boro Park however catered for more diverse groupings. As Boro Park expanded, it reached into the adjacent Flatbush section of Brooklyn, home to three of the best known Lithuanian style yeshivahs: Torah Vodaath, Yeshivah Rabbi Chaim Berlin, and the Mirrer Yeshivah. Thus there was a very real "overlap" in all senses of the word between the growth of the new kehillahs and the revitalized yeshivahs, forming an even larger inter-linked configuration of Jewish education.

The Lubavitch Experience

The arrival in America of the sixth and seventh Lubavitcher Rebbes, was a consequence of the Second World War. On March 19, 1940, Rabbi Joseph Isaac Schneerson (1880-1950) arrived in New York from war-torn Warsaw. In the late spring of 1941, his son-in-law, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson arrived in New York from Marseilles in occupied France. Both Rebbes were not newcomers to the challenges of modernity, having had firsthand encounters with the protagonists of haskalah in Europe.

In 1929, Rabbi J. I. Schneerson was released from prison by the Soviet authorities, after having been tortured and abused. He traveled abroad, visited America, was received by President Hoover, and attracted large crowds at various places. D. Goldberg writes that the visit left a profound impression upon Rabbi Schneerson: "Though certain facets of the American scene he found distinctly distasteful.. . , he did later tell how impressed he was with the simple sincerity of the American Jewish youth. . . . He almost decided to make America his permanent home, but eventually chose to return to Europe." 32 The impressions gained of American life, were soon to stand him in good stead.

In 1934 he established himself in Warsaw, continuing his drive to establish yeshivahs and communities based on the tenets of Chabad Hasidism. At this time, his son-in-law and heir-to-be, Rabbi M. M. Schneerson, traveled to Heidelburg, Berlin, and the Sorbonne for university studies. The Lubavitch movement prided itself with being the "intellectual branch" of Hasidism founded by Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi (1745-1812). It was in this spirit that the Lubavitchers established the Yeshivah Tomchei Temimim, with Rabbi J. I. Schneerson as its first dean. It was "a daring innovation to counteract the winds of secularism. . . . by establishing the first formal Chassidic yeshivah for teenaged young men where study of Chabad philosophy was incorporated as an integral third of the daily curriculum." 33 Thus Hasidic education lay at the basis of Rabbi Schneerson's notion of counter-acting secularism.

In a Lubavitch publication: Challenge: An Encounter with Lubavitch--Chabad (1970), we are told that at the outbreak of war in September 1939, Rabbi J. I. Schneerson refused every opportunity to leave the inferno of Warsaw until he had taken care of his yeshivahs: "He remained there throughout the terrible siege and bombardment of Warsaw and its final capitulation to the Nazi invaders". It was with the "co-operation of the Department of State in Washington", and with friends of the Lubavitcher Rebbe who worked behind the scenes, that his journey from Warsaw to New York was arranged. 34 Rabbi Schneerson saw his mission as one of rebuilding Jewish life in America in the vision and mould of Chabad Hasidism.

The growth of Lubavitch educational institutions in America following Rabbi J. I. Schneerson's arrival is noted by Alvin I. Schiff in The Jewish Day School in America (1966). In March 1940, the same month Rabbi J. I. Schneerson arrived, the Central Lubavitcher Yeshivah was established in Brooklyn. Called Yeshivah Tomchei Temimim, it was the beginning of a network of elementary schools. By 1963, there were over twenty yeshivahs for boys, and a Beth Rivka School for girls under the sponsorship of Lubavitch. A high school was organized in 1943 as well as a Rabbinic Seminary. In 1941, a branch was established in Montreal, Canada. Schiff writes that the events leading to the establishment of this school are worth noting:

After his arrival in the United States, the Lubavitcher Rebbe established the Pidyon Shevuim Fund which was instrumental in rescuing hundreds of European yeshivah students during the war years. Among those rescued was a group of students who arrived in Montreal in the fall of 1941 after a long arduous journey through Siberia, Japan and China. These young refugees formed the nucleus of the Canadian branch of the United Lubavitcher Yeshivoth. Both the New York and Montreal Schools have dormitory facilities for non-resident students. 35

A configuration of Lubavitch education that grew beyond formal education emerged quickly. Jewish children were urged to hold special Sabbath study groups by Rabbi J. I. Schneerson. He opened a publishing house to print works on halachah and Hasidism, as well as magazines and literature in English. Emphasis always fell on expanding the educational configuration of Lubavitch:

Graduates of his yeshivah assumed positions as rabbis of communities, as principals and teachers in Jewish schools, and other key positions in Jewish life in New York and many cities. Within three years, the Rebbe was able to announce to his Chassidim that "the American ice has finally been broken . . . " 36

Rabbi J. I. Schneerson saw himself as a "conqueror" of apathy amongst Jews, and not as a "refugee" fleeing persecution. There is a further dimension to the Lubavitch experience. As a number of Hasidic groups are prone to do, they see themselves as the sole authentic practitioners of Orthodox Judaism. However, Lubavitch Hasidism makes a point of carrying this opinion far and wide, beyond the confines of its own kehillah. In the case of Rabbi J. I. Schneerson, Lubavitch publications unabashedly claim that "he was the first to bring Jewish Pride to this land", and that "his arrival in New York in 1940, had brought the first hope that perhaps this country could somehow replace Eastern Europe as a great Torah-center." 37 The same writer credits Rabbi J. I. Schneerson with a string of "firsts" in fostering Jewish education in America 38 whilst ignoring the fact that the era was one of numerous "firsts" by a number of personalities.

Be that as it may, with the death of Rabbi J. I. Schneerson in 1950, and the formal accession a year later of his son-in-law, and cousin (hence the same family name), Rabbi M. M. Schneerson (b. 1902), a new phase of the Lubavitch experience commenced. The new Lubavitcher Rebbe sought to bring the message of Lubavitch to Jews no matter where they were found. Grasping the new mould of the world in the technological era as the "Global Village", he utilized all the new forces of communication and travel to expand the educational configuration of Lubavitch internationally. At the center stood "770" (Eastern Parkway--a street in Brooklyn), "World Headquarters" of Lubavitch, and by implication, world Judaism. Needless to say, it did not engender a spirit of sympathy and cooperation from other Orthodox groups. Yeshivah heads and Hasidic leaders were inclined to disregard the Lubavitch claim to supremacy.

In a Lubavitch publication, The Rebbe: Changing the Tide of Jewish Education (1982), Rabbi M. M. Schneerson's escape from Europe and his successes in America are described. In 1940 he found himself trapped in France, where he clandestinely organized observance of Judaism. When his father-in law arrived in America, visas were arranged, and in the spring of 1941 he arrived in New York with his wife:

Soon after his arrival, Rabbi Menachem Mendel (then in his fortieth year) was already entrusted by his father in-law with his share in the Rebbe's declared aim of "turning America into a place of Torah". The Central Yeshiva Tomchei Tmimim, with its various branches out of town had been placed under the supervision of the Rebbe's elder son-in-law Rabbi Shemarya Gurary, under whose able care they remain today. The Rebbe now placed under the care of his second son-in-law the new organizations he was creating in America.

During the first year, he placed under Rabbi Menachem Mendel's supervision Machne Israel (the "umbrella" organization of Lubavitch concerned with general Jewish social and spiritual welfare), Merkos L'Inyonei Chinuch (the central educational department of Lubavitch) and Kehot Publication Society (to publish educational and religious works). The following year he created a special arm of Kehot: Otzar HaChassidim, for publishing works on Chassidic philosophy by all the leaders of Chabad.

During this time the Rebbe told Rabbi Menachem Mendel to farbreng with the Chassidim on the last Shabbos of each month (Shabbos Mevorchim)--a tradition he has maintained ever since. In those early farbrengens, he would often explain the Halachic language of the Mishnah (basis of the Talmud) in terms of Chassidic philosophy. 39

Rabbi M. M. Schneerson's achievements were significant as he spearheaded a "deliberate systematic, and sustained effort" to transmit the Chabad brand of Hasidism to as many Jews as possible. He insisted upon strengthening the Lubavitch kehillah of Crown Heights in Brooklyn, New York, as a bastion of Jewish life in spite of the socioeconomic decline of the neighborhood. Working from that epicentre he extended the Lubavitch configuration of institutions, headed by himself and his brother-in-law, by sending out emissaries, called shluchim. They established schools and "Chabad Houses", based on the "Y.M.H.A." models, for Jewish students throughout the United States, and the world. The "Chabad Houses" became a unique feature of the Lubavitch experience in America. They became the "local headquarters" of the Lubavitch emissaries, remaining in direct communication (via telephone, radio and even cable T.V.) with Lubavitch "World Headquarters" in Crown Heights. Thus, no matter where the emissaries found themselves, they were in reality part of an extended configuration centered in their Crown Heights kehillah, headed by the Rebbe.

The greatest part of this endeavor has been "kiruv rechokim"--bringing back to Orthodox Judaism those who were reared in non-Orthodox environments. William Helmreich has written that "notwithstanding the steps taken by the yeshivas, most of the 'reaching out' by Orthodox Jews in the United States is done by the Lubavitcher Hasidim. . . . They have also attracted countless individuals to Orthodoxy through their work in every part of the country." 40 It was Rabbi M. M. Schneerson's policy to constantly expand this undertaking by sending more and more shluchim to more and more Jewish communities. However, Helmreich's assertion that: "The collective efforts of the Lithuanian yeshivas pale by comparison although, considering their priorities, that is to be expected", should not be interpreted as a "weakness" compared to the "strength" of Lubavitch. Indeed, the entire question of "returnees" to Orthodoxy in the post-"Holocaust" era is a complicated one. Not only Lubavitch, but day schools, youth groups and yeshivahs of other Orthodox groups have achieved amazing success in this domain.

The educational orientation of Rabbi M.M. Schneerson's undertakings loom foremost in assessing his achievements as leader of Lubavitch. In America his concern for education reached a climax of sorts in l978 when a joint resolution of Congress, approved by President Carter, declared April 18, 1978, as "Education Day, U.S.A.". The day itself was Rabbi Schneerson's birthday, hence its choice. The Joint Resolution reads:

Whereas the Congress recognizes a need for the Nation to set aside on the calendar a day devoted to the importance of education to the lives of its citizens . . . and 

Whereas the Lubavitch movement, which conducts educational activities at more than sixty centers in twenty-eight States, . . has proposed the establishment of an "Education Day, U.S.A."; and

Whereas world Jewry marked in 1977 the seventy-fifth birthday of . . . Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson . . . and 

Whereas the seventy-sixth birthday of this celebrated spiritual leader will occur on April 18, 1978, thus concluding the year of Lubavitch Movement activities dedicated to the "Year of Education" Now therefore, be it

Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the President is authorized and requested to issue a proclamation designating April 18, 1978, as "Education Day, U.S.A.".

	APPROVED
	APR 17 1978
	Jimmy Carter 41

The ability of the Lubavitch organization to persuade others of the educational value of their activities could not have had a better climax. That the birthday of a Hasidic rebbe should have been chosen as "Education Day, U.S.A.", even if only for that year, is a great irony of history. Few would have imagined in 1941 that thirty-seven years later a little-known Hasidic refugee would receive such recognition. April 18, 1978, was yet another sign of the rise in confidence and influence of Jewish education in America.

"Out-of-Town" Kehillahs

Brooklyn has been home to flourishing Jewish communities but there have been other notable successes in outlying areas. "Out-of-town", often meaning places outside of Brooklyn, has been the refuge of a segment of the Second World War's survivors. Often it has been larger Brooklyn based kehillahs that created smaller semi-permanent summer communities, such as "bungalow colonies", where up to three months of the year are spent. Or, year-round retreats from city life have been established fostering kehillah life in "splendid isolation". Thus, for example, the Satmar community established itself in Monroe in upstate New York, as well as nurturing the growth of a sister-community in Montreal, Canada. Another example is Lubavitch, which has deliberately established miniature communities all over America.

There are several wholly autonomous out-of-town communities. Marshall Sklare has noted that some Hasidim believed that cultural transmission was impossible in the city. "Despite Brooklyn's thick Jewishness they feel that the integrity of their culture can only be preserved by geographic isolation." Sklare recounts that the Skvirer Hasidim viewed Brooklyn as part of an urban world in which social control cannot be effectively exercised. They therefore purchased a plot of land in Rockland County, New York, in 1954, where they succeeded in establishing their own community of "New Square". 42

Another Hasidic group, the Vizhnitzer, whose influence had extended to Jews in Hungary, Roumania, and Czechoslovakia, eventually established a branch in Monsey, in Rockland County, New York. "The Vishnitzer life style is characterized by an emphasis on love of God, love of Torah and love of Israel. A prolific family, it had many branches throughout the old country, most of them destroyed during the Holocaust", writes Herman Dicker in Piety and Perseverance (1981). Rabbi Chaim Meir Hager had managed to survive the war as leader of Vizhnitz. His son, Mordechai, decided in 1965 to take some of his Hasidim to Monsey, away from the "hustle and bustle" of the city. 43

The Satmar Hasidim successfully established the community of Kiryas Yoel ("Town of Yoel") in Monroe, Orange County, New York. Named for their late leader, who helped choose the location: "A grateful community built a magnificent synagogue with a seating capacity of several thousand to accommodate the many faithful who would visit the Satmar Rebbe on the High Holidays and other festive occasions. It reflected their devotion to the Rebbe and their ability to raise huge sums among his followers in all parts of the world. These contributions, amounting to millions of dollars, sustain a vast network of schools and Yeshivot in the United States and Israel.” 44

It was on August 19, 1979, that the Satmar Rebbe--Rabbi Yoel Teitelbaum--passed away. On that same day he was buried at Kiryas Yoel in Monroe, New York State. The "out of town" community that bore his name, became his final resting place. His long life began in the small towns of the Carpathian Mountains of Europe and ended with his burial in the small towns of the Catskill Mountains of America. It was to Monroe that over one hundred thousand Orthodox Jews came to pay their last respects to a person who had symbolized the stubborn renewal of Torah life in the spiritual wastelands of America. The Catskills had been jokingly referred to as the "Borsht Belt", where Jews sought out light entertainment and escape from the city. The gathering of over a hundred thousand Orthodox Jews at the Satmar Rebbe’s funeral, proved that a new age had arrived in a relatively short period of time.

