From: stank@cbnewsl.cb.att.com (Stan Krieger)
Subject: Re: Hebrew school
Organization: Summit NJ
Date: Fri, 31 Jul 1992 13:12:06 GMT

One thing that I haven't really seen discussed in this thread is whether
we feel that we ourselves, or our children, have received a reasonable
education from our synagogue's Hebrew School.  And if the answer is
"no", what have we done about it.

In my case, the main thing that I'm thankful about is that my children
have finished our synagogue's Hebrew School.  My feeling is that if
there is one thing that keeps our children interested in the religion,
it's a knowledge of synagogue skills.  But my synagogue managed to
find a principal about 6 years ago who feels that history and ethics
are more important.  So, what has happened-

     1.	Where many of our Bar/Bat Mitzvah were able to conduct most, if
	not all, the Friday night and Saturday morning service, now it's
	a lot if they do the Friday night service and the Torah service
	on Saturday (and realize that, being a Conservative synagogue,
	this is virtually the traditional service that they are leading).

     2.	It's now a chore for the USY advisor to find enough members to
	conduct services and read Torah on USY Shabbat.  The number of
	members qualified to do so has dropped sharply.

     3.	One of the biggest selling points of my current synagogue when
	I joined (15 years ago) was that the Megillot were read by
	teenagers; on Simchat Torah, teenagers read the Torah.  Now,
	the number of teenagers reading from Esther, Song of Songs,
	etc., is way down, and with very few exceptions, it's
	Schecter students participating.  

And of course, complainers get nowhere.  Curriculum issues are answered
with "well we have only 4.5 hours a week".  My longstanding complaint
about our not using Saturday morning is given the stock answer "Our
staff is Orthodox and won't drive on Saturday."  And of course, there
is the prevailing attitude that nobody in a decision-making position
regarding the Hebrew School is accountable to any one individual
synagogue member.

What I saw when I was on the Education Committee over 10 years ago, was
that we made no decisions; everything was done by the Chairman and the
Rabbi. In the three years that I was on the committee, the only
initiative from the committee (from me) was a recommendation to the
Board of Directors that a young couple (defined as both spouses under
30) shouldn't have to give up their discount on synagogue dues if they
enroll a child in the Hebrew School.  The end result is that membership
input is neither desired, nor is it acted upon.  To show how little
trust is put in the Education Committee itself, it's the Chairman alone,
and not the committee, who makes all personnel decisions, and at budget
time, all the committee sees is one line-item for "staff salaries"; I
guess it can't be trusted to function as a Board of Education.

Finally, something has to be wrong when families don't know that Shavuot
is a holiday.  For the last two years, the first day of Shavuot was on
Sunday, and it was pathetic seeing how many people were dropping off
their kids, or the entire car pool, for Hebrew School.  (Of course, one
of my pet peeves is that we don't have a Junior Congregation program,
but that's another issue completely.)   Normally, I would say the kids
should've just gone to the sanctuary, but they weren't dressed appropriately
and, without proper supervision, would've quickly become disruptive.
-- 
Stan Krieger                     All opinions, advice, or suggestions, even
AT&T UNIX System Laboratories    if related to my employment, are my own.
Summit, NJ
smk@usl.com