The Hebrew Union College of Cincinnati, which is maintained by the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, has also been considerably strengthened in the last few years. Its faculty consists of the following professors: Homiletics, Theology and Hellenistic Literature (President), Kaufman Kohler; Jewish History and Literature, Gotthard Deutsch; Ethics and Pedagogy, Louis Grossman; Jewish Philosophy, David Neumark; Biblical Exegesis (Associate), Moses Buttenwieser; Biblical Literature, Henry Englander; Instructor in Bible and Semitic Languages, Julian Morgenstern.
The youngest of the Jewish higher institutions of learning in the United States is The Dropsie College of Hebrew and Cognate Learning of Philadelphia, which was incorporated in 1907. Moses Aaron Dropsie (b. in Philadelphia, 1821; d. there 1905), an attorney and street railway owner of Dutch descent, bequeathed the bulk of his fortune, amounting to nearly one million dollars, to the foundation of that college, which was opened in 1909. The faculty consists of: President, Cyrus Adler; Max L. Margolis, in charge of the Biblical Department; Henry Malter, in charge of the Rabbinical Department; Jacob Hoschander, Instructor Department of Cognate Languages; Hon. Mayer Sulzberger, Resident Lecturer in Jewish Jurisprudence and Institutes of Government.
An institution of an entirely different kind is the Rabbi Joseph Jacob School, or Yeshibah, of New York, which was organized in 1901, whose founder, Samuel S. Andron, still retains the presidency. It is the only considerable Jewish school on the denominational or parochial plan, where English and general studies according to the curriculum of the public schools are pursued together with the study of the Hebrew language, Bible, Talmud and Rabbinical literature. It is the first attempt to combine a strictly Orthodox and a thorough American education, and, if possible, to educate American rabbis who should be acceptable to the old style pious immigrant as well as to the generation which is growing up here. There are other Yeshibot in all of the large cities in the United States, but most of them simply follow their prototype, the Talmudical Academy of the Slavic countries, where there is no other official subject of study except the Talmud and Rabbinical literature, and secular studies are pursued clandestinely or not at all. In some of the Yeshibot here, like in the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary of New York, some concessions were made to secular studies, but there was no attempt, and perhaps no desire, to harmonize the systems and to supply a good American education.
The original forms of the elementary Jewish school, the private “Cheder” and the public or semi-public Talmud Torah, is represented among the Jews of the Slavic countries in all its varieties, from the old-fashioned Russian school, where the Hebrew text is translated in a traditional Yiddish, which the pupil who is born or brought up here understands but imperfectly, to the Americanized place, where the translations are made in the English, and the modernized Russian school, in which Hebrew is used in interpreting the Scripture and the text books prepared for the purpose. Naturally the oldest and largest Talmud Torah of New York, the “Machzike Talmud Torah” of East Broadway (organized 1882), of which Moses H. Phillips is president and I. A. Kaplan superintendent, is looked upon as a model institution of its kind. There are nearly two score Talmud Torahs in New York City, some of them attached to synagogues, but most of them separate institutions with buildings of their own, several of which, like the Up-Town Talmud Torah and the one in Brownsville (Brooklyn), are magnificent establishments, with incomes which prove the material well-being of the immigrant classes, as well as their willingness to pay for Jewish education.
There are large Talmud Torahs in every city where there is a considerable Jewish population, and, as in many other respects, New York conditions are duplicated in Chicago, Philadelphia and other great centers. In the smaller towns a Talmud Torah is now established soon after the foundation of a synagogue, and the private teacher, who is often also the Shochet and Chazzan or Mohel, usually antedates them both. There is one important difference, however, between the Talmud Torah of the Old World, especially Russia, and the same institutions here. There the Talmud Torah is mainly for the children of the very poor, for destitute orphans, foundlings and the like. Here the scarcity of good private teachers, the high compensation which they require, and the limited time which could be given to Jewish studies, makes the organized school preferable also for the children of parents who are willing and able to pay for tuition. Some Talmud Torahs which are maintained by single synagogues for their members, especially in small communities, partake of the nature, and even of the exclusiveness, of the Sabbath School which is an adjunct to almost every well conducted Reform Temple. Volks-Schulen, or Hebrew schools for girls, have lately been established in several sections of New York, and also in other cities.
There are also in every large community and in some sections of large cities educational institutions whose chief object is to facilitate the Americanization of the immigrants. The model institution of that sort is the Educational Alliance (formerly the Hebrew Institute) of New York. Some of them bear the name Educational Society, and a large number, among which the Chicago institution, of which Julius Rosenwald (b. in Springfield, Ill., 1862) is the chief patron, prefer the old name of Hebrew Institute. This class of institutions have been undergoing material changes for the last ten or fifteen years, and those founded lately are entirely unlike those which belonged to the earlier period. All fear that the newcomers will not become Americanized sufficiently fast has now disappeared; and, besides, the work of Americanization which was formerly done by private charity, like the maintenance of evening classes and even of day classes for adult immigrants, to instruct them in English and elementary knowledge, is now done by the cities themselves. Private efforts are now made more in the direction of Jewish education and religious or semi-religious activities, and some of the Hebrew Institutes, notably the youngest and those established and maintained by immigrants themselves, are almost Talmud Torahs, often combined with synagogues, in which the religious element predominates, and in some of them rabbis occupy the leading positions.
Lastly, there is a class of splendid educational establishments, founded and endowed by Jewish philanthropists, for the technical development of the young Jewish immigrants. The most important of these in New York are the Baron de Hirsch Trade School, the Hebrew Technical Institute (organized 1883), and the Hebrew Technical School for Girls. Chicago has the Jewish (formerly the Manual) Training School (incorporated 1887); Baltimore its Maccabean House (incorporated 1900); Boston its Hebrew Industrial School (organized 1889), and the Jewish Educational Alliance of St. Louis, Mo., has a large industrial school; Cincinnati has a Boys’ Industrial School; while Philadelphia has the B’nai B’rith Manual Training School and the Industrial Home for Jewish Girls. The Young Men’s Hebrew Associations, the Young Women’s Hebrew Associations and other Jewish organizations of a like character in numerous places, maintain various classes—religious, technical, etc.—offering educational opportunities to new arrivals and to young working people who cannot utilize the regular institutions of public education.
The efforts to organize and to federate, which resulted in the formation of the American-Jewish Committee, produced several other communal federations of variegated character. The oldest and most substantial of these is the Federation of Galician and Bukowinian Jews in America (organized 1904), which founded and maintains the Har Moriah Hospital in New York. There have also lately been organized a Federation of Roumanian Jews and one of Russian-Polish Jews. There is also in New York a Federation of Contributors to Jewish Communal Institutions and a Federation of Jewish Organizations, both of which were organized in 1906.