A symbolic microcosm of the transplantation of a kehillah together with a yeshivah from Europe to America was the community of Nitra. In The Unconquerable Spirit (1980), we are told that before the war, the town of Nitra in Slovakia had been a bastion of Jewish tradition and learning. "Its Yeshiva had a name throughout the world of Orthodox Jewry, drawing students from the Hasidic East as well as from the modern West." 45 At the head of the yeshivah and kehillah of Nitra had stood Rabbi Shmuel Dovid Ungar. In 1944, he fled to the woods to avoid deportation by the Nazis, and died of starvation in early 1945. "Even before coming to Nitra, Rabbi Ungar had been known as a great teacher and moralist far beyond the borders of Slovakia. Only two years before the outbreak of the war, he had been elected by the Agudath Israel. . ., to its supreme religious body, the Moetzet Gedolei HaTorah." 46 Thus, his death was a great loss for Torah life in all its facets.

However, Rabbi Ungar's son, Rabbi Solomon Ungar, and son-in-law, Rabbi Michael Ber Weissmandl, managed to survive the war, finding their way to America. They were determined to perpetuate the legacy of Rabbi Shmuel Dovid Ungar:

. . .With help from American Jews, including former students of the Yeshiva of Nitra, the two refugee scholars built up a new Nitra Yeshiva at Mount Kisco, amidst the hills of New York's Westchester County. Rabbi Weissmandl planned the new Yeshiva as an institution where, in addition to Talmudic training, the students would acquire skills in farm work and in such trades as printing. Unfortunately, it was not given to Rabbi Weissmandl to see the fulfillment of his dream. His health broken by the years of war and persecution, he died in 1958. 47

The yeshivah and community of Nitra grew slowly, and remained an embodiment of the renewal of life in America that its founders wanted it to be. Underlying Rabbi M. B. Weissmandl's efforts at rebuilding the Nitra Yeshiva in Mount Kisco was a deep and dark war-time experience. At the height of the war he had "opened possibilities to rescue hundreds of thousands of Jews", as Sigmund Forst has written in The Torah Personality, (1980). Rabbi M. B. Weissmandl was the one who: 
1. Got into contact with two Slovakian Jews who escaped from Auschwitz and gave the first eyewitness description of the systematic extermination which was until then only a vague rumor and not really believed by anyone; 
2. Sent a detailed map of the camp together with the sworn testimony of the two men to the outside world;
3. Probed the Nazi mind with a point blank offer of money. Nobody would have believed that for fifty thousand dollars, Wisliceny, Adolf Eichman's deputy, stopped the deportations for a long period of time;
4. Suggested a bold proposition, the so-called "Europa Plan" which sought to bring to a halt all deportations from all of Europe for the payment of a huge sum of money. 48

Forst writes that Rabbi M. B. Weissmandl was convinced that responsibility for the failure of negotiations to save Slovakian and Hungarian Jewry "rested upon the assimilated Jews in the West who contented themselves with public speeches and demonstrations. He recalled that after such a demonstration in New York, Wisliceny told him that Hitler was incensed and determined to intensify the persecution." 49 Forst's description points to a serious failure. However, it should be remembered that American Jewry made an enormous contribution to the war effort against the Axis in terms of manpower and organization even though it committed serious blunders in the realm of home-front responses to Hitler.

Of particular significance to us is Forst's statement that:

We have to put Rabbi Weissmandl against the background of the catastrophic years 1941-1945, as this was the turning point in his life, and regard his remaining years in the U.S.A. as the framework of his reaction to the war experience. The personality of Rabbi Weissmandl as he emerged after the war, appears under a twofold aspect. One is the aspect of his personal tragedy which he shared with many who suffered as he had. The second aspect is the collective tragedy which was emphatically pronounced by his total personality, an aspect which he shared with nobody. He could not forget. 50

Indeed, Rabbi Weissmandl described his experiences in his book Min Ha Maitzar ("From the Depths"), published posthumously by the Nitra Yeshiva. In the Introduction, he wrote:

Thirteen years have passed since the offering of the sacrifice--and from then until now a silence has come down upon the world with no one to cry out against it-and the way of the evil has succeeded in silencing the entire world about the murder committed by their hands-and not only this, but they have succeeded in causing the Jewish people themselves to forget--and not a simple forgetfulness, but a deceitful and deep forgetfulness . . that proceeds and grows even stronger with each day-and it would not be a wonder that within this lifetime our sons and grandsons will forget everything that is before us . . . 51

Rabbi Weissmandl’s efforts on behalf of the Nitra Yeshiva in America showed that he was determined not to forget, by raising a living memorial that would itself ensure survival. He therefore saw fit to establish a Jewish house of learning that bespoke his love of life.

FOOTNOTES

1 Cremin, American Education: The National Experience 1783-1876, p. ix.. 
2 Lawrence A. Cremin, Public Education (New York: Basic Books, 1976), p. 29. 
3 Cremin, Traditions of American Education, p. 142. 
4 Ibid., pp. 143-144. 
5 Ibid., pp. 114-118. 
6 Cremin, Public Education, pp. 30-31. 
7 Harvey Arden, "The Pious Ones: Brooklyn's Hasidic Jews", National Geographic, August 1975, pp. 276-279. 
8 Sklare, America's Jews, p. 24. 
9 Helmreich, World of the Yeshiva, pp. 45-46. 
10 Ibid., pp. 360; 304; 318. 
11 Yaakov Rodan, "The Rabbis and the President: History is Made at the White House", The World Jewish Tribune, Friday, December 28, 1979, p. 13. 
12 Alvin Irwin Schiff, The Jewish Day School in America. (New York: Jewish Education Committee Press, 1966), p. 77. 
13 Hilberg, Destruction of the European Jews, p. 543. 
14 Ibid., pp. 543-544. 
15 Dicker, Piety and Perseverance, pp. 112-113. 
16 Arden, "The Pious Ones", p. 285. 
17 George Kranzler, Williamsburg, A Jewish Community in Transition (New York: Philipp Feldheim, 1961), pp. 145-153. 
18 Nisson Wolpin, ed., "My Neighbour, My Father, The Rebbe", in The Torah Personality (New York: Mesorah Publications, 1980), pp. 198-199. 
19 Ibid., pp. 204-205. 
20 Solomon Poll, The Hasidic Community of Williamsburg: A Study in the Sociology of Religion (New York: Schocken Books 1969), pp. 248-249. 
21 Ibid., p. 29. 
22 Wolpin, "My Neighbor, My Father, The Rebbe", p. 205. 
23 Egon Mayer, From Suburb to Shtetl: The Jews of Boro Park (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1979), pp. 55-56. 
24 Ibid., pp. 170; 7. 
25 The New York Times, Friday, May 21, 1982, p. B1. 
26 Mayer, From Suburb to Shtetl, p. 19. 
27 Ibid., p. 35. 
28 Naftoli Ernberg, "Horav R. Ben Tzion Halberstam: Admor M'Bobov", Yiddish original, Eilah Azkerah ("These Will I Remember!") V. 1, Lewin, I., ed., pp. 136-137. 
29 Ibid., p.141. 
30 Mayer, From Suburb to Shtetl, pp. 55; 58. 
31 Ibid., pp. 59-134. 
32 Daniel Goldberg, "The Late Lubavitcher Rebbe", in The Torah World, ed. Nisson Wolpin, pp. 91-92. 
33 Ibid., p. 83 
34 Challenge: An Encounter with Lubavitch--Chabad (London: Lubavitch Foundation of Great Britain, 1970), pp. 53-54. 
35 Schiff, The Jewish Day School, pp. 59-60. 
36 Goldberg, "The Late Lubavitcher Rebbe", pp. 93-94. 
37 Daniel Goldberg, "The Lubavitcher Rebbe Shlita: 30 Years of Leadership", in The Uforatzto Journal, ed. Mayer S. Rivkin, Spring 1980, p. 35 
38 Goldberg, "The Late Lubavitcher Rebbe", pp. 93-94. 
39 Mayer S. Rivkin and Daniel Goldberg, eds., The Rebbe: Changing the Tide of Education (Brooklyn, N.Y.- Lubavitch Youth Organization, 1982), pp. 28-29. 
40 Helmreich, World of the Yeshiva, p. 288. 
41 Rivkin and Goldberg, The Rebbe, p. 88. 
42 Sklare, America's Jews, pp. 49-50. 
43 Dicker, Piety and Perseverance, pp. 120-121. 
44 Ibid., pp. 115-117. 
45 Zuker, The Unconquerable Spirit, p. 73. 
46 Ibid.
47 Ibid., p. 76. 
48 Sigmund Forst, "Rabbi Michael Ber Weissmandl", in The Torah Personality, ed., Nisson Wolpin, p. 162, and in Zuker, The Unconquerable Spirit, pp. 75-76.
49 Ibid., pp. 162-163. 
50 Ibid., p. 166. 
51 Michael Ber Weissmandl, Min HaMeitzar, Hebrew Original. No date or place of publication given. Reportedly published by the Nitra Yeshiva, Mount Kisco, New York.

CHAPTER VIII

A COMPARISON OF TWO POST-WAR SUCCESSES: 
THE TRADITIONAL YESHIVAH AND THE HEBREW DAY SCHOOL 

Topics of Interest

The Tradition of Jewish Education
The Second World War and the Growth of the Day Schools
Resistance to Total Jewish Education: Dissonant Configurations
The Influence and Contribution of Orthodox Education

The Tradition of Jewish Education 

The term "Jewish Education" means different things to different people. Likewise, "Orthodox Jewish Education" has a perplexing array of connotations. The two most popular and fastest growing Jewish educational institutions in America since the Second World War (1939-1945) have been the Hebrew day school and the traditional yeshivah (or "Talmudical Academy", as it is often referred to). The two share similar functions: to impart a Jewish education and ensure Jewish survival. Superficially, the two often share the same name and labels, and often appear to have similar curricula and purposes. Searching a little deeper, there are significant and fundamental differences in emphasis, approach, aims and results. 

What is a "yeshivah" supposed to be? Literally, in Hebrew, the word "yeshivah" means "sitting", or "rest", denoting a school, academy, or council. "Me zitst un lernt" is an oft-used Yiddish expression meaning "one sits and learns", referring to the activity in the yeshivah. William B. Helmreich in a much acclaimed work: The World of the Yeshiva: An Intimate Portrait of Orthodox Jewry (1982), has provided a look into the workings of the yeshivahs in America. In chapters such as "Yeshiva Students: Who Are They and Why Do They Go?", "A Self-Enclosed World: Life in the Yeshiva", "Making It in the Yeshiva", and "Preparing for Life Outside the Yeshiva", he provides information based on interviews and observations. He writes primarily from the perspective of a sociologist, albeit one sensitive to the subtleties of the yeshivah phenomenon. His "portrait" is rich in detail and goes a long way towards filling the gap in the history of the yeshivahs in modern America. 

Helmreich provides a brief history of traditional yeshivah education in his Preface, and in the chapters: "From Jacob's Tents to America's Cities", "An Ancient Tradition in a New Land", and "Why Has the Yeshiva Survived?". He does not deal deeply with the historical and political events of the war and how they in turn changed Jewish education. He focuses mainly on the yeshivah itself as it grew in America. He does not deal with the cultural apathy, political cynicism, the horrors of war and the notion of "kiddush ha-shem", the callous "stabs in the back" of European Jewry, and the sheer miraculous nature of the yeshivah leaders' and Hasidic rebbes' survival on the same scale as we have dealt with in this thesis. He avoids much of the "dark side" of reality that contributed, in the strangest of ways, to the rise of Orthodoxy and the growth of Jewish education in America. 

