About religious schools and Sunday schools. Morais, Sabato. Philadelphia, PA. 1894 · Sabato Morais Digital Repository · Legacy Projects from Judaica DH at Penn Libraries

Title

About religious schools and Sunday schools. Morais, Sabato. Philadelphia, PA. 1894

Author

Morais, Sabato

Date Created

1894

Location(s)

United States -- Pennsylvania -- Philadelphia

United States -- Pennsylvania

Format

10 pages on 4 sheets

Rights

http://rightsstatements.org/page/NoC-US/1.0/?

Language(s)

English

Source

Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies

Sabato Morais Collection, Box 13, Folder 19

Has Format

https://colenda.library.upenn.edu/items/ark:/81431/p32805h62/manifest.json

Link to Colenda

https://colenda.library.upenn.edu/catalog/81431-p32805h62

Provenance

Transfer of Custody from the Hebrew Education Society, 10 March 1913.

Is Format Of

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/judaicadh/morais/main/TEI/SMBx13FF19_6.xml

content

S. MORAIS,
546 N. FIFTH STREET,
PHILADELPHIA, PA.

31

94
On the need for more religious schools

Some of the persistence with which Christians labor to accomplish their a perverting object, might well be copied by Jews to defeat that same object. The efforts of a single individual, or of a few persons separately, however earnest, will not compass the end in view. but In union there is the strength needed for a determined purpose. In the Southern section of our city, where a vast number of our coreligionists of foreign birth congregate, a danger faced Judaism on all sides. It The peril encountered is a plan insidiously laid out, to bring the young of Israel to be the acknowledgment of a creed abhorrent to our soul. Mission schools are planted and measures adopted to fill those schools with boys and girls who should shun such schools them as we would avoid the verge of a precipice; boys and girls whose every fibre should thrillingly respond to the daily declaration Adonaï Echad, "The Lord is One." I stealthily wit--nessed the exercises of gone through at those schools, and felt deep--ly pained as hearing children who ought to learn the history of the patriarchs, the lessons of our pro--phets and sages, rehearse a catechism which taught the deification of perishable man, the dogma of a blood atone--ment for inherited sin and the hurling of curses on Jews as God's son killers murderers of an incarnate god.

The brother who acted as my escort on those oc--casions said to me, like the voice which spoke to Ezekiel [Hebrew] "You will further see still greater abominations." And so I did to my sorrowfully under the guise of an institution in which the knowledge of Hebrew is acquired, an apostate Jewess, in the pay of the church, gathered around her many of our little ones, allured by a variety of promises for, the larger the number the larger the reward. Burning with indignation, I visited the premises of rank deception, but only once, for the princi--pal of the abominable school, furiously remonstrated against my having entered it, as an act of unpardon--able intrusion, as an act which would force her to call for in the intervention of the police. I did not put her threat to the test, fearing scandal. In that instance I con--sidered discretion the better part of valor. But more than once I stood watching in the neighborhood to note down the names of the children who issued from a building, where a net is spread for the unwary, so that I might caution the parents. Hence The sad humiliation which I experienced sprung from that very circumstance. Reckless fathers and unprincipled mothers deliberately exposed their offspring to the seductions of a people, who do not scruple to employing base means in order to carry out their object design.

A woman whom I had endeavoured to aid through charities, while her husband, either voluntarily, or by accident kept aloof from her, did not show the least compunction for sending her young ones to the school of apostasy. Positively Perfectly knowing aware of the aim of the institution, she with a brazen countenance she disputed me and declared that Judaism was taught there, and that she p rejoined because added that together with the ins-truction, a number of gifts were received. The ingrate doubtless appreciated the latter better than the former. Now, I may often have been censured charged with cruelty to speaking animals, as I call persons in whom greed silences the best moral instincts, still, I could not forbear saying that persons again and again the almoners to whom the administration of charity beneficence our free will offer-ing to the indigent is entrusted, ought invariably to inquire of the appli--cants, whether their children are under religious as well as secular tuition and whether they attend Jew--ish worship. I know of many who are regular recipients of help from our United Hebrew Charities, whose re--cognition of the faith in which they were born con--sists in the acceptance of assistance rendered by that Jewish institutions and kindred ones. Their sons and daughters never enter a Syna--gogue, nor learn at home the first rudiments of our belief.

