THE BUREAU OF EDUCATION
Even in matters where success hinged on the good-will and co-operation of the community, the Kehillah has seemed not to have the courage or desire to adopt a democratic course.
Nowhere is this more deplorable than in its work for education. The education fund was gathered by Dr. Magnes, who, as chairman of the Kehillah, interested a number of men of large means in the problem of local Jewish education. But when this fund was gathered, it was not organized as a component part of the Kehillah. It was practically segregated and sterilized against interference by the Kehillah conventions for five years. A special committee was appointed, to which was given absolute control of the Bureau. The standing committee on Education, holding office for one year, was ignored, and the Board of Trustees of the Bureau was made up regardless of that committee. This special board of trustees was appointed for five years, and one of its first acts was the appointment for five years of Dr. S. Benderly as director. The resolution naming the trustees and giving them full power, as well as the contract with Dr. Benderly, was not even voted on by the Kehillah convention. They were executive acts, binding the Kehillah in legal form for five years against interference with the Bureau.
Now, had the Bureau adhered strictly to its original program, it probably could have gone ahead undisturbed, writing textbooks, formulating methods, etc. But as the community was confused as to the relations of the Bureau and the Kehillah, and there had been an implied agreement, as many claimed, that the Bureau's fund, at least part of it, was to be used in the direct service of Jewish education, the Bureau, in an ill-advised moment, decided to depart from its original program. It agreed to subsidize a number of Talmud Torahs on condition that they accept Dr. Benderly's methods.
But the sub-conscious feeling that the Bureau was not theirs, that its policy could not be amended or altered by them, operated to create discord. Into the details of this discord we need not go. A deal of the criticism of the dissatisfied had no basis in fact, but the Kehillah should have been disturbed by the fact that in spite of
the undeserved criticisms, they seemed to strike a popular chord. There was no popular resentment of the mendacious attacks. The public seemed to say: "The criticism is unworthy of notice, but it is not our Bureau." And every one of the critics of the Bureau felt exasperated beyond words for no matter how loud he might shout, or how valid his criticism, the Bureau was going to do as it pleased. They contributed a large share to the general discrediting of the Kehillah, denying wherever they went its right to the title of communal representative.
THE PROBLEM OF SCHECHITAH.
It was early recognized that if the Kehillah was to be placed on a permanent basis, it would have to grapple with the Schechitah problem as its first task. No element of the Jewish population would seriously have refused to co-operate in its reorganization, for there is general agreement that the Kosher label on meat should mean exactly what Jewish law intended it to mean. This is a practical communal problem. The Schechitah has always been managed by the community through its householders. In Russia it produces revenue for many Jewish philanthropies through the indirect tax it places on consumers of kosher meat. The tax is being paid right here in New York by the consumers to the meat-dealers, who contribute in part out of this fund to the maintenance of a number of rabbis and their assistants. These rabbis, acting in an extra-congregational capacity, are the employes of the dealers. They and their subordinates act for the dealers' interests, and only incidentally for the community's. The dealers are thus the controllers of the Kashruth of meat in this city.
How should the Kehillah have dealt with this important problem, of great interest to the community and of vital importance to its own future? Granting that the rabbis employed as supervisors of the Schechitah had been forced to make the best of conditions as they were, as they had developed, here was an opportunity of testing the composite interest of the community. Wherever there is an efficient Board of Schechitah, its strength lies in the fact that it is based upon congregational union, to the exclusion of rabbinical dominance.