However, Helmreich's references to the war years in his work are worth scrutiny. He writes of the centrality of the Second World War in the history of Jewish education in America, and gives it a context. Helmreich states that the fact that yeshivahs have been in existence for centuries would probably be enough to justify studying them. "How many social institutions can lay claim to having survived for 2000 years?" he asks, and says that : "It was not always so. Until World War II, advanced yeshivas were few in number." It was the outbreak of World War II that had "a lasting impact on the development of Jewish education in America". Thus, "new yeshiva day schools were begun to meet the needs" of the post-war generation now inundated with European survivors: 
The outbreak of World War II permanently altered the nature of these institutions as rabbis and students died by the thousands and those able to escape, mostly via Vilna, Lithuania, eventually made their way to Israel and the United States. One of the most productive eras in Jewish scholarship and leadership ended in the flames of Hitler's holocaust against the Jews. But the flight of the survivors and their determination to preserve their heritage meant that the long and ancient history of the yeshiva would continue in still another country. 1

Thus, in the section, "The Postwar Period: A Time of Unparalleled Growth", Helmreich states that with the Allied victory over the Nazis in 1945, "a new era began for the yeshiva world. Between 1947 and 1951 almost 120,000 Jews arrived in the United States." This group had a considerable impact on Jewish education: 

The death of thousands upon thousands of yeshiva leaders and students during the Nazi era represented an intellectual and spiritual loss to the Orthodox community that is incalculable. Yet those who came to America to rebuild the yeshivas were a priceless asset to those interested in reinvigorating Orthodox Judaism. They brought with them not only knowledge, memories, and experiences, but a Weltanschauung that challenged and ultimately overcame the prevailing trend towards compromise with secular American values that existed in the Orthodox camp. Although their uncompromising positions often polarized the community, they succeeded in raising the level of debate concerning its future to one that had not been present before. 2 

Thus began an era of building yeshivahs, day schools, and kehillahs. Helmreich is accurate in saying that the "Holocaust uprooted them and turned them into reluctant immigrants". Bland "Americanization" did not appeal to a group of people who had survived the phenomenon of "Auschwitz": 

Those who survived the Nazi horrors and retained their faith must have been even more determined not to allow their standards of religious life to disappear or even be eroded in America. As Rabbi Yaakov Kamenecki put it: "Post-Holocaust parents were not satisfied with the quality of Jewish education they found when they came here. They came from the land of the gedolim." 3 

The "gedolim", literally means the "great ones", the phenomenal rabbinic scholars who headed Orthodox Jewry in Europe and were usually also the heads of the yeshivahs. The war did not halt the history of the yeshivahs, it did however change their primary geographical location. What lay at the "heart" of the yeshivah that gained it the loyalty of those who were part of it, in spite of a world war? The answer to this, would be the same as to the question: "What is a yeshivah?" 

A yeshivah is a place where a Jew studies Torah which is its primary curriculum. For the Jew it was axiomatic that this was the same Torah that God gave the Children of Israel at Mount Sinai as recorded in Exodus 19-20. The Torah consisted of: The "written" Torah or law (the "Pentateuch") or the first five books of Moses (meaning, recorded by Moses), called in Hebrew Torah SheBechtav; And the "oral explanations" or Oral Law, in Hebrew: Torah SheBe'alpeh, which was subsequently written down and recorded in the Talmud, which contained the Mishnah and Gemorah. 

It was viewed as the religious obligation and function of each and every Jew to acquaint himself with the Torah to the best of his abilities and transmit it to his son and the next generation. Rambam (Rabeinu Mosheh Ben Maimon) known as Maimonides (1134-1204), in his halachic magnum opus, the Mishneh Torah, declared unambiguously that: "Every man of Israel is obliged to learn Torah, whether he be poor or rich, healthy or sickly, . . . ". It was essentially the father's task to transmit Torah to his children. Thus the family was the "primary", and even sole, educational "institution" for a great part of Jewish history. When it became evident to the Jewish sages that this was no longer possible, it became the duty of teachers, rebbaim, to take over a function which primarily belonged to the father. Hence the birth of yeshivahs as primary transmitters of the Torah heritage. It was thus the function of the traditional yeshivah to continue the transmission of Torah in its purest and most elevated form. 

For the traditional yeshivah in the modern era, education began in early childhood, continued through adolescence, into manhood, which should have ideally been carried over by the graduate into married life, middle age, and down to the last days of life. An aim of lifelong Torah education was to create that level of Torah consciousness called da'as, meant to denote intellectual maturity, acumen, and the awareness of God's greatness. The Torah cemented the unity of God and the Jews. Thus, Israel, Torah, and God became "One". Indeed,Helmreich writes that the shema ("Hear 0 Israel the Lord is Our God, the Lord is One"), one of the holiest Jewish prayers, states succinctly: "And these words . . . thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children . . . " (Deuteronomy 6:4-9). This exhortation, and others like it, "was presented by Moses in the name of God to the Israelites, . . . the commandment to learn was of divine origin, as was knowledge itself." 4 

Judah Pilch in A History of Jewish Education in America (1969), has noted that the Talmudical Academies in America concerned themselves primarily with the teaching of "talmudic literature". Pilch places on record that most of these schools were so organized as to afford opportunities for traditional Jewish studies on the elementary and secondary levels for large numbers of students and "rabbinic training" for the graduates of the mesivta (the secondary department) who manifested an interest and capacity for advanced talmudical studies. Pilch correctly points out that "the chief aim of these academies is 'lernen', the study of 'Torah for its own sake' (Torah lishma) ." 5 

Alvin I. Schiff in The Jewish Day School in America (1966), has presented the curriculum of the Rabbi Jacob Joseph School and Mesivta, an early established traditional yeshivah. 6 What emerged was the emphasis on Talmud--Torah SheBe'alpeh, as the heart and core of the traditional yeshivah curriculum. Helmreich goes into some detail concerning the formal function of the yeshivah in the chapter: "In the Path of the Lord: Teachings of the Faith", which includes "mastering the Talmud", "content and method of the Talmud", "the purpose of Talmud Study", "the teaching of ethics", and "prayer and meditation". 7 In an earlier section he sums up the main characteristics of the advanced yeshivahs as: 
1. Having programs in which the students spend most of their time in talmudic study. Subjects such as ethics and Bible also being taught. 
2. Having goals, such as the transmission of tradition "at the highest levels", training rabbis and teachers, bringing Jews closer to Judaism. 
3. Having a hierarchy, with a rosh yeshivah at the head of each institution. 
4. Having "European antecedents". 
5. Having leaders who "tend to move in the same social circles, sharing a common system of norms and values." 8 

However, the broad world of Jewish education in America contained types of formal educational institutions that differed greatly from the pattern outlined above. Frequently, schools that were established in America after the Second World War differed radically from the time-honored traditional European models. What emerged in America was a grouping of schools. one strongly identified with the traditional models and generally called "yeshivahs" (or mesivtas), and another under the label "Hebrew Day Schools". Both groups shared similar goals, and often shared a symbiotic existence. But, there were major differences in methods, educational policies, and results. Jewish education in America remained a multi-dimensional domain. 

The Second World War and the Growth of the Day Schools 

The period 1940-1964 has been called the "Era of Great Expansion" in Jewish education by Alvin I. Schiff in The Jewish Day School in America (1966). When Europe was at the threshold of its darkest hour, America was about to witness a rapid increase of Jewish all-day schools. Schiff has noted that the year 1940 marked the beginning of the period of phenomenal growth for the Jewish day school movement. "Two hundred and seventy-one yeshivot, 91 percent of all existing day schools, were established after this date. In 1940, at the beginning of the Era of Great Expansion, there were thirty-five yeshivot with an approximate enrollment of 7,700 pupils . . . . By 1964 the enrollment grew to approximately 65,000 students in 306 schools and departments." 9 Helmreich has updated these figures to 613 schools catering to 100,150 students, including high school students, in 1978. 10 

Prior to the Second World War, Jewish immigrants relied primarily on the American public schools to provide a general education, which was viewed as an essential steppingstone and key for entry into American life, business and culture. Jewish education was provided in separate institutions, mainly in the afternoons and Sundays at Talmud Torahs or hedorim. The roles of the synagogues, temples, and the family as educators were weakened, and even neglected, when compared to the emphasis placed on secular education. At the higher education level, there were few Jewish institutions that provided anywhere as intensive a program of Torah education as could be found in Europe. 

The public school curriculum, and the system as such, was too powerful a force for the average Jewish child. The Talmud Torahs had the unenviable task of playing "second fiddle" to the public schools. The result was massive alienation from Jewish roots. Norman Podhoretz in his autobiographical work Making It (1967) has described the workings of this process upon himself. He describes the immigrant Jewish milieu from which he derived as "having been driven by an uninhibited hunger for success". The first step towards success was to receive a broad public education. It was in high school that Podhoretz came under the tutelage of an English teacher, "Mrs. K.", who "was also famous for being an extremely good teacher". From the age of thirteen to sixteen Podhoretz was her "special pet", as an intense relationship developed between them: 

She flirted with me and flattered me, she scolded me and insulted me. Slum child, filthy little slum child, so beautiful a mind and so vulgar a personality, so exquisite in sensibility and so coarse in manner. What would she do with me, what would become of me if I persisted out of stubbornness and perversity in the disgusting ways they had taught me at home and on the streets. 11 

Podhoretz writes that in retrospect, he is struck by "the astonishing rudeness of this woman to whom 'manners' were of such overriding concern". His assessment is that "good manners" meant only one thing to "Mrs. K.": "Conformity to a highly stylized set of surface habits and fashions which she took, quite as a matter of course, to be superior to all other styles of social behavior." The real purpose of this education was meant to achieve an acknowledgement of the superiority of "a better class of people". "I had to signify by my general deportment that I acknowledged them as superior to the class of people among whom I happened to have been born. That was the bargain--take it or leave it." 12

And what of Podhoretz's parents and home environment? They were immigrants from Eastern Europe who were raised in "fanatically Orthodox homes". His father, whilst "not especially observant himself . . . respected observance in others" and encouraged it in his son. He was a "Jewish survivalist, unclassified and eclectic . . . . outraged by any species of Jewish assimilationism, whether overt or concealed." 13 There was thus the inherent drive for self-preservation that sought to somehow accommodate itself to modern life in America: 

The point was to be a Jew, and the way to be a Jew was to get a Jewish education; never mind about definitions, ideologies, justifications. There were, to be sure, limits; he would not, for example, yield to his father-in-law's demand that I be sent to a yeshiva: had he cut off his own earlocks in order that his American son should grow a pair? And his son, make no mistake about it, was and would be an American. On the other hand, he was determined not to settle for the usual course of instruction leading to an ending with the bar mitzvah ceremony at the age of thirteen. 14 

Thus the home that was committed to things Jewish and therefore ensured "Hebrew school" extra-curricular education, also relished that general education which would create an "American". For the average child this was, and has in many instances remained, an intolerable conflict of "interests". As Podhoretz writes: "I didn't mind going at first, but after a while I began to resent what more and more seemed a purposeless infringement on my freedom. Everyone else could fool around in the streets after school and on Sunday; why did I alone have to miss out on all the fun?" 15 For a child this was a powerful question, and as the history of that age shows, Jewish education suffered. In the face of "Mrs. K.'s" cultural offensive, parental vacillation about Jewish education, and the attractiveness of "fun" on the streets, Jewish "afternoon-schools" were doomed in the long run. 

Given that predicament, and following in the aftermath of the Second World War, new impetus was given to revise prevailing attitudes towards Jewish education. Men such as Rabbi Shraga Feivel Mendlowitz, a leading figure in the yeshivah of Torah Vodaath in Brooklyn, founded Torah Umesorah during the war years. This "National Society for Hebrew Day Schools" was dedicated to the aim of establishing a day school in every town and location that had a Jewish community. As Rabbi Mendlowitz had envisaged, the curricula of day schools were ideally meant to imitate those of the traditional yeshivahs. In reality however, this was not as simple as it may have sounded, for the cultural forces described by Podhoretz were still predominant. 

Thus, even though Jewish day schools grew and even flourished all over the United States, Canada, and Mexico, to over 600 schools with over 100,000 full-time students--each was unique. Many of these schools named themselves, "Yeshivah", or "Mesivta", or "Jewish", or "Hebrew", but very fundamentally the Jewish curriculum varied from school to school. In many cases, the Torah and Jewish studies curriculum was very far removed in both content and intensity from that of the traditional yeshivah. It is ironical that whilst the elementary and high-school divisions of traditional yeshivahs fall under the broad label of "day schools" they are vastly different to the usual day schools found in America's Jewish communities. 

The day school movement has been curtly analyzed by Helmreich, precisely because the average day school is greatly different from the traditional yeshivah. Helmreich states: "Only a minority of children in the day schools are observant (just how many is not known) or continue in religious high schools, and an even smaller number go on to advanced yeshivas." Calling the high-school division of the traditional yeshivah "mesivta", he concludes that "it is the day school and the mesivta that provide the basic education for almost all of those who study at the beis medrash level." The beis medrash referring to the post-high school division of the traditional yeshivah. He adds that there has always been a good deal of "crossing over" between schools characterized as "modern" and those that are "traditional": "Parents may find a particular emphasis not to their liking at the elementary school level and compensate for it by sending their children to a different type of high school." 16 There is thus a fundamental difference in types of day schools. Those day schools that seek to emulate the traditional yeshivahs differ greatly from more "modern" day schools. 

Several writers have noted that it was the advanced yeshivahs that played a crucial role in the development of the day school movement. As stated by Helmreich: 

It was their leaders who anticipated both the need for and the importance of such education to provide a steady stream of students to the higher schools. The National Society for Hebrew Day Schools (Torah Umesorah), which is involved in almost every aspect of day school education, is staffed primarily by graduates of advanced yeshivas, and is strongly influenced by a board of rosh yeshivas with respect to policy matters. 17

It was during the height of the European catastrophe that the push for day schools began in earnest. In 1941, Rabbi Shraga Feivel Mendlowitz (1886-1948) fulfilled a long sought dream: He established a school called Esh Das (the "Fire of Faith") which would be dedicated to the development of a type of Torah worker who would make the self-sacrifice of exclusive devotion to the perpetuation of Torah in America. Rabbi Mendlowitz chose a select group of students to spearhead this movement. They were to play a key role in fulfilling another of his ideals: the establishment of Hebrew day schools throughout America. The operation began in earnest in June 1944, when "at a conference of leading religious- and lay-leaders at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York City, Torah Umesorah, the National Society for Hebrew Day Schools, was born." 18 

Samuel C. Feuerstein, a lay leader of Torah Umesorah has written of Rabbi Mendlowitz's vision and "blueprint" for a "national agency" of Jewish education:

The war in Europe was over. The allies were victorious. . . . Our defeat was written large in the smokestacks of the crematoria and in the devastated Torah centers of a European community . . . which for a thousand years gave us scholars, saints, and sages..... 

