CSJO-CU8.9

=CSJO-Grade 8 Lesson 8.9 (CSJO-Template)=

4. **Provide guided practice**: <???> 5. **Provide independent practice**: <???>
 * TITLE:** **Secular Alternatives for Jews: Pre 1960**
 * GOALS:** Explore secular organizations flourishing in the first half of the 20th century which attracted Jews. Explore the collapse of many of the Yiddish-based organizations in the 1950's.
 * MATERIALS:**
 * LESSON:**
 * 1. Gain the attention of the learner:** <???>
 * 2. Relevant past learning:** (Lesson 5): Chaim Zhitlovsky sparked the creation of the American Yiddish school movement to create a new type of Jew based on Yiddish culture and socialism but divorced from religion. He did not want this addition to American cultural pluralism to disappear in the melting pot of assimilation.
 * 3. Introduce new material:**
 * Organizations promoting Jewish identity based on culture, language, ethnicity, history, etc.
 * Yiddish-Oriented Secular Organizations
 * Secular Jewish day schools, after-school programs and summer camps teaching Yiddish, Jewish history, etc.
 * In the late 1920's, there were 20,000 students in secular Jewish schools.
 * By 1959, that number had been reduced to 13,000 or so.
 * The Workmen’s Circle or Arbeter Ring
 * Yiddish language-oriented American Jewish fraternal organization committed to social justice, Jewish community, and Ashkenazic culture. [... P]rovides old age homes for its aging members, as well as schools, camps, retreats, affordable health insurance, and year-round programs of concerts, lectures, and secular holiday celebrations (Wikipedia).
 * Created in 1900, to provide social services to the expanding immigrant Jewish population of New York City. In 1949, there were 70,000 members in the US and Canada. Today there are about 11,000 (Wikipedia).
 * Strongly socialist at its inception and for many years afterward, today it is "liberal with centrist influences" (Wikipedia).
 * In 1950, subscribed to a resolution adopted at a national conference of the American Association for Jewish Education, called "The Charter for the Jewish Child," stating that "it is the purpose of Jewish education to perpetuate the //religo-cultural// values of our people." This resolution, along with the introduction of some religious teaching and practices, was an abandonment of the very basic precept upon which Jewish secular education is predicated - Jewish secularism as a lasting expression in the overall pattern of Jewish life. (modified from Goldberg)
 * Collapse of Yiddish organizations
 * Difficulty in maintaining a separate language in an accepting society - easier in an oppressive society.
 * Willingness of Jews to give up their language, dress, names, etc., to be integrated into American society.
 * Emergence of Israel with its emphasis on Hebrew and its antipathy toward Yiddish.
 * Collapse accelerated by anticommunism of 1950's.
 * Communism was seen as a real threat by capitalist countries.
 * Russia became a world power during World War II and China shortly thereafter.
 * Communist countries were totalitarian regimes where individual rights and freedoms were often brutally repressed.
 * Both Russia and China actively worked to expand their spheres to other countries of the world.
 * In the 1950's, politicians in the US whipped up anti-Communist fears making it unsafe to be members of organizations associated with Communist or even socialist ideas including most of the Yiddish-speaking Jewish organizations.
 * Jewish charities, such as the United Jewish Appeal stopped giving money to support such organizations.
 * Jewish Community Centers (JCC's) ([])
 * (JCC) is a general recreational, social and fraternal organization serving the Jewish community in a number of cities. JCCs promote Jewish culture and heritage through holiday celebrations, Israel-related programming, and Jewish education; however they are open to everyone in the community.
 * History
 * The YMHA (Young Men's Hebrew Association) was first set up in 1854 in Baltimore to provide help for Jewish immigrants. A YWHA (Young Women's Hebrew Association) was first established as an annex to the YMHA in New York in 1888. The New York YMHA and YWHA now operate together as the 92nd Street Y.
 * The first independent YWHA was set up in 1902. In 1917 the YMHAs and YWHAs were combined into a Jewish Welfare Board, and were later renamed Jewish Community Centers (or JCCs), though some individual locations retain the YWHA or YMHA designation.
 * Service and resources: provide educational, cultural, social, Jewish identity-building, and recreational programs for people of all ages and backgrounds. JCC Association supports the largest network of Jewish early childhood centers and Jewish summer camps in North America.
 * The JCC Association is the continental umbrella organization for the Jewish Community Center movement, which includes more than 350 JCCs, YM-YWHAs, and camp sites in the U.S. and Canada, in addition to 180 local JCCs in the Former Soviet Union, 70 in Latin America, 50 in Europe, and close to 500 smaller centers in Israel.
 * Ethical Culture - ([])
 * Provide an alternative to religion open to all people with an emphasis on ethics and deeds but without God and worship. It is universalistic rather than specifically Jewish, and has a humanistic, non-theistic viewpoint.
 * Founded by Felix Adler, the son of an important Reform Rabbi in New York City. Felix’s graduate studies in Germany exposed him to scientific, critical studies of the Bible and also to moral philosophy, particularly that of Immanuel Kant. As a result, he lost his faith in divine revelation. He went on to develop the idea that ethics and justice unfolded through history without the intervention of God or the need for religious revelation. He founded the Society for Ethical Culture in New York, based on these ideas, in 1876. This group attracted Jews and non-Jews though its Board of Directors in the United States was predominantly Jewish. (Sachar, Kindle Location 8199ff)
 * Adler and his Society for Ethical Culture called for moral social action without the trappings of ritual and religious belief. Adler talked about the need for “deed not creed.” The Society for Ethical Culture founded and operated a Free Kindergarten for the children of the working poor, providing clothing and hot meals in addition to education. [Wikipedia, “Felix Adler (professor)”]
 * Other early social service projects included a nursing service and a company devoted to improving tenement housing.
 * Over time, Ethical Culture took on the formal appearance of a religion, including Sunday meetings, marriages, funerals, etc., all with a humanistic approach without appeals to God. [Wikipeda, “Ethical movement.”]
 * 6. Close the lesson:**<???>
 * 7. References:**
 * Howe, Irving (1976). **World of Our Fathers**, Harcourt, Brace and Jovanovich, New York and London
 * Michaels, Tony. **A Fire In Their Hearts: Yiddish Socialists in New York**, Harvard University Press, 2005 Cambridge Mass,
 * Sachar, Howard M. (2013-07-24). **A History of the Jews in America** (Vintage). Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
 * Freidenreich, Fradle Pomerantz (2010), **Passionate Pioneers, The Story of Yiddish Secular Education in North America, 1910 to 1960**. Holmes & Meier Publishers, Inc.
 * Goldberg, I. (1959). **Secular Jewish Education in the U.S.A.** **The meaning of secularism and the state of progressive Jewish schools.** []
 * [] (2014-05-19)
 * [] (2014-05-22)
 * [] (2014-05-22)