The Lander Legacy
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“appropriate bedside manner!” In an incisive report detailing the insidious methods used to limit minority admissions, Lander pointed out that the harm caused by such prejudicial practices was not limited to merely the prospective student being denied admission. “Our entire community is being ill-served when students capable of becoming our top surgeons, jurists, and government leaders are being denied access to a college education because of their religion.” Lander’s report went on to urge the state’s educational sanctioning agency, the Board of Regents, to investigate these collegiate discriminatory practices and take strong action against them. He sadly noted that New York was spending less per capita on higher education than any other state in the union. This shocking situation needed immediate attention and, going beyond simple criticism in his report, Lander advocated the establishment of a new state university system that would provide appropriate educational facilities to all New York residents regardless of financial status in order to “assure all qualified 64 The Lander Legacy applicants, regardless of race, creed, color, or national origin, their full educational opportunities.” Upon completing his report, and convinced of the urgency of its message, Lander was concerned that it might languish in the Mayor’s Committee for Unity for some time before any action was to be taken. To jumpstart the process, he employed some subterfuge of his own. Lander enlisted the aid of another member of the Committee, social activist and best-selling author of Imitation of Life, Backstreet, and other novels: Fannie Hurst. Neither a radical nor an intellectual, Hurst was a close friend of Eleanor Roosevelt and had vigorously supported the New Deal. As a director of New York’s Urban League, she enjoyed easy access to the city’s newspaper editors. At Lander’s behest, Hurst leaked the report to Benjamin Fine, the Pulitzer Prize–winning education editor at the New York Times, who saw to it that the blistering report received front-page coverage in the following day’s edition. Lander’s ploy worked; the story was a bombshell. Due to the intense public interest generated by the report’s findings (among other factors), it was quickly published and widely distributed both within and outside of the New York academic community. Once again Governor Dewey responded by appointing a commission that would eventually do exactly what Lander’s report had advocated: establish the State University of New York (SUNY). The report also spurred the New York state legislature to pass the Quinn-Olliffe Bill, the first fair educational practices law enacted in the United States. The Dewey commission went further by instructing the Board of Regents to deny public funding to any college or university found guilty of minority discrimination, regardless of how such practices were depicted by the school itself. The legacy of Lander’s work in this area can best be appreciated by reviewing the establishment and current profile of SUNY, an educational system that was created in direct response to his tenacious and inspired advocacy. The State University of New York lists its founding date as February 1948 when New York became the last of forty-eight states to finally create a state university system. The new university consolidated twenty-nine unaffiliated institutions, including eleven teachers colleges. Today SUNY has grown to include sixty-four colleges on geographically dispersed campuses that are all within commuting distance of New York. SUNY Unity 65 provides access to virtually every field of academic or professional study through 7,669 degree and certification programs. As of January 2008, 20 percent of SUNY’s 418,000 enrolled students were members of minority groups. Although most are from New York, SUNY students come from every state and from 160 nations. A full 40 percent of New York’s high school graduates enroll at SUNY each year resulting in over two and a half million SUNY alumni living in New York and around the world. These alumni are indeed indebted to Rabbi Bernard Lander and his pioneering work to eradicate ethnic and racial quotas and to enlarge the scope of educational opportunities in the state of New York. Lander came to understand that the work of the Mayor’s Committee was not destined to be an overnight struggle. His breakthrough success in the area of combating the higher education quota system must be regarded as a crack in the firmament that would, after some time, result in the elimination of all such quotas. The following year, the Association of American Colleges, in a dramatic mea culpa, acknowledged “with a troubled conscience” a history of discrimination against Jews among America’s academic establishment. Under the guidance of this professional association, questions about a candidate’s race and religion—questions that had been there for a quarter century—began to slowly disappear from college entrance application forms. Over the ensuing twenty-year period, the level of discrimination in American higher education steadily declined, a fact that is also a proud component