And now that link . . . was in the balance....... 

Reb Feivel Mendlowitz . . . took this vision and planted it in the soil of the practical dimensions of the American community. 19 

Through Torah Umesorah, Rabbi Mendlowitz ensured a link between the larger traditional yeshivahs, and the variegated day schools which were springing up. There was thus also a link between what was lost in Eastern Europe and the new educational institutions founded in America. This linkage took on greater proportions with the arrival of men such as Rabbi Aharon Kotler (1891-1962). Rabbi Kotler exerted direct influence on all major developments of Torah Umesorah and on its founder. During a war-time encounter between the two men, Rabbi Kotler is reported to have convinced Rabbi Mendlowitz that "in view of the on-going annihilation of European Jewry, he should reorder his priorities. Hitler was destroying Torah centers of Europe and systematically wiping out their leaders in the process . . it was time for America to seriously plan on producing its own outstanding scholars to create in America and to maintain for the entire world the highest possible levels of Torah scholarship." 20 The day schools were only the means to such an end. 

There was a national climate that made such goals seem possible. Marshall Sklare in America's Jews (1971) asks how can the rise of the day school be explained? He replies that one significant influence is the character of the Jewish immigrants who came to America as a result of World War II. The Orthodox Jews who came to America did so out of necessity rather than choice:

In fact, their version of the American dream was that they should have the freedom to reestablish the way of life they had enjoyed before the Holocaust. Thus without hesitation they proceeded to organize their own schools--schools that would give primacy to Jewish culture and shield their children and others from the influence of the secularism of the public schools. 21 

In addition to this, adds Sklare, there was widespread disillusionment with the results of "Hebrew School education", the Talmud Torahs and hedorim, on the part of "moderate and centrist Orthodox elements, as well as some traditionally minded adherents of Conservative Judaism." 22 Alvin Schiff in The Jewish Day School in America (1966) confirms this view, providing a brief summary of the reasons for the growth of the Jewish day schools: 
1. Pioneer efforts of earlier institutions. 
2. Inspired Orthodox leaders who were devoted to the ideals of intensive Jewish education. 
3. The changing.international Jewish scene, particularly the destruction of the European Jewish community, and the establishment of the State of Israel. 
4. The changing American Jewish scene, namely the nature of post-World War II immigration and the rise of native American yeshivah exponents. There was also the deterioration of supplementary Jewish education as provided by the communal Talmud Torahs and the afternoon Hebrew schools. 
5. Changes in the general community with a wartime and postwar upsurge in religious sentiment, and prosperity. However, conditions in the public schools worsened with the increase of "blackboard jungle" conditions. 
6. There were special features, such as the prestige of private schooling and the advantages for working mothers of the all-day school. 
7. Organized promotion by Torah Umesorah, the National Council for Torah Education of the Mizrachi (Religious Zionists), the Lubavitchers, and others. 
8. Encouragement from Jewish leaders; amongst the lay and even non-religious Jewish personalities. 
9. Good timing and motivation, which meant that underlying the individual factors that encouraged the expansion was the unique combination of the right circumstances: "The need for intensive Jewish schools, the readiness of many sectors of the Jewish community to accept and support the day school idea, the proper timing of the pioneer efforts, the continuing external forces catalyzing the development, and the stubborn zealousness of Jewish Day School leaders." 23

No historical phenomenon can be attributed to one factor. There are always a number of factors at work on various levels and in various dimensions. The establishment and growth of Jewish day schools in America has been no exception. The factors which contributed to growth, were also the ingredients of complexity and conflict within the day school program. 

Resistance to Total Jewish Education: Dissonant Configurations 

Alvin Schiff has stated that there are no hard-and-fast rules to categorize the various types of day schools: "Although the Jewish Day Schools are generally regarded as communal schools with a traditional program, it is not good practice to consider them as one group of schools or one form of education." He stresses that even the majority-type Orthodox-oriented day school is divided into a number of categories. In general terms there are two broad Orthodox groups: 
1. European or traditional, including Hasidic, day schools or yeshivahs. 
2. Modern or modified,often co-ed,Hebraic day schools or yeshivahs. 24 

Concerning the second group of more modern schools, Schiff cites a study involving parents by Louis Nulman: "The Reactions of Parents to a Jewish All Day School" (1955). The study showed that many parents did not have a complete understanding of the school program. Very few of the parents had attended an all-day school themselves, and they were confused "as to their own positions regarding Jewish belief and practice". One group of parents were found not fully accepting of the day school's emphasis on the teaching of ritual observance. Another group were parents "who do not usually exhibit strong Jewish identification and activity...Although they do not object to the school's teachings, they endeavor to transmit to their children the idea that the home and school operate in two unrelated spheres." 25 

Even though Schiff concludes that it is impossible to generalize from the results of one study, for there are a wide variety of "characteristics and interests", there is still the problem of the home and school having to "operate in two unrelated spheres". The notion of two elements of a broader configuration, in this case home and school, conveying two different "educations", is dealt with by Lawrence A. Cremin in Public Education (1976). He states that "the relationships among the institutions constituting a configuration of education may be complementary or contradictory, consonant or dissonant." 26 In the case of the modern day school's, albeit moderate, emphasis on "ritual observance", as opposed to the home environment's indifferent, and often hostile, attitude towards religious practice, a "dissonant" and even contradictory configuration arises. 

The differing interests of home and day school reflect the "dissonance" between the aims of the day schools' rabbinical pioneers, and the more entrenched Jewish population of the United States. Quite often even those American Jews who were receptive to the idea of all-day schools in the emotional aftermath of the Second World War, were not willing to accept the implications of total Jewish education. Jewish education as perceived by Rabbi Shraga Feivel Mendlowitz, the "father" of Torah Umesorah, meant that the ultimate objective would be to educate the young in becoming Torah-observant Jews. This was manifest in struggles over the day schools' curricula. Whilst rabbis and Orthodox rabbinical leaders urged an increase in the quality of the Jewish studies curriculum, specifically Torah and Talmud studies, parents emphasized secular studies and often denigrated Jewish studies. Cremin touches upon such a phenomenon when he writes that "the teacher may attempt to liberate (by proffering intellectual, moral, or vocational alternatives) at the same time as the parent attempts to constrain." He cites the countless instances in which parents prefer the immediate earnings of a dependent child to the continuance of a school career that would defer earnings." 27

It is not surprising that observers of day school education write in skeptical tones. Milton Himmelfarb's "Reflection on the Jewish Day School" (1960), faults the day school for not connecting with the rest of culture: "The general and the Jewish are at best put side by side mechanically, not combined organically." Himmelfarb therefore states that "I am not sure that they ordinarily provide a sound education". He faults the day school curriculum which aims to educate people "among whom talmide hakhamim may arise. Their curriculum, like their aim, is the one sanctified by tradition. . . . That will not do." Why? The answer is because "the children in the day schools are going to be well educated. . . . The air they breathe will be the air of the American variant of Western culture. The vice of the day school is that it ignores Western culture. " 28 Himmelfarb is therefore both skeptical and scornful of what he perceives to be the narrow and isolationist aspects of the day schools' Jewish curriculum. 

Another perspective is that of Elchonon Oberstein in "Community Controlled Day Schools: The Way Things Are" (1977), who says that the average day school parent is "firmly acculturated and to a large extent assimilated into the mainstream of American life. Their yearning for tradition should not be interpreted as a willingness to adopt an 'alien' life style." Oberstein would no doubt indirectly reassure Himmelfarb that the child within its home setting is well entrenched in general American culture. Oberstein admits that: 

One view frequently enunciated is that Day Schools will change communities, that large numbers of American Jews will become observant of halacha through their child's exposure to Torah Judaism from the ages of five to twelve years old. This is naive, unfounded, and simply a pipe dream. It demonstrates a condescending attitude towards other forces within the religious segment of the Jewish Establishment and ignores the sociological and psychological reasons for the present lack of mass orthodoxy in Judaism and indeed in all Western religions. 

. . . In short,, there are two major handicaps faced by day school educators: the children leave the school too soon; and even while they are in school, community and parental control of the curriculum make the dosage of Yiddishkeit weaker than would be necessary to offset changes. 29

Parents, represented by a school's chairman of the board or president, and Judaic teachers, represented by the principal or rosh yeshivah, are often locked in a struggle over school policy. More often than not, the laymen win because they control the instruments of power. There is therefore the great irony that whilst the Second World War spurred on the growth of day schools, it also thereby exacerbated a broader struggle between the secular lay leadership- and those Jewish educators whose primary roots were in the yeshivah world. It was a consistent, and even logical, reflection of the long-term historical struggle between haskalah and halachah--secular Enlightenment versus traditional Judaism. 

The dissonance between different types of schools within the broader configuration of Orthodox education was another direct result of the traditional yeshivah's growth after the Second World War. Rabbi Meir Belsky, Rosh Yeshivah of the Yeshiva of the South, Memphis, Tenn., has stated that "a growing hostility between the day school and the mesivta high school is discernable; reminiscent of the early hostility between.the day school and the community, with the same language being used." The mesivtas or high school divisions of traditional yeshivahs, were seen by the day schools as too religious (frum), intensive, isolated, isolating and elitist, with the insinuation that "the mesivta gives the day school a bad image!", writes Rabbi Belsky in "The Day Schools in the U.S.: Another View" (1977). He outlines "two images of, and visions for, the yeshiva high school . . . that . . . are incompatible and irreconcilable. The claim to espouse both, speak for both, represent both, is one of those unhappy illusions that Jews have a propensity for." 30 Hence the polarization of two broad groups of schools: those more "modern", uncomfortable with a "yeshivah" image; and those more traditional yeshivahs embarrassed by having to be classified together with other "day schools". 

The traditional yeshivahs themselves were also victims of unique dissonant configurations of education. William Helmreich has classified the quarter million strong American "Orthodox community" as: 
1. The Ultra Orthodox; 
2. The Modern Orthodox; 
3. The Strictly Orthodox. 

Amongst the "Ultra Orthodox" he places the Hasidic communities, such as Lubavitch, Satmar and other Hasidic groups of Polish and Hungarian origin. "They do not as a rule attend secular college and most are engaged in trades or business. Their social interaction with outsiders is minimal." On the other end of this communal "continuum" are the "Modern Orthodox" who "tend to send their children to coed, ideologically liberal yeshivas at both the elementary and high school levels, and attend synagogues which have a more modern and formal service." As a rule they prefer to send their children to secular college after high school. The third group, which Helmreich arbitrarily labels as "Strictly Orthodox", falls somewhere between the Ultra Orthodox and the Modern Orthodox....... It is from this group that the advanced yeshivas..... draw most of their students, faculty, and administrators. 31 

As Helmreich stresses, since there is a "continuum" between all three groups, ("A highly complex system of norms exists within these sub communities that establishes the category to which an individual is assigned by others, and criteria for making that decision vary greatly from individual to individual. A good many persons have been reared with involvement in more than one community"); and since it is also true that the children of the "Strictly Orthodox" are sent primarily to "more Orthodox yeshivas, usually all-boys or all-girls schools" 32, the diverse backgrounds, often of one family, create situations of potential dissonance within the "Strictly Orthodox" educational configuration. 

In the chapter "Preparing for Life Outside of the Yeshiva" in Helmreich's book, we see the clash, or dissonance, between college attendance, and the primacy of religious study. Various solutions arose to solve this dissonance. Some yeshivahs allowed their students to attend college in the evenings. After the Second World War a large, and very vocal, group of yeshivahs arose that banned outright any college attendance by its students. At the forefront of this group stood Rabbi Aharon Kotler and his Lakewood Yeshivah with all its "branches". These yeshivahs were against college "because it detracts from involvement in talmudic study. The yeshiva believes that true Torah study requires total immersion, and that anything extraneous will dilute the quality of such study." 33

However, other yeshivahs have adopted a different solution to the inherent dissonance between college studies and Torah learning. Yeshivahs such as Torah Vodaath, Chaim Berlin, Ner Isarel, Chofetz Chaim, and at one point even the Mirrer Yeshivah, allowed their students to enroll at colleges concurrently. The basic rationale was that "college can be justified on the grounds that it will help the student to become financially self-supporting." As Helmreich accurately illustrates: 

. . . The yeshivas draw upon numerous sources in the Bible and Talmud which view secular and pre-professional study as permissible only when necessary for one's livelihood. There is nonetheless, considerable variation in emphasis and approach to the issue among the different rosh yeshivas. Thus, Rabbi Shmuel Berenbaum of the Mirrer Yeshiva stated unequivocally, "The whole idea of college is terrible", while Rabbi Yaakov Ruderman took a more moderate position, saying "College gives a person parnoseh (a livelihood)." 34

Traditional yeshivahs, day schools, Orthodox Jews of every ilk, and any Jewish family in America concerned or involved with Jewish education of any sort--all had to face the inescapable reality of dissonant configurations of education. It was the Second World War that fanned the flames of Jewish education in America. Day schools, yeshivahs, and communities flourished, and a powerful communal debate commenced about how to educate and what to teach. The freedom of America allowed each group or school to achieve its own "consonant" and "complementary" modus vivendi. The broader questions remained unresolved. 

