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June 9, 2005
Dear Board Member,
HEBREW IN AMERICA
"Hebrew in America", one of the most
bold and innovative undertakings of the Foundation aimed at more
effectively propagating the use of Hebrew in the United States,
was launched at our Executive Committee meeting which took place
on May 24-25, 2005.
Our partner in this enterprise is the UJA-Federation of Northern
New Jersey. For this reason we chose to meet in Bergen County,
New Jersey to enable our executive committee to participate in
the community-wide meeting which launched the program, to see
first-hand what the first phase of the program entails and to
meet with the leadership of the UJA-Federation of Northern New
Jersey to discuss the next steps.
The impetus for undertaking this herculean challenge is the accelerating
and radical decline of the use of Hebrew in the United States
and the rest of the Diaspora. Jewish peoplehood is achieved by
the transmission of our collective memory and culture, rooted
in our common language and culture. With the serious decline of
Hebrew in the Diaspora, not only are we lacking a common language,
i.e. words, but also a common vocabulary of values, norms and
ideals
After a series of symposia, consultations and the establishment
of a committee of distinguished community leaders and scholars
to review this issue, the Foundation, under the leadership of
Professors Anita Shapira and Ismar Schorsch, concluded that it
was critical for compelling national reasons to undertake a program
in this area, despite the very serious constraints - both sociological
and communal - that such an effort would confront.
The Foundation took a critical decision at the outset of our planning
not to disperse our limited resources geographically, but select
one pilot community to test the viability of the concepts and
the program which we would develop. We also believed that the
presence of a number of programs in one geographic area would
more likely produce a synergy that would amplify the vitality
of the program as a whole, thereby helping achieve one of the
macro-goals of our endeavor, adding Hebrew to the cultural agenda
of the Jewish people in the United States.
For the pilot community, as I have already indicated, the Foundation
selected the UJA-Federation of Northern New Jersey. We did so
because of its strong Jewish educational system; the quality of
its Jewish institutions; the high level of support for study in,
and travel to, Israel in the community; and the quality of its
communal, educational, and rabbinical leadership, especially its
professional staff, headed by Howard Charish.
The Foundation articulated three principles that would define
this enterprise. Our focus programmatically would be primarily
on Hebrew as a portal to Jewish culture, literacy and Jewish text,
not on spoken fluency. The other methodologies utilized in the
past were embedded in ideological frameworks and failed completely.
Jewish culture is alive and well in the United States and has
indeed been flourishing in recent years. Linking Hebrew with Jewish
culture, we believe, enhances the probability of our success.
Secondly, our focus will be attempting to change the culture regarding
Hebrew in the Jewish schools. Should we succeed in the schools,
we will have taken a major step for helping trigger change on
the communal level as well.
The fundamental organizational principle of the program is that
all decisions regarding the program will not be made in Jerusalem
or even by distinguished cultural bodies in New York City, but
by the pilot community itself. If this program is to work, the
"locals" must have full and complete responsibility
for it.
Hebrew Language Immersion in Early Childhood Programs
The first phase of the "Hebrew in America" program will
be launched next fall with the introduction and intensification
of Hebrew language immersion programs in fifteen local early childhood
programs in Northern New Jersey.
One of the highlights of our meeting was the visit by members
of our executive to the Yavneh Academy in Bergen County to give
us a flavor of what the first phase of the program entails. Our
members, who were split in two groups, spent close to an hour
observing two classes of 4 to 5 year olds in a proto-type Hebrew
language immersion in an early childhood program.
Our visit did more than effectively demonstrate the "doability"
of the first phase of our enterprise. It was thrilling to observe
the children and their teachers very comfortably engaged in Hebrew,
ofttimes using full sentences, in describing commonplace objects,
and doing common tasks together. One could also perceive, notably
among the Israelis present in our group, a subtle emotional jolt,
especially visible while listening to the children enthusiastically
singing the popular Israeli song "Eretz Yisroel Porachat"
(Israel is Flowering). The sparks these 4-5 year olds were unwittingly
generating lent credence to the potential significance of our
budding enterprise for those concerned about our Jewish future
in the United States and our connection with Israel.
