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From: segs@mhuxv.UUCP (slusky)
Newsgroups: net.religion.jewish
Subject: Re: Re: Raising jewish children
Message-ID: <176@mhuxv.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 20-Sep-84 10:57:12 EDT
Article-I.D.: mhuxv.176
Posted: Thu Sep 20 10:57:12 1984
Date-Received: Tue, 25-Sep-84 19:57:07 EDT
References: <174@mhuxv.UUCP> <175@mhuxv.UUCP>
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> Of course the problem extends far beyond the immediate case of the
> sitter.  How do you educate a Jewish child in a pluralistic society?
> especially if you are not "Orthodox" but still are a committed Jew?
> Orthodox communities such as Boro Park, Highland Park, Lakewood,
> Fair Lawn, make the job a bit easier (but not entirely so!).  
> There is Orthodoxy's commitment to education in yeshivot to mini-
> mize "contamination" from the goyishe world.  But Orthodox day
> schools seem to be growing away from non-Orthodox Jews; the feed-
> back I'm getting from people who have kids in Hillel in Passaic
> and Yavneh in Paramus is that these schools are increasingly
> hostile to kids from homes where the parents are not completely ob-
> servant (whatever "completely" means), and there are frictions de-
> veloping among kids and groups of parents.  
> 
> Ken Wolman
> whuxe!ktw

I agree with you on the difficulty of raising Jewish children in a pluralistic
society. That was the sensitive nerve that that original article touched.

Perhaps if/as more Conservative parents choose Orthodox day schools the 
situation will get easier for Conservative kids in Orthodox day schools. 
I'd like to think that we really don't need two complete
Jewish day school systems to satisfy the needs of the community.
Rather, I hope that Orthodox day schools and Schecters can complement each
other covering the territory in a cooperative fashion.
Too much to hope?

I am sad to say, however, that I too have heard stories about Yavneh in Paramus.
You said that the yeshivot are growing increasingly hostile to non-Orthodox
kids. My more optimistic way of viewing it is that they have yet to adjust
to the non-Orthodox. In our generation, all but the Orthodox went to public
school and afternoon Hebrew school, right? The day schools adjusted to a
homogeneous clientele. As we all grow up and decide what to do with our
kids, many non-Orthodox are deciding that the public school-Hebrew school 
combination wasn't so good. Perhaps the already existing day schools can 
adjust to the change.


					Susan Slusky
					mhuxv!segs
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