The Influence and Contribution of Orthodox Education 

There has been a crisis in education--both amongst Jews and society at large. Time magazine dedicated its June 16, 1980 cover story to the "multifaceted crisis of America's public schools". Noting that violence keeps making headlines, test scores keep dropping, a fifth of all Americans are functionally illiterate, and teachers are blamed for much of the trouble, the dean of Stanford University's School of Education is quoted as saying: "For the first time, it is conceivable to envision the dismantling of universal, public, compulsory education as it has been pioneered in America." 35 For Jews, as for all Americans, this crisis has contributed to a reassessment of prevailing assumptions. It has also been an important factor in the growth of day schools and yeshivahs. The question thus arises: What has been the contribution and influence of the largely Orthodox-oriented institutions to the Jewish community and society at large? 

The answer is that for the Jewish community in particular, Orthodox educational institutions have created an alternative to the prevailing state of confusion, and even chaos. For American society at large, there is first of all, the direct and indirect influence of those Jewish citizens who have been imbued with what they have been taught. Secondly, there is the example set forth by the institutions to anyone searching for answers to the predicament of public education. Robert Ulich, in his Preface to Three Thousand Years of Educational Wisdom (1954), has written that: "We are fumbling around in education because we know so little about the future and do not bother to know enough about the past." His book "is an attempt to help in the rebuilding of the lost contact between the surface and depth of civilization . . . it is an attempt at general education . . . placing ideas of general human significance behind the often chopped up and atomistic activities of life." 36 

How does Ulich hope to achieve such an aim? By returning to the primary sources. He provides selections from the "Great Documents" of the past in the hope of connecting present civilization with its "wellsprings". One of his primary "wellsprings" is the Judaic tradition: "Judaism is not only in itself one of the greatest expressions of mankind's religious spirit; from it also two other great world religions have derived their faith, namely the Christian and the Moslem." Ulich observes that Judaism is that kind of religion in which the practical and the theoretical elements are so closely fused, that "instruction was not, as it often is with us, a matter of individual promotion, but a sacred duty." 37 He cites the Bible, the Babylonian Talmud, Maimonides, and Moses Hayyim Luzzatto (1707-1747), as providing clear-cut and profound educational advice. All of these sources remain primary curriculum content in yeshivahs and day schools. 

This would mean a very clear-cut "return to the basics". Lawrence Cremin has noted that it was Thomas Jefferson who stated in 1816: "Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day." However, Cremin notes that a century and a half later "we are less naive, perhaps, about the powers of popular enlightenment . . . . For popular education may not have guaranteed men freedom--Nazi Germany,after all, was one of the most literate nations in history." 38 Even though 'Cremin retains his personal faith in popular education, it is significant that he uses the case of Nazi Germany as an example of a highly literate nation that sank to the lowest level of barbarity. Education must create more than literacy and general enlightenment to achieve humanity. There is something more "fundamental" and "basic" that must be achieved: ethical and moral standards. 

There has been some fresh talk in the academic community about the place and purpose of moral education in American education. Douglas Sloan has edited a work on Education and Values (1979) wherein the debate concerning moral education is widened by a variety of authors. In his Preface, Sloan writes that there is a need for the "university of the future" to take hold of "the connections between knowledge and human values". This applies to all elements of the American educational configuration. For Sloan, "It is not a question of values or no values, of morality or no morality, but of which values, which morality?" He holds forth Emerson's criterion by which every educational method and educational system should be judged for adequacy: "Not to accept degrading views". Sloan believes that there is "much in our education and in our sanctioned, orthodox views of the world--the various determinisms, environmentalisms, behaviorisms, scientisms--that degrade the human being, they seek to simplify the human problems, and thus, they reduce the human potential to something other and lower than itself." 39 What is needed as a remedy is a greater attention to the connection between knowledge and values. Clearly, there remains much that Jewish education can contribute. 

Sloan subscribes to Jacques Ellul's notion that the central problem of Western civilization is "the betrayal of reason by rationalism". Reason has been "truncated" and "reduced" into narrow scientific and technological boundaries, divorced from religion, ethics, and metaphysical beliefs. There is a need for a "thorough transformation of our present conceptions of knowledge and knowing", because there is an "intellectual, moral, and spiritual vacuum" that is allowing "black-magic educators" to fill the present emptiness. Sloan cites the pathetic example of the "tragedy of the People's Temple in Guyana", where hundreds of people followed a false savior to their doom. 40 How much more so is there a need for a greater linkage between moral and general education in the wake of the Second World War! 

Indeed, as Sloan reports in "The Teaching of Ethics in the American Undergraduate Curriculum, 1876-1976": "World War II helped touch off a renewed surge of interest in the movement" of "general education". In other words, "general education" as the formation of "ethical discernment and capacity for action must extend throughout all education and all of life." However, the launching of Sputnik in 1957 renewed the march of scientific and technological interests. Thus, natural science, one of the branches of knowledge, was reinforced in its general acceptance during this century "as the one and only valid mode of knowledge". 41 

Russell Kirk, writing in the Modern Age (Winter, 1978) on "The Necessity of Dogmas in Schooling", is more specific than Sloan. Kirk defines "dogma" as "a settled opinion: a principle, maxim, or tenet firmly established . . . received an authority--as opposed to one based on personal experience." He says that "dogma" is derived from a Greek root meaning "that which seems good". Kirk admits that "nowadays no word seems to frighten schoolteachers more than this word 'dogma'. 'We're not propagandists!' a representative teacher of the social sciences may exclaim indignantly, on hearing the suggestion that they ought to try to impart to their pupils some notions of moral worth and social obligation." Teachers hold that their responsibility is to "present the facts". As Kirk wryly observes: 

Children must make up their own minds upon questions of order in the soul and order in the commonwealth. Would you prefer to be the burglar, or the burgled, Johnny? Look at the "facts" and make up your mind; develop your own "value--preferences". One trouble with such a concept of "objectivity" is that, in the short run at least, it may seem distinctly more pleasant to burgle than to be burgled. 42 

Kirk states that a dogma is not a "value--preference", but rather "a firm conviction, received on authority." He stresses that any society lives by dogmas because private or public action must be founded upon certainties. He maintains that dogmas "grow out of the ineluctable necessity for a core of common belief, in church, in state. Private judgement, unattached to dogmas, is insufficient for the moral order or the social order." This is the main problem with "teaching about values", it can be interpreted as a personal preference. A primary resource for time-honored dogmas is religion, as Kirk says he prefers "proverbs", such as "Thou shalt not commit adultery", "Thou shalt not bear false witness", "Thou shalt not steal", to the "clever paradoxes" of the men of science. Kirk is dismayed by the diminishing of religious schools "or by their virtual absorption into the climate of opinion (or of non-opinion) which prevails in the public schools". In short, Kirk concludes: "I subscribe, however unfashionably, to the dogma that two and two make four, and to the dogma that the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom. In our time, the fear of dogma is the ruin of wisdom." 43 

Some Orthodox leaders have been very explicit about the need for greater moral education in public schools. The Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi M. M. Schneerson, has urged that "a simple, brief, non-denominational prayer" be introduced to be recited by children at the beginning of each day, "affirming their belief and trust in God". Rabbi Schneerson maintains that "sincere, honest words . . . . will go far in inspiring children to live up to the standards set by the Bible." In an address, which was largely directed at President Reagan following the attempt on his life, Rabbi Schneerson sought to stress that: "Education is not, as some suppose, the mere acquisition of skills and knowledge. More importantly, it is the inculcation of ethics and morals with which to equip children to be decent and productive citizens. An amoral, value-free education can lead to an egocentric, self-centered lifestyle, resulting in a dangerous indifference to one's obligations to society." 44 It is a great irony of history that a Hasidic Rebbe who was brought to America by the tides of the Second World War should urge Americans to pursue moral education.

Rabbi Schneerson maintains that the role of the Presidency, no matter who holds office, is "to strengthen the basis of our very existence. That basis is stated on every dollar bill printed in the U.S.A., and is the foundation upon which this country was born--'In God We Trust'." He openly states that "in the U.S. the state is responsible for the education of its citizens. It is thus the responsibility, and indeed privilege, of the public school system to instill in their charges the knowledge that God is not only the Creator of the World, but a Being in Whom we trust. It is this knowledge which is the foundation for a life of productivity and decency." 45 To what extent this message was heard by the President or members of government is difficult to know. What remains on the record is stated by D. Goldberg in The Rebbe: Changing the Tide of Education (1982): 

Over the course of several years, representatives of the Rebbe in various cities had made close contact with high-placed members of State and Federal governments and legislatures. These Lubavitcher emissaries felt that the Rebbe's emphasis on education can be of great benefit for the wider public of the United States and, indeed, the world. As a result, the U.S. House of Representatives declared that year as a national "Year of Education". But the emissaries still felt that something more permanent and far-reaching could truly realize the enormous potential of this theme for the American people. The following year (1978), both the House of Representatives and Senate passed a resolution naming the Rebbe's birthday as "Education Day, U.S.A.", an annual national event. 46 

The rise of Orthodoxy in post-war America, has therefore meant that American society at large was bound to receive the "feed back" from that growth. Though most Orthodox leaders have continued to urge the teaching of ethics from conventional sources, there have been some interesting alternatives proposed by primarily non-Orthodox circles. One method has been the advocation of "Holocaust Studies" in public schools. Henry Friedlander, in "Toward a Methodology of Teaching about the Holocaust" (1979), presents arguments on "why, how, and to whom the Holocaust ought to be taught". He proposes that one reason, "is to understand the present"; another, "is to understand man and his society". This requires a study of "the intellectual milieu that made genocide possible", as well as "the causes, the limitations, and the dynamics of anti-Semitism." Other approaches include investigations of: "how the impulse to persecute or exterminate is generated"; the social and psychological roots of twentieth-century unreason; and technology and mass murder. A final reason for teaching the Holocaust, says Friedlander, "is that its lessons can help us teach civic virtue." 47

However, teaching history does not always translate into good moral education. There are inherent difficulties in deriving "civic virtues" from "Holocaust Studies". Whereas the Bible, and conventional morality, can be transmitted on a universal basis, why should a general student audience pay heed to one ethnic group's calamity? Interestingly, Friedlander says:"I do not mean that the Holocaust should simply be used to teach conventional patriotism and accepted moral values." His notion of what can be learnt however, is not the same as the notions of Sloan and Kirk, and Orthodox leaders such as Rabbi Schneerson. Friedlander has other things in mind: ". . . Its lessons must be used to demonstrate the need for what the Germans have called Zivilcourage. We need to teach the importance of responsible citizenship and mature iconoclasm." 48 

The derivation of "civic virtues" from the events of the European tragedy need not take the shape of "Holocaust Studies" in schools. The day schools, and yeshivahs themselves are the living memorials to a spirit that refused to be broken. They strive for a healthy view of the world not based on the events of a single historical event. If educators were to study the role of moral education in yeshivahs and day schools they would find a broader and richer resource for moral education in general. To disembody an event from history and present it as an abject lesson in morality, or amorality, is a lot more difficult than looking at a mature system of moral education that helped a people survive and what it can teach humanity. 

Writing in 1953, Marvin Fox enunciated a much publicized set of guidelines of what Orthodox day schools could contribute to American education. "Day Schools and the American Educational Pattern" originated with an address to a PTA convention of day school parents and educators by Fox, then a professor of philosophy at Ohio State University. It was first published in the Jewish Parent magazine (September 1953), and has subsequently been reprinted in Gartner's Jewish Education in America (1969), Torah Umesorah's Hebrew Day School Education (1970), and studied in Schiff's The Jewish Day School in America (1966). It contains five basic observations and proposals: 
1. The strength of the day schools lies not in their similarities to other schools, but in their differences. He urges day schools to "abandon unnecessary aping of other schools", because in fact, the degree to which they will develop "their own special genius is the degree to which they will be genuinely significant for all education in America". 
2. The day schools must announce their opposition to "scientific naturalism" and to "value-free education". They must candidly and explicitly announce their commitment to a particular set of values rooted in Jewish tradition. By presenting an alternative they "can help to avert the dangers of the kind of intellectual totalitarianism" of naturalism "glorified by the name of Dewey". 
3. Day schools should take pride in, and encourage, "high intellectual values and intellectual achievements" which are a part of Judaism. 
4. Democracy has been distorted to mean "freedom from authority", consequently discipline is viewed as a "reactionary attitude". However, "Judaism has never seen any difficulty in reconciling human equality with reverence for authority". The day schools are "obligated to stand openly against the exaggerated notions of freedom from authority which endangers our young people". 
5. The day schools should be seen as important bulwarks against the "terrible moral confusions of our time". It is "through the medium of the sacred writings in their broadest scope" that the Jewish schools seek to deliberately endow their students with "moral knowledge and, even more, to develop in them moral sensitivity". There should be "training of the spirit as well as the mind" which is "a truth all educators would do well to learn from the experience of Jewish educational institutions". 49

Schiff classifies the above as "potential effects", or a "potential force vis-a-vis the general American educational scene." The "actual effects" however, "cannot be measured in quantative terms". It is however safe to assume that there is an indirect influence. Schiff states that yeshivah education has shown that young children can master a foreign language, cope with a dual program of study, and be exposed to greater abstract and creative thinking much earlier than is generally assumed. In the "realm of educational philosophy" yeshivahs have shown the importance of "a sound core of values", and the need for an "intimate environment" for good learning to take place. Schiff stresses that "whatever influence the day school may have upon the general scene it is only secondary and incidental to its major purpose and function. The real vital impact of this institution is upon the Jewish community." 50 