The UJA-Federation wisely chose to begin this enterprise with
programs in early childhood. Firstly, the use of Hebrew in early
childhood programs has received very scant attention in the United
States and is a virgin area with considerable potential for development.
Beginning with early childhood also makes possible the expansion
of the base of the pyramid of Hebrew instruction in the schools
which, if successful, could generate interest among parents, students
and schools for the second stage of the program, the community's
elementary schools.
Mobilizing the Community
The critical innovation in our program for the propagation of
Hebrew was making our program a community enterprise, not confining
it to individual schools and institutions, or special segments
of the community. Our most important success to date has been
not only the articulation of this communal component, but the
agreement of UJA-Federation of Northern New Jersey to undertake
the responsibility for the propagation of Hebrew in their community
and to mobilize the community and its leadership towards that
end.
The major event during our stay in Bergen County was therefore
the community-wide meeting which took place on Wednesday evening,
May 25, and which successfully concluded our meeting.
Prior to the community-wide meeting, Prof. Anita Shapira, the
Foundation’s President and Prof. David Berger, Chairman
of the Hebrew in America Committee met with the current and incoming
presidents of the UJA-Federation of Northern New Jersey and the
professional team which is responsible for "Hebrew in America"
there. This was followed by a meeting between the Foundation's
executive committee and that of the UJA-Federation. Both meetings,
especially the former, provided us with the opportunity to talk
in depth and detail about the next steps in the program and our
mutual responsibilities in the future.
The community meeting featured opening remarks by Prof. Anita
Shapira and an address by Leon Wieseltier, literary editor of
the New Republic, who gave a muscular and passionate presentation
about the role of Hebrew in Jewish culture and the necessity for
its revival in the United States.
Wieseltier opened his presentation with the observation that "American
Jewry has lived off the spiritual and historical resources of
other Jews.” He added that “the impediment to taking
our rightful place in the chain of our tradition has everything
to do with Jewish language and Jewish books, and with the changing
relationship of Jews to Jewish language and Jewish books."
The assumption of American Jewry that "it can do without
a Jewish language is an arrogance without precedence in Jewish
history, and this illiteracy will leave American Judaism and American
Jewishness forever crippled and scandalously thin. Without Hebrew,"the
Jewish tradition will not disappear entirely in America, but most
of it will certainly disappear." Though it is possible, to
read Jewish texts in translation, "every translation is also
a conversion, and it is hard to imagine that more is gained than
is lost.
If the Jews in the United States do not make the commitment to
replete ourselves by recovering our language, and thereby bring
to an end, if not in ourselves, than in our children, this absurd
helplessness before our own tradition, then we may dream of only
a limited greatness in our literature and lives.” Wieseltier
concluded that "there is no more lasting or more durable
affiliation with our tradition than the connection with Hebrew.
May historians record that Hebrew in America was the vanguard
of a great change, a true renaissance."
The success of the evening can be gauged by the full hall - the
200 seat auditorium was filled to capacity, with some standees
- and the enthusiastic response of the audience, composed of the
leaders of the UJA-Federation, the parents, principals and staff
of the major Jewish educational institutions in Northern New Jersey,
distinguished communal personalities and amcha, members of the
rank and file of the Jewish community of Northern New Jersey.
One of the leaders of the UJA-Federation told us at an earlier
meeting that he was eager to see how the community would respond
that evening. Although we have just initiated this project and
still have a very, very long way to go, the successful community-wide
meeting was a hopeful omen that our partnership may accomplish
what has the possibility of reverberating across the cultural
landscape of America and even hopefully of Diaspora Jewry
Best wishes for a pleasant summer.
Warm regards.
Dr. Jerry Hochbaum,
Executive Vice-President
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