Must we set a premium on the resolute wilful defection of the rising generation among the need? In ages past a saying ran thus [Hebrew] "Take good care of the children of the poor, for they will be the custodians of the Torah." But Now adays, we do take care of them through their parents, too much so perhaps, bodily not, so in equally but we do not bestow equal care on that which concerns their spiritual wants. True, we have free Sunday schools and free Hebrew schools, but how inadequate their number to the vast increase of our brethren, who have sought here in Philadelphia security from Russian persecution! Many more such schools ought we to set up, precisely in the localities which our religious adversaries craftily choose, to establish theirs, because the plans selected overflowing with a Jewish population. I am reliably informed that on 7th st between Pine and Lombard sts, a furnace is in full blast, lighted for the destruction of our creed, exists. Not a few are the incautious that fall into it. Some, whose natural guardians have been warned, are offered to that Molock the parents arguing with an indifference which exites wrath anger, that, after all, they do not fear the burning flames. They cannot scathe their children's soul. Their sons and daughters know that they are born of Jews--emplary Jews for sooth, who trifle with the spiritual welfare of creatures committed to their safe-keeping.

Most worthy Jews, who resolutely wilfully resolutely expose a precious treasure given in their charge to the danger of being lost! I find that our moralist asks in the book of Proverbs [Hebrew] "Can one walk upon hot coals and his feet not be scorched?" Bad enough; wrong enough that Jewish tax payers, who contribute to the support of public secular schools must submit to an outrage perpetrated against the faith which we they profess. I mean, in the obligations imposed upon our their children. For, the latter are expected to listen to the recital reading of the new testament, to join in hymns totally at variance with our belief and specially at the church festivities now approaching to take part in recitations that ill-accord with the religion, which proclaims the all saving powers of one God, and as we of the Sephardic ritual sing [Hebrew] "Without conjunction, without division of parts, great and all mighty." Private and public remonstrances have availed little. They are met by the trite remark: "the majority rel rules", although the boast of this land is that it has written a bill of divorce, which holds the church severely apart from the state. Shame upon some of my would be patriotic coreligionists, who called those their brethren to task who, from time to time, have ventured to dispute the right of that majority! But if we are unjustly dealt with in the instance just cited, it does not follow that we shall allow open enemies to undermine Judaism

We must not tolerate their insidious artifices, dictated by the immoral maxim that "the end justifies the means." We must thwart their intentions, and I think that if we planted schools of our own very close to those which they establish as a bait, and offer some of the inducements which they hold out, we shall would finally drain them out mission factories dry of their resources and recover what is our own. But we should choose the same hours and the same days as well as a near spot near to their meetings houses. The afternoon of Saturdays and Sundays afternoons are is the leisure time of which hired [?] apostatizers take advantage. We should utilize that time to defeat their object. Indeed, for several years I have been anxious to set up in such localities an afternoon Sabbath service, accompanied by a lecture in conversational style and easy instruct--ion in books of our literature. I hold that it am of opinion that the effecting of that plan would serve a double purpose. It would prevent the estrangement of the young form the ancestral fold and act as an object lesson to our fellow believers who pray much but not well, whose worship with great frequency and large attendances but neither quietly nor decorously. Could I make it compatible with the duty which I primarily owe this congregation, I would deem it a merit to assume the task as highly meritorious. I was asked by a sister in faith who shares my views upon that score subject, whether I could suggest any one qualified to undertake the task. I answered negatively.

In my mind, the prerequisites for its proper performance are fondness of the Hebrew language and its preference to other languages in our prayers; sympathy with those untrained in American manners and habits and willingness to impart in--struction within the line of Hebrew the Jewish traditions. But if unfortunately we cannot just now over--come the difficulties presented in that respect, we should try with might and main to arouse a spi--rit whose up [?] the rising up of which will result in the creation of schools proportionate to our increasing wants needs. We must not suffer permit either sworn adherents of the trinity to steal away the hearts of our children, or our looking on passively on the recreancy of their parents. If the maxim aphorism [Hebrew] "each Israelite is a guaranteed for his coreligionist," conveys any sense, it signifies, as the immortal Rashi explains it, that we shall keep vigilant watch so that the underlying ordinances principles of Judaism suffer no detriment. To whom shall I appeal for the consummation of the all import--ant object? My heart replies "to the women of Israel" Their zeal does not abate because the demands on their exertions for the sake of to furthering the Jewish cause, are increasing augmenting continually. Let them take coun-sel together. Associated with men who have never shrunk from duty and proved a main stay to our free schools

they will enrich us with institutions, which, under God's blessing, may rise as impregnable fortresses against the open or covert attacks of trinitarians. Women of Israel, whom, in the days of old, Talmudists extolled for the practice of taking their children to the School house [Hebrew] will win a still higher merit, that of having disarmed the adversaries of our religion and supplied us with spiritual weapons of self-defence. May I not have spoken in vain.

Identifier

p32805h62

identifier

SMBx13FF19_6