Orthodoxy's success in establishing educational institutions had far-reaching effects. Marshall Sklare in his classic sociological study: Jewish Identity on the Suburban Frontier: A Study of Group Survival in the Open Society (1979), records that "the growth of Orthodox day schools succeeded in placing the question of Jewish education high on the agenda of the Jewish community, necessitating a response by the Conservative movement." As Sklare makes clear, the Conservative movement was torn between the undeniable "superior knowledge of Jewish culture and of the Hebrew language achieved by day-school students", and, support for public schooling. To avoid a reliance on Orthodox schools, there was a need to establish all-day schools that could train "future leaders" of the movement, hence the birth of the "Solomon Schechter schools". There was the curious theory that "while the supplementary school would educate the children of the Conservative masses, the Conservative day schools would educate future leaders, both lay and rabbinic for the Conservative movement." 51 

Marvin Fox has acknowledged that the Orthodox "Hebrew Day School" is the means of "insuring the Jewish integrity" of Jewish children "who are fully part of the American environment." In an address, published in The Jewish Parent (October 1964): "Character Training in the Face of Environmental Pressures", he says that in the day school movement "an incredibly powerful and indescribably sacred instrument for the preservation and elaboration of the highest Jewish values" has been created. It is because "our society has moved to a point in its history where the values which sustained it in the past are no longer operative and where new values are not yet clearly forthcoming" that the "prime objective of intensive Jewish education" must be "the development of moral qualities". Fox maintains that society's veneration of "material wealth and technical skill has resulted in moral obtuseness and insensitivity". The bitter truth is that "virtues such as love and honesty, kindness and charity, modesty, humility and self-effacement are no longer appreciated or sought after." 52 

The influence and contribution of Jewish Orthodox education, as viewed by Jewish and non-Jewish scholars and educators alike, must revolve primarily around the place and purpose of moral education. No matter what the means, whether it be home, community, school, or place of worship, there remains a real and constant need for moral education as people look for direction and guidance. Even in the last quarter of the twentieth century, the ancient traditions of Judaism and its teachings have meaning for humanity.

FOOTNOTES

1 Helmreich, World of the Yeshiva, pp. x-xi; 17. 
2 Ibid., pp. 45-51. 
3 Ibid., pp. 302-304. 
4 Ibid., pp. 1-2. 
5 Pilch, "From the Early Forties to the Mid-Sixties", p. 165. 
6 Schiff, The Jewish Day School, pp. 115-118. 
7 Helmreich, World of the Yeshiva, pp. 94-125. 
8 bid., p. 56. 
9 Schiff, The Jewish Day School, p. 48. 
10 Helmreich, World of the Yeshiva, p. 308. 
11 Norman Podhoretz, Making It (New York: Harper Colophon Books, 1967) pp. xiv; 7-9.
12 Ibid., pp. 19-20. 
13 Ibid., pp. 29-30. 
14 Ibid. 
15 Ibid. 
16 Helmreich, World of the Yeshiva, pp. 307-308. 
17 Ibid., p. 309. 
18 Joseph Kaminetsky and Alexander S. Gross, "Rabbi Shraga Feivel Mendlowitz." in Men of the Spirit, ed. Leo Jung, (New York: Kymson Publishing Company, 1964), pp. 563-564. 
19 Samuel C. Feuerstein, "Torah Umesorah 1944-1969: A Quarter of a Century", in Hebrew Day School Education: An Overview, ed. Joseph Kaminetsky, (New York: Torah Umesorah, 1970), pp. 71-72. 
20 Nisson Wolpin, "The Community Kollel: Reaching Out With Torah", The Jewish Observer, October 1979, p. 19. 
2l Sklare, America's Jews, p. 170. 
22 Ibid. 
23 Schiff, The Jewish Day School, pp. 74-83. 
24 Ibid., pp. 87-88 
25 Ibid., pp. 103-105. 
26 Cremin, Public Education, p. 31 
27 Ibid., p. 32. 
28 Milton Himmelfarb, "Reflection on the Jewish Day School", in Jewish Education in the United States, ed. Lloyd P. Gartner, pp. 214-224. 
29 Elchonon Oberstein, "A Postscript: Community Controlled Day Schools: The Way Things Are", The Jewish Observer, January 1977, pp. 7-8. 
30 Meir Belsky, "The Day School in the U.S.: Another View", The Jewish Observer, January 1977, pp. 5-7. 
31 Helmreich, World of the Yeshiva, pp. 52-54. 
32 Ibid., pp. 54-55. 
33 Ibid., pp. 219-221. 
34 Ibid., pp. 226; 220-221. 
35 "Help! Teacher Can't Teach", Time, June 16, 1980, p. 54. 
36 Robert Ulich, ed., Three Thousand Years of Educational Wisdom: Selections from Great Documents (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1954. Thirteenth Printing, 1979), p. v. 
37 Ibid., pp. 643-644 
38 Lawrence A. Cremin, "Forward", in Crusade Against Ignorance: Thomas Jefferson on Education, ed. Gordon C. Lee, (New York: Teachers College Press, 1961. Seventh Printing 1976). 
39 Douglas Sloan, ed., Education and Values (New York: Teachers College Press, 1980), pp. 1-4. 
40 Ibid., pp. 4-5. 
41 Ibid., pp. 191-254. 
42 Russel Kirk, "The Necessity of Dogmas in Schooling", Modern Age: A Quarterly Review, Winter 1978, pp. 2-3. 
43 Ibid., pp. 4-7. 
44 Rivkin and Goldberg, The Rebbe, pp. 225-228. 
45 Ibid., pp. 233-236. 
46 Ibid., p. 88. 
47 Henry Friedlander, "Toward a Methodology of Teaching about the Holocaust", in Education and Values, ed. Douglas Sloan, pp. 123-146. 
48 Ibid. 
49 Marvin Fox, "Day Schools and the American Educational Pattern", in Hebrew Day School Education: An Overview, ed. Joseph Kaminetsky, pp. 78-85. 
50 Schiff, The Jewish Day School, pp. 135-140. 
51 Marshall Sklare and Joseph Greenblum, Jewish Identity on the Suburban Frontier: A Study of Group Survival in the Open Society (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979. Second Edition), pp. 342-343. 
52 Marvin Fox, "Character Training in the Face of Environmental Pressures", in Building Jewish Ethical Character, eds. Joseph Kaminetsky and Murray I. Friedman (New York: Torah Umesorah, 1975), pp. 92-98.

CHAPTER IX
CONCLUSION

Conclusions are never easy, but they are always satisfying. It is undeniable that the Second World War has a central place in the history of Jewish education in modern America. As satisfying as this conclusion may be, it is not easy to define and explain why that is true. What makes matters more complicated is that historians and educationists are generally rooted in one field and often cannot perceive the direct connection between history and its impact on educational policy. On the other hand, the Jewish scholars of the Talmud, then and now, did not treat history, education, and Judaism as diverse fields. For them the Torah encompassed everything. Thus, whereas the "Holocaust" has become a source of consternation and bitterness in the general world, Orthodox Jewry seems to have placed it in a perspective that has not caused alienation.

In a recent work, On Equal Terms: Jews in America 1881-l981, (1982), Lucy S. Davidowicz has written that "the soil out of which the new Orthodoxy grew had been brought from Eastern Europe after the Second World War by survivors of the Holocaust, mostly, though not exclusively, Hasidim. Having outlived the gas chambers of the Third Reich and the Gulag of the Soviet Union, they brought to the United States their traditions, their learning, and above all their passion for Judaism. They built yeshivot and day schools with sacrificial effort. They shamed the established American Orthodox and Conservative institutions by their passion and, by example, vitalized them." 1

What motivated the men who led the rise of the "new" --but very old-- Orthodox? How did they view a world of "gas chambers" and "gulags"? Where did they find the vision and sense of purpose to rebuild in America? And, how did they translate their view of events into meaningful educational policies?

These questions should surely bother the general observer, as well as the serious student of Jewish education. The facts are irrefutable but interpretations, as always, differ. The observer is obliged to reach into his own "world" and interpret things according to his own history and education. Often an observer in one discipline will simply lack the information that exists within another field that would allow for a fuller and more satisfying conclusion.

As a historian, Lucy S. Davidowicz points to some poignant results of the war and its significance for American Jewry. In On Equal Terms she writes that "as we look back over the span of the century, the mass migration of the East European Jews to America that began in 1881 signified a providential course for the later survival of Ashkenazic Jewry". It was the war and Germany's seizure of Europe that "shifted the center of Jewish institutional life from Europe to America". Furthermore she points out that after the destruction of the East European Jews, America's Jews had to provide for themselves. She thus records the proliferation of Reform, Conservative, and Orthodox synagogues and the number of families affiliated with each: "The synagogue became, as it had been through the Jewish millennial past, the prime vehicle of Jewish continuity." This was because of a "remarkable rise in religiosity" that "characterized postwar America, no doubt a consequence of the war experience." 2 

The Arab-Israeli, Six-Day, War of June 1967 is seen by Davidowicz as changing the course of Jewish history. In response to greater international anti-Semitism there was a new assertiveness. It was in the post Six-Day War era that the extent of Orthodoxy's new-found life manifested itself:

Traditional Judaism--Orthodoxy--which for decades had been pronounced dying, if not dead, the possession only of the old and the alien, came alive, unpredictably, implausibly. In the decade after the Six-Day War Orthodoxy emerged youthful and vigorous to transform the landscape of American Judaism. (A similar phenomenon was evident also in Israel and, less visibly but nonetheless unmistakably, also in the countries of the English-speaking Diaspora.) 3

It is here that she notes that the "soil out of which the new Orthodoxy grew had been brought from Eastern Europe after the Second World War by survivors of the Holocaust". The focus of our thesis has been on the "soil" mentioned by Davidowicz. It was not only a matter of "soil", but of "planters" and "seeds of growth". Thus it is not the Six Day War that is the matrix, but a period before it. Davidowicz does not deal with the men and their ideals that produced the success evident in later years. She notes a unique feature of the times, but as a historian she lacks the ability to totally understand it:

The baal teshuvah, the returner to Judaism or to a more intense observance of it, became a commonplace phenomenon. No single factor explains how, suddenly it seemed, the return to Judaism had become not just an individual phenomenon but a social one. . . . The returnees were of all ages and all kinds of backgrounds, but the most spectacular were those who returned from the brink, as it were.

. . . Statistics are lacking, but the right-wing Orthodox and the sectarians rescued and recruited thousands. Their active presence and their confidence in their faith disturbed the self-content of the secularists. 4

An important phenomenon is thus noted. Its origins and attractiveness are vague, begging explanation and even modest interpretation that would get to the "soul of the matter". What role did the Second World War play in bringing about a phenomenon of "returnees" to Judaism? The difficulties inherent in interpreting cataclysmic events are evident when we examine, as an example, the views of Jacob Neusner, a university scholar of Judaic Studies at Brown University. In his recent work, Stranger at Home: "The Holocaust", Zionism, and American Judaism (1981), he deals with two events which have become the "twin pillars" upon which the world view of most American Jews is based: The murder of six million Jews between 1933 and 1945, and, the subsequent creation of the State of Israel. Concerning the former he asks: "What then are the implications of the Holocaust?" And answers:

In one sense, I claim there is no implication--none for Judaic theology, none for Jewish community life--which was not present before 1933 . . . one who did not believe in God before knowing about the Holocaust is not going to be persuaded to believe in Him on its account . . . The currently fashionable "Jewish assertion" draws on the Holocaust, to be sure, as a source of evocative slogans, but it is rooted in America and in the 1970s, not in Poland and in the 1940s. . . Proof of its shallowness and rootlessness derives from its mindless appropriation of the horrors of another time and place as a rationale for "Jewish assertion"--that, and its incapacity to say more, in the end, than "Woe, woe." 5

Whilst Neusner's observation that the Holocaust as a single, isolated event cannot serve as the sole foundation for a Jewish philosophy of life makes sense, his views on Jewish theology are not "neutral". He writes from a secular Judaic position, one closely akin to a haskalah perspective based on knowledge of Judaic literature and secular philosophy. He poses as an heir to the traditions of Jewish thinking but distances himself from Orthodoxy. He is prone to statements that reveal his distance from the time-honored Jewish perspective of the traditional Jewish scholars. Thus, for Neusner, "the issue of the destruction of European Jewry is not theological but psychological and social". 6 Neusner appears to have strong views concerning "Orthodox leadership in Eastern Europe and the U.S.A." and "their repulsive continuators." 7 Whatever his reasons may be, to write of "Orthodox leadership" as having "repulsive continuators" reveals that he has subjective opinions regarding Orthodoxy.

Indeed, in his essay on "Zionism and 'The Jewish Problem' ", he writes:

There is no "Jewish way" of organizing experience and interpreting reality, although there was and is a Judaic way. There is no single Jewish ideology, indeed no single, unitary Jewish history, although there once was a cogent Judaic theology and a Judaic view of a unitary and meaningful progression of events to be called "Jewish history". . . . There once was such a system, but in the secular revolution it has collapsed. 

