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September 6, 2006
Dear Board Member,
HEBREW IN AMERICA
Last year the Foundation launched Hebrew in America, one of the
Foundation’s boldest initiatives. This report is an update
on what has been accomplished to date. To fully understand the
significance of this undertaking, some background about our involvement
in this area would be helpful.
The Foundation has in recent years been promoting the concept
of Klal Yisroel and Jewish “connectedness” in its
manifold programs. Indeed, at our recently concluded meeting in
Jerusalem, the Foundation’s Board of Trustees formally approved
the incorporation of the promotion of Jewish “connectedness”
into the Foundation mandate. Jewish peoplehood is achieved by
the transmission of our collective memory and culture, rooted
in our common language and culture.
It has been abundantly evident to all knowledgeable observers
of Jewish life that there has been an accelerating and radical
decline in the use of Hebrew in the United States and the rest
of Diaspora. With this serious decline in Hebrew, not only are
we lacking one of the most crucial ingredients of peoplehood,
a common language, i.e. words, but concomitantly, a common vocabulary
of values, norms and beliefs.
Under the leadership of Prof. Shapira, after her election as president
of the Foundation, and Prof. Ismar Schorsch, Chairman of the Foundation’s
Executive Committee, the Foundation engaged in a long process
of deliberation and consultation before undertaking any action
in this area. The conventional view about the possibility of a
successful intervention in this area of some of the individuals
with whom we spoke in Israel and the U.S. was negative. The views
expressed were also not always polite.
FIRST STEPS
After a series of symposia, consultations and the establishment
of a distinguished committee of communal leaders and scholars
to review this issue, the Foundation concluded that it was critical
for compelling national reasons to undertake a program in this
area, despite the Herculean challenges– communal and sociological
– that such an effort would confront.
The committee made a number of decisions at the outset that have
contributed considerably to the success achieved to date. The
most critical decision was not to disperse our limited resources
geographically, but select one pilot community to test the validity
of the concept and program we would develop.
The community we chose was the Jewish Federation of Northern New
Jersey based on a whole set of criteria that we believed greatly
enhanced the possibility of success in what many considered a
problematic enterprise. As a communal enterprise, rather than
the work of individual institutions or solo charismatic educators,
the program, if successful, could be adapted and replicated in
other federated communities in the U.S. Our first success was
that the Federation of Northern New Jersey, its executive vice
president, Howard Charish, and its lay leadership committed themselves
to undertake this challenging and difficult assignment.
The Foundation decided that our major focus would be to attempt
to change the culture in the schools, and ultimately the community,
about Hebrew. We would not confine ourselves to the traditional
concerns of curriculum, teacher training and other related standard
issues.
Finally, we also agreed from the very outset on one critical organizational
principle that we have adhered to it throughout. All decisions
regarding the program will not be made in Jerusalem or even by
distinguished cultural bodies in New York, but solely by the Jewish
community in Northern New Jersey. If the program is to work, the
locals must have full responsibility for it. This indeed has been
the case.
We launched the program at our Executive Committee meeting in
Bergen County, New Jersey last spring, with two critical actions.
Members of our Executive Committee visited a prototype of the
program we envisioned and were convinced of the do-ability of
the project. Secondly, a community-wide meeting was organized
to both interpret to, and mobilize, the community to support this
innovative, pioneering effort. The 200-seat hall at the Jewish
Community Center where the meeting took place was filled to capacity,
with some standees, including amcha, the rank and file of the
community. Looking back, the size and enthusiasm of the crowd
that evening was a hopeful harbinger of what was to follow as
reported below.
FIRST YEAR
The program is now operating in 10 schools, eight of which represent
the whole ideological and religious range of all the day schools
in the community, as well as two congregational schools. The program
was launched at the first level in the educational chain, in early
childhood – at the pre-kindergarten and kindergarten level
– where almost nothing has been done for the propagation
of Hebrew to date in the United States and elsewhere. Both we
and the community believed that this would be the most effective
point of entry into the community, and the fulcrum with which
we could begin to change attitudes about Hebrew in the educational
system as we proceed up the educational ladder.
At the meeting in Jerusalem this July, our leadership and Board
of Trustees received the first formal report from the Federation
of New Jersey, not in the usual form of an oral presentation by
a member of the professional staff or a lay leader of the community
but via a 20-minute video prepared especially for our Board. The
video focused on the children and teachers in the classrooms en
situ.
It was thrilling to observe the children and the teachers very
comfortably engaged in Hebrew, often using full sentences, in
describing common place objects and doing common tasks and singing
together. In his introduction on the video, Dr.
Wallace Greene, the director of the Jewish Educational Services
of the UJA/Federation of New Jersey, pointed out, that viewers
could easily have the impression they were observing kindergartens
and early childhood programs in Israel.
The video was certainly one of the major highlights of our very
successful Board meeting about which I reported in my earlier
Board Briefing of July 18, 2006. Copies of the video can be obtained
from the Federation of Northern
New Jersey.
The program currently reaches more than 700 children. Prof. Berger,
Chairman of the Hebrew in America Committee, and I also visited
two of those schools and three programs last spring and were elated
by the enthusiastic response by the early childhood directors
in the schools, as well as their teachers, and the children themselves.
The Foundation always believed, despite the naysayers, that we
would and could locate pockets of support within the community,
meshugaim leoto davar, that could help launch the program and
ultimately sustain it.
This is indeed what has ultimately occurred in the pilot community
during the first year of its operation. Fortunately, those individuals
came from within the professional educational leadership of the
Federation of Northern New Jersey, key educators in the local
schools, and the parents of the children in the program.
Most significantly, we witnessed first-hand the buzz that the
program has created in those schools. This is being concretely
expressed in the preparations the schools are now making in personnel
and programs in their first grades into which the more than 700
children who will be entering next year. These efforts will hopefully
continue the nourishment, sustenance and the expansion of the
program, as it proceeds up the educational chain in the community.
In sum, we have come a very long way in the last two years despite
the skepticism, in our and other circles, about the feasibility
of the enterprise. We, of course, still have a very long way to
go. But the seeds we sowed are now flowering.
Most important – and this is the critical innovation of
our pilot program – it is a communal enterprise, which,
as I noted earlier, allows the possibility, if successfully accomplished,
for its replication in other interested communities. The Jewish
community in Detroit has already invited Shoshana Glatzer, the
education director of the project, to share the program with their
community. I myself have received inquiries from two other communities
in the United States. At the meeting of our Board, two major Jewish
communities overseas also expressed serious interest in the program.
I believe that we can be hopeful that inherent in our partnership
with the Federation of Northern New Jersey, currently as well
as in the future, there exists a real possibility of this endeavor
reverberating across the cultural landscape of American and even
hopefully Diaspora Jewry.
Best wishes for a New Year of peace and good health.
Warm regards.
Sincerely yours,
Dr. Jerry Hochbaum,
Executive Vice-President
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