It is indeed, the secular revolution that has imposed on Jewry a lingering crisis of identity. . . . Lacking a common language and culture, even a common religion, the Jews do not have what they once had. Today Jewish identity so greatly varies that we need to reconsider the viability of the very concept of Jewishness as a universal attribute for today Jewishness cannot be defined in neutral, cultural terms. 8

For Neusner, the system that "once was" is gone for evermore, swept away by the "secular revolution". There is a "crisis of identity" which is both solved and complicated by Zionism, maintains Neusner:

Zionism provides a reconstruction of Jewish identity for it reaffirms the nationhood of Israel in the face of the disintegration of the religious bases of Jewish peoplehood . . . with the end of a singularly religious self-consciousness, the people lost its understanding of itself. 9

Incredibly, whilst admitting to the significance of past "religious bases of Jewish peoplehood" Neusner casts aside those who still adhere to the system that "once was". Neusner has been swept away by the "secular revolution" and is thus able to refer to "Orthodox leadership" in "repulsive" terms. For Neusner there is no longer a "common religion" for Jews. For him the effects of the "Holocaust" must be reconciled with a consistent view of Zionism. The entire question of what uniquely occurred in America stemming from Orthodox roots is at best overlooked.

On the other hand, Davidowicz gives Orthodoxy a greater position. She concludes:

The vigor of the new Orthodoxy spread throughout Judaism. It marked a new departure for American Jews in their relation to American society. The new Orthodox were not self-conscious about publicly demonstrating their Jewishness . . . They chose to be Jews on their terms and they were asking America to accept them on those terms. 10

However, Davidowicz's position has its own set of problems. As the title of her work implies, On Equal Terms, and as evident from the way she characterizes the "new" Orthodox, an impression is gained of an over-confident group of people striving for recognition. Rabbi Yaakov Weinberg, in "Experiencing Golus in a Free Society--Can it be Achieved?: The Awareness Imperative" (1978), has stated that Orthodoxy requires that Jews be aware that they are in the Exile (golus), even as members of the "free society". This calls for "an awareness that our current status is not representative of our optimum way of life", and that "there is an 'otherness' to us, a gulf of strangeness that cannot be bridged, separating us from our compatriots." 11

Furthermore, both Davidowicz as a Jewish historian and Neusner as a secular Judaic scholar face unique dilemmas and challenges. Davidowicz grapples with the puzzle of "returnees" to Judaism and Neusner ostracizes Orthodoxy. Davidowicz does not explain the essence of Orthodox leadership, whilst Neusner reduces the "Holocaust" to "psychological and social" dimensions. Are there only historical and philosophical causes underlying the growth of Orthodox yeshivahs, kehillahs, and day schools? Dare one look for "religious" explanations for the war, the "returnees", and the rise of Orthodox Jewish education? To obtain a fuller perspective, and even greater objectivity, one must at least take note of some conclusions expressed by those who stood at the heart of the movement.

In the recent work, The World of the Yeshiva (1982), Helmreich states that "to the extent that successful movements often have great leadership, Rabbi Hutner exemplified this requirement". Rabbi Isaac (Yitzchok) Hutner (1904-1980) was "one of the most brilliant and dynamic figures ever to head an American yeshiva." 12 In response to the recent rise of interest in "Holocaust Studies", a group of about one hundred principals and rosh yeshivahs of day schools and yeshivahs posed the following questions to Rabbi Hutner: Should the "Holocaust" be taught as a separate subject in Jewish History? Where indeed does the Holocaust "fit in" with the rest of Jewish history?

As recorded in an article " 'Holocaust'--A Study of the Term, and the Epoch it is Meant to Describe"(1977), Rabbi Hutner "focused on significant aspects of the Churban that were hitherto either little known or studiously avoided. " 13 The response revealed an insight into the world of yeshivah leaders as they viewed the war and its significance for Jewish life and Jewish education. Rabbi Hutner states: "By placing the Holocaust in its historical perspective, we shall uncover two new directions in recent Jewish history with reference to the gentile persecution of Jews." What is of interest to us is the statement that:

The first of these epochal changes involves the shift from generations of gentile mistreatment of Jews, which, if unwelcome, was nevertheless expected and indeed announced by our oppressors--to an era where promises of equality were made and then broken, rights were granted and then revoked, benevolence was anticipated, only to be crushed by cruel malevolence. 14

Citing historical examples, Rabbi Hutner shows that France after 1789, Russia after 1917, and England with its Balfour Declaration of 1917, held out the hope to Jews that their plight was finally being addressed, only to end in disappointment. "Although these reversals are dramatic and telling enough of themselves, they pale in the face of the retractions and total turnabouts made by the Germans in the 1920's and 30's." Thus it came to be that following a period of trust, the culmination of this historical period was "the Holocaust, the largest scale annihilation of a people in history, yet resulting not from lawless hordes but flowing directly from legalized and formal governmental edicts." 15

What did this do to Jews? We have already noted Hilberg's conclusion in The Destruction of the European Jews (1973): "The effect of the German destruction process on the position of Jewry within Christianity has been twofold: the Jews have been forced into a reappraisal of the past, and they have simultaneously developed apprehensions about the future. " 16 Rabbi Hutner's conclusion is similar, but writing from within the world of Orthodoxy, he begins to reach out towards specific conclusions:

The end-result of this period for the Jewish psyche was a significant--indeed, crucial--one. From trust in the gentile world, the Jewish nation was cruelly brought to a repudiation of that trust. In a relatively short historical period, disappointment in the non-Jewish world was deeply imprinted upon the Jewish soul. 17

Rabbi Hutner goes a step further: "Our new understanding of the essence of our era allows us some comprehension of the phenomenon of our 'age of baalei-teshuva' ", 18 literally, "age of 'returnees' ". Davidowicz has noted that this phenomenon "became a commonplace phenomenon", and that when the "counterculture began to seduce young Jews, the Habad movement of the Lubavitch Hasidim undertook to save their souls. Other sectarian Orthodox groups followed suit. They . . . tempted them with authenticity, with a return to wholeness by way of their own tradition and a community of love among their own people." 19 Rabbi Hutner emphasizes, that it is not a single movement or group of movements that have created this state of "return", but it is rather the mark of an era or epoch:

It has oft been noted that teshuva seems to "be in the air", and indeed the many movements currently succeeding to an unprecedented degree in bringing Jews closer to Judaism are but a reflection of the fact that the very climate is permeated with a kind of teshuva-readiness. This climate is the result of the disappointment in gentiles which demolished the first stumbling-block to teshuva, and forced the recognition that "it is because my God has not been in my midst" that the awesome events of recent times have occurred. 20

The second of the two new directions in Jewish history in relation to gentile persecutions, according to Rabbi Hutner, has to do with the meeting of "East" and "West" in seeking the downfall of Jews. Beginning with the Mufti's close relationship with Hitler, a new trend emerges whereby "the nations of the Occident join forces with those of the East for the purpose of destroying Jews." 21 This served to increase the sense of betrayal, and enhanced the prospects of Jews"'returning" to their traditional cultural and religious heritage.

Two important points are thus clarified: The Holocaust was a culmination of an identifiable pattern in modern Jewish history. It was also remarkable in that it induced a "change of heart" in.the Jewish people. It is therefore "an integral part of our history and we dare not isolate and deprive it of the monumental significance it has for us." 22 That is why the mere label "The Holocaust" is not acceptable if it is taken to mean an isolated catastrophe disembodied from the rest of Jewish history.

What then are the implications of this era for the teaching of Jewish history and Jewish education in general? In the light of events, important criteria emerge for Jewish educators: "Much of our education has been permeated with the 'sunny side of Judaism', 
resulting from a cowardice and failure of will to deal with the misfortunes of Klal Yisroel . . . at our peril, we ignore the fact that there are three different portions of . . . rebuke in the Torah." As a first step, the advice to all Jewish educators is that:

We must learn these parts of the Torah with our children as well as the "sunnier" portions. These portions must become as much a part of the Jewish psyche as the mitzvos we strain so hard to imbue. Thus, when a Jewish-child--or indeed, adult--hears for the first time of Yiddishe tzaros--the sufferings of Jewish people--he will not be shocked by a contradiction to what he has learned, but will see the living proof of the Torah he has absorbed. 23

This is part of the "formula" whereby Orthodox Jewry places the events of 1939-1945 in a perspective that does not lead to alienation. We see too that in America of the 1970s, Rabbi Hutner was stressing the same principles stressed by Rabbi E. B. Wasserman (1874-1941) in the 1930s: ". . . It becomes apparent in the final analysis, that the reason for our present plight, unparalleled in Jewish history, must be attributed to the abandonment of the study of Torah." On the positive side, "the Renaissance of Torah must start with the small child, for youth is the foundation of a nation, particularly in these days, when parents are influenced by their children . . .. We are witness to the fact that in homes where there is a son who is a Torah student, a beneficial influence is wrought upon the parents to mould their lives in accordance with Torah, and vice versa." 24 From this it is again clear that no matter how great the tragedy that befalls the Jewish people, its traditional teachers always extracted the "lesson to be learnt" and applied themselves accordingly.

Since it is the Jewish educator who carries the primary responsibility of ensuring that the events that befell Jewry during the Second World War be translated into effective Jewish educational practice, his position and role require clarification. Within the framework of Orthodoxy the teacher of Torah has a unique position. In a talk at a special study session for Jewish day school teachers in 1959, subsequently published as "A Shiur in Hilchos Chinuch" (1959), being a "Discourse in the Laws of Education--Clarifying Some Basic Torah Concepts in the Rearing of Jewish School Children", Rabbi Hutner stated:

It has become a universally accepted notion, recurrently expressed in refrain-like fashion by writers of the history of education, to note with pride the fact that in the time of Yehoshua ben Gamala there already existed amongst Jews zwang-schule, a law of compulsory education or compulsory schooling. We should like to state clearly and openly that this entire notion is false and misleading. 25

What then transpired in the times of Yehoshua ben Gamala (c.60 C.E.)? Approximately nineteen hundred years ago, the "spiritual structure" of the Jewish home suffered deterioration. "The father's house somehow lost its fundamental power of effective vitality in bringing up Jewish children." It was then that Yehoshua ben Gamala instituted the system of child-schooling. "That is, he transformed the pattern of Jewish upbringing from tinokos shel beis-avhan to tinokos shel beis-rabban--from that of the father's home-house to the Rebbi's school-house." 26 It is stressed that for Jews, it remained no more than a necessary adjustment to adverse circumstances.

The upshot for the Jewish melamed (teacher), is that he should "never fall prey to the self-imposed predisposition of considering himself a 'professional', because deep within his soul he feels that he is no more than a 'stand-in' for the child's father; rabban--the child's Rebbi--in place of avhan--his 'daddy'. And one cannot be a father by profession! " 27 There is a "specifically unique excellence" that can be attributed to the Jewish teachers (melamdim) of our day, greater than in past history. "For, that which was at all other times a special case amongst melamdim has become today the usual day-to-day occurrence. The melamdim of today must be prepared to bridge the gaps of many 'missing links'." 28

This small sample of thought reflects the deep commitment to Jewish education by those who stood at the head of the traditional Jewish schools. We see that in spite of the catastrophes brought about by the war, there was a redoubling of effort to regain that which was lost. The overriding conclusion must be that at the center of the rise of Orthodoxy in America there stood a nucleus of outstanding educators. They came to America as Europe sank into the darkness of war and genocide. Some saw the darkness descend and realized that since America was a refuge, Orthodoxy would find its niche there too, and, find room to grow. Others were forcibly thrust across the oceans onto the American scene as they fled Europe at the height of the war.

These extraordinary personalities lived with a dual vision of what had once been, and what should ideally be. Their actions on behalf of Jewish education in the present grew out of this dual vision, based on the teachings of the Jewish sages, chazal. They sought to re-establish and secure the link between the generations of the past and of the future.

The rise of Orthodoxy in America after the Second World War attests to the efficacy and viability of unspoiled and undiluted tradition in the most modern, and perhaps, darkest of times. In spite of obstacles and barriers, the pattern of growth continues. Those who helped this growth, lived with the knowledge that the Torah is compared to light, and that "a little light dispels much darkness". It remains to be seen to what extent that "light" will shine in America.

FOOTNOTES

1 Lucy S. Davidowicz, On Equal Terms: Jews in America 1881-1981 (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1982), pp159-160.
2 Ibid., pp. 3; 110; 145; 132. 
3 Ibid., pp. 158-159.
4 Ibid., p. 160.
5 Jacob Neusner, Stranger at Home: "The Holocaust", Zionism, and American Judaism (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1981), pp. 80-81.
6 Ibid., p. 62.
7 Ibid., p. 171.
8 Ibid., pp. 190-191.
9 Ibid., p 196.
10 Davidowicz, On Equal Terms, p. 161. 
11 Yaakov Weinberg, "Experiencing Golus in a Free Society--Can it be Achieved?: The Awareness Imperative", The Jewish Observer, December 1978, p. 4.
12 Helmreich, World of the Yeshiva, p. 34.
13 Hutner, " 'Holocaust'--A Study of the Term, and the Epoch it is Meant to Describe", p. 3.
14 Ibid., p. 4.
15 Ibid., p. 5.
16 Hilberg, Destruction of the European Jews, p. 671.
17 Hutner, " 'Holocaust'--A Study of the Term, and the Epoch it is Meant to Describe", p. 5.
18 Ibid., p. 6.
19 Davidowicz, On Equal Terms, p. 160.
20 Hutner, " 'Holocaust'--A Study of the Term, and the Epoch it is Meant to Describe", p. 6.
21 Ibid., p. 7.
22 Ibid., p. 8.
23Ibid., p. 9.
24 Wasserman, "An Analysis of the Jewish Tragedy--Its Causes and Solution", pp. 46-47.
25 Yitzchok Hutner, "A Shiur in Hilchos Chinuch-", in Hebrew Day School Education: An Overview, ed. Joseph Kaminetsky, p. 5.
26 Ibid., p. 6.
27 Ibid., p. 7.
28 Ibid., p. 10.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Topics of Interest
Books and dissertations
Articles

Books and dissertations:

Agudath Israel of America. The Struggle and the Splendor: A Pictorial Overview of Agudath Israel of America. New York: Agudath Israel of America, 1982.

Bullock, Alan. Hitler: A Study in Tyranny. New York: Harper Colophon Books, 1962.

Butts, Freeman, R., and Cremin, Lawrence A. A History of Education in American Culture. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1953.

Cremin, Lawrence A. American Education: The National Experience 1783-1876. New York: Harper and Row, 1980
.
_____. Public Education. New York: Basic Books, 1976.

_____. Traditions of American Education. Basic Books, 1977.

David, Bruria Hutner. "The Dual Role of Rabbi Zvi Hirsch Chajes: Traditionalist and Maskil". Ph.D. dissertation, Columbia University, 1971.

Davidowicz, Lucy S. On Equal Terms: Jews in America 1881-1981. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1982.

_____. The War Against the Jews 1933-1945. New York: Bantam Books, 1981.

Dicker, Herman. Piety and Perseverance: Jews from the Carpathian Mountains. New York: Sepher-Herman Press, 1981.

Dimont, Max I. The Jews in America: The Roots, History, and Destiny of American Jews. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1978.

Druks, Herbert. The Failure to Rescue. New York: Robert Speller and Sons, 1977.

Friedlander, M., trans. Moses Maimonides: The Guide for the Perplexed. New York: Dover Publications, 1956.

Gartner, Lloyd, P., ed. Jewish Education in the United States: A Documentary History. New York: Teachers College Press, Columbia University, 1969.

Goren, Arthur A. New York Jews and the Quest for Community: The Kehillah Experiment, 1908-1922. New York: Columbia University Press, 1970.

Grayzel, Solomon. A History of the Jews: From the Babylonian Exile to the Present. Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society of America, 1968.

Grosser, Paul E., and Halperin, Edwin G. Anti-Semitism: The Causes and Effects of a Prejudice. Secaucus, N.J.: Citadel Press, 1976.

Hecht, Ben. Perfidy. New York: Julian Messner., 1961.

Helmreich, William B. The World of the Yeshiva: An Intimate Portrait of Orthodox Jewry. New York: The Free Press, 1982.

Hilberg, Raul. The Destruction of the European Jews. New York: New Viewpoints, 1973.

Howe, Irving. World of Our Fathers. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1976.

Kaminetsky, Joseph, ed. Hebrew Day School Education: An Overview. New York: Torah Umesorah, 1970.

_____. , and Friedman, Murray I., eds. Building Jewish Ethical Character. New York: Torah Umesorah, 1975.

Kranzler, David. Japanese, Nazis and Jews: The Jewish Refugee Community of Shanghai, 1938-1945. New York: Yeshiva University Press, 1976.

Kranzler, George. Williamsburg: A Jewish Community in Transition. New York: Philip Feldheim, 1961.

Laqueur, Walter. The Terrible Secret: Suppression of the Truth about Hitler's "Final Solution". New York: Penguin Books, 1980.

Lee, Gordon C., ed. Crusade Against Ignorance: Thomas Jefferson on Education. New York: Teachers College Press, 1961.

Levin, Nora. The Holocaust: The Destruction of European Jewry 1933-1945. New York: Schocken Books, 1973.

Lewin, Isaac, ed. "These Will I Remember!" Biographies of Leaders of Religious Jewry in Europe who Perished During the Years 1939-1945. Yiddish original: Eilah Azkerah. New York: Research Institute of Religious Jewry, 1956.

Lubavitch Foundation of Great Britain. Challenge: An Encounter with Lubavitch--Chabad. London: Lubavitch Foundation of Great Britain, 1970.

Martin, Bernard. A History of Judaism: Volume II: Europe and the New World. New York: Basic Books, 1974.

Mayer, Egon. From Suburb to Shtetl: The Jews of Boro Park. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1979.

Morse, Arthur D. While Six Million Died: A Chronicle of American Apathy. New York: Ace Publishing Corporation, 1968.

Neusner, Jacob. Stranger at Home: "The Holocaust", Zionism, and American Judaism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981.

Pilch, Judah, ed. A History of Jewish Education in America. New York: American Association for Jewish Education, 1969.

Podhoretz, Norman. Making It. New York: Harper Colophon Books, 1967.

Poll, Solomon. The Hasidic Community of Williamsburg: A Study in the Sociology of Religion. New York: Schocken Books, 1969.

Rakefett-Rothkoff, Aaron. Bernard Revel: Builder of American Jewish Orthodoxy. Jerusalem: Phillip Feldheim, 1981

______. The Silver Era in American Jewish Orthodoxy: Rabbi Eliezer Silver and His Generation. Jerusalem: Phillip Feldheim, 1981.

Rivkin, Mayer S., and Goldberg, Daniel, eds. The Rebbe: Changing the Tide of Education. Brooklyn, N.Y.: Lubavitch Youth Organization, 1982.

Rosenbaum, Irving J. The Holocaust and Halakhah. New York: Ktav Publishing House, 1976.

Scherman, Nosson and Zlotowitz, Meir, eds. Reb Elchonon: The Life and Ideals of Rabbi Elchonon Bunim Wasserman of Baranovich. New York: Mesorah Publications, 1982.

Schiff, Alvin Irwin. The Jewish Day School in America. New York: Jewish Education Committee Press, 1966.

Shonfeld, Moshe. The Holocaust Victims Accuse: Documents and Testimony on Jewish War Criminals: Part I. New York: Bnei Yeshivos, 1977.

Sklare, Marshall. America's Jews. New York: Random House, 1971.

_______, and Greenblum, Joseph. Jewish Identity on the Suburban Frontier: A Study of Group Survival in the Open Society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979.

Sloan, Douglas, ed. Education and Values. New York: Teachers College Press, 1980.

Surasky, Aharon. Giants of Jewry: Volume One. Lakewood, N.J.: Chinuch Publications, 1982.
_______. Marbitzei Torah Umusar. Brooklyn, N.Y.: Yisroel Yehudah Rubin, 1977.

Teachers College, Columbia University. Teachers College: Columbia University: 1980/1981. (Catalog). Teachers College Bulletin. Series 71. Teachers College, New York, May 1980.

Ulich, Robert,ed. Three Thousand Years of Educational Wisdom: Selections from Great Documents. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1954. Thirteenth printing, 1979.

Wasserman, Elchonon B. Epoch of the Messiah. Brooklyn, N.Y.: Ohr Elchonon Publications. First Printed as Ikvese Dimeshicha. New York, 1938.

Weissmandl, Michael Ber. Min HaMeitzar. n.p., n.d.

Wolpin, Nisson, ed. The Torah Personality: A Treasury of Biographical Sketches. Brooklyn, N.Y.: Mesorah Publications, 1980.

______. The Torah World: A Treasury of Biographical Sketches. Brooklyn, N.Y.: Mesorah Publications, 1982.

Zuker, Simon, compiler, and Hirschler, Gertrude, ed. The Unconquerable Spirit: Vignettes of the Jewish Religious Spirit the Nazis Could Not Destroy. New York: Zachor Institute, 1980.

Articles:

Arden, Harvey. "The Pious Ones: Brooklyn's Hasidic Jews". National Geographic, August 1975, pp. 276-298.

Belsky, Meir. "The Day Schools in the U.S.: Another View". The Jewish Observer, January 1977, pp. 5-7.

Bodenheimer, Ernst J., and Scherman, Nosson. "The Rav of Frankfurt, U.S.A." The Torah World, Wolpin, N., ed. Brooklyn, N.Y.: Mesorah Publications, 1982, pp. 223-238.

Davidowicz, Lucy S. "American Jews and the Holocaust". The New York Times Magazine, April 18, 1982, pp. 46-114.

Elias, Joseph. "Dealing With 'Churban Europa' ". The Jewish Observer, October 1977, pp. 10-18.

Ernberg, Naftoli. "Horav R. Ben Tzion Halberstam: Admor M'Bobov". Eilah Azkerah ("These Will I Remember!") V. 1., Lewin, I., ed. New York: Research Institute of Religious Jewry, 1956, pp. 135-141.

Feuerstein, Samuel C. "Torah Umesorah 1944-1969: A Quarter of a Century". Hebrew Day School Education: An Overview, Kaminetsky, J., ed. New York: Torah Umesorah, 1970, pp. 71-77.

Forst, Siegmund. "Rabbi Michael Ber Weissmandl". The Torah Personality, Wolpin, N., ed. Brooklyn, N.Y.: Mesorah Publications, 1980, pp. 161-168.

Fox, Marvin. "Character Training in the Face of Environmental Pressures". Building Jewish Ethical Character, Kaminetsky, Joseph, and Friedman, Murray I., eds. New York: Torah Umesorah, 1975, pp. 92-98.

_____. "Day Schools and the American Education Pattern". Hebrew Day School Education: An Overview, Kaminetsky, Joseph, ed. New York: Torah Umesorah, 1970, pp. 78-85.

Friedlander, Henry. "Toward a Methodology of Teaching about the Holocaust". Education and Values, Sloan, Douglas, ed. New York: Teachers College Press, 1980, pp. 123-146.

Gifter, Mordecai. "The Function of Torah Chinuch in Our Generation." Hebrew Day School Education: An Overview, Kaminetsky, Joseph, ed. New York: Torah Umesorah, 1970, pp. 18-24.

Goldberg, Daniel. "The Late Lubavitcher Rebbe". The Torah World, Wolpin, N., ed. Brooklyn, N.Y.: Mesorah Publications, 1982, pp. 81-94.

______. "The Lubavitcher Rebbe, Shlita: 30 Years of Leadership". The Uforatzto Journal, Spring 1980, pp. 34-65.

Himmelfarb, Milton. "Reflection on the Jewish Day School". Jewish Education in the United States, Gartner,Lloyd P., ed., New York: Teachers College Press, 1969.

Hutner, Yitzchok. " 'Holocaust'--A Study of the Term and the Epoch it is Meant to Describe."The Jewish Observer, October 1977, pp. 3-9.

______. "A Shiur in Hilchos Chinuch". Hebrew Day School Education: An Overview, Kaminetsky, Joseph, ed. New York: Torah Umesorah, 1970, pp. 3-12.

Kagan, Shaul. "From Kletzk to Lakewood". The Torah World, Wolpin, N., ed. Brooklyn, N.Y.: Mesorah Publications, 1982, pp. 184-205.

Kaminetsky, Joseph, and Gross, Alexander, S. "Rabbi Shraga Feivel Mendlowitz". Men of the Spirit, Jung, Leo, ed. New York: Kymson Publishing Company, 1964, pp. 553-572.

Keller, Chaim Dov. "He Brought Telshe to Cleveland". The Torah World, Wolpin, N.. ed. Brooklyn,.N.Y.: Mesorah Publications, 1982, pp. 262-276.

Kirk, Russell. "The Necessity of Dogmas in Schooling". Modern Age: A Quarterly Review, Winter, 1978, pp. 2-7.

Kirzner, Yisroel Mayer. "By the Writing Desk of the Master: Reflections on Pachad Yitzchok: Igaros Ukesavim". The Jewish Observer, December 1981, pp. 8-15.

Oberstein, Elchonon. "A Postscript: Community Controlled Day Schools: The Way Things Are". The Jewish Observer, January 1977, pp. 7-8.

Oser, Alan S. "Housing Surge Alters Borough Park". The New York Times, Metropolitan Report, May 21, 1982, pp. Bl-B6.

Reinman, Yaakov Yosef. "Remembering Reb Shneur Kotler". The Jewish observer, October 1982, pp. 4-12.

Rodan, Yaakov. "The Rabbis and the President: History is Made at the White House". The World Jewish Tribune, Friday, December 28, 1979, p. 13

Shapiro, Chaim. "The Last of His Kind". The Torah World, Wolpin, N., ed. Brooklyn, N.Y.: Mesorah Publications, 1982, pp. 239-244.

Sherer, Moshe. "25 Yor: A Neie Idishe Velt" ("25 Years: A New Jewish World"). Dos Yiddishe Vort, June 1979, pp. 3-5.

Stolper, Pinchas. "HaGaon Rav Yitzchok Hutner". Jewish Life, Winter 1980/81, pp. 2-5.

Time Magazine. "Help! Teacher Can't Teach!: The Multifaceted Crisis of America's Public Schools". Time, June 16, 1980, pp. 54-63.

Weinberg, Yaakov. "Experiencing Golus in a Free Society--Can it be Achieved?: The Awareness Imperative". The Jewish Observer, December 1978, pp. 4-5.

Wolpin, Nisson. "The Community Kollel: Reaching Out With Torah!. The Jewish Observer, October 1979, pp. 19-26.

_______ , ed. "My Neighbor, My Father, The Rebbe". The Torah Personality. Brooklyn, N.Y.: Mesorah Publications, 1980, pp. 198-210.

Dedicated to my father "Reb" Dovid A"H 
whose love of traditional Vilna helped him survive.