of the Lander Legacy. Of course the Mayor’s Committee was first and foremost dedicated to investigating and understanding the social forces at work in those areas that had prompted its formation in the first place. In this capacity, Bernard Lander’s background in researching the juvenile delinquency statistics of Baltimore proved invaluable. Under the auspices of the Mayor’s Committee, Lander initiated and oversaw an in-depth survey aimed at gaining an understanding of a long series of anti-Semitic outbreaks centered on Coney Island. For this task he enlisted the services of the newly formed Congress on Community Interrelations. or the CCI. The CCI had been established as a social research group by one of America’s three leading Jewish advocacy organizations, the American Jewish Congress (the American Jewish Committee and the Anti-Defamation League being the other two). Lander had learned about the group’s plans 66 The Lander Legacy to set up the CCI from his friend and AJCongress leader, Rabbi Irving Miller who, like Lander, had also earned ordination from RIETS. As Miller explained, the CCI was being formed in response to calls for more proactive efforts in fighting anti-Semitism that arose during a recent AJCongress conference held in New York City. The CCI’s mission was to study the causes of anti-Semitism in America in order to combat and eliminate them. Lander suggested that Miller consider noted German .migr. social scientist, Kurt Lewin, to head the new group. Often recognized as the “founder of social psychology” and a pioneer in the study of organizational development, Lewin was, at this point, heading the Research Center for Group Dynamics at M.I.T. Rabbi Miller passed on Lander’s recommendation to AJCongress president Stephen S. Wise, who contacted Lewin. Kurt Lewin was in fact hired as a consultant by the CCI based partly on Lander’s suggestion. Lewin’s work on behalf of the CCI led to significant advances and led to the CCI’s coming key role in many aspects of the civil rights movement. Working under the auspices of both the Mayor’s Committee and the CCI, Lander designed a survey used to conduct in-depth interviews with residents of the Coney Island neighborhoods under investigation. He employed interview techniques that had been developed by Lazarsfeld and Merton at Columbia in order to unearth the structure of the prejudice that permeated the community. The surveys revealed that the anti-Jewish disturbances were merely one of a constellation of anti-social behaviors carried out by Italian gangs. The study concluded that in order to combat the racial and anti-Jewish manifestations, alternative socially acceptable channels for youthful behavior had to become available. The Mayor’s Committee, acting on these recommendations, assigned a field worker the task of developing such programs similar to those that Lander had used in Baltimore. While no miracles resulted, the number of racially motivated teenage crimes in the area continued to decline over the coming years due, in part, to the youth programs put into place by the Mayor’s Committee at Rabbi Lander’s behest. The significance of these types of sociological studies was extolled by many in the field at the time. Noted gestalt theorist Goodwin Watson, referring to the CCI study, commented, “The social power of self-directed, cooperative fact-finding in its potential contribution to strengthening democracy, ranks higher than the discovery of atomic energy!” Unity 67 The Mayor’s Committee also turned its attention to Washington Heights. Working with the City College department of sociology, Lander discovered that a full 30 percent of parents interviewed reported that their children had been involved in clashes with other ethnic groups. Again, the Committee issued a report to the city that urged investment in neighborhood recreational centers as well as a program of in-school tolerance education. Both recommendations were acted upon and, in a follow-up study, the number of such clashes had substantially diminished. Having been formed amidst the shadow and smoke of the Harlem riots, it is no surprise that most of the work of the Mayor’s Committee focused on improving conditions in the black community. The Committee’s efforts in securing equal employment legislation impacted blacks enormously since they were often the “last hired and the first fired” when times were tough. But something also needed to be done about not only how black people earned their money, but also how they spent it. Allegations of price gouging by Harlem shopkeepers and merchants was one of the factors that had sparked the riots. The Committee looked into pricing practices during both 1945 and 1946, tracking prices up and down 125th Street. They worked closely with neighborhood consumer groups and responded to claims of not only price gouging but also reports of discrimination in employment and cases of public accommodations and transportation services being denied to blacks. The experience of serving on the Mayor’s Committee on Unity had a deep and lasting effect on Bernard Lander. While always firm in the principle that each individual has infinite intrinsic value and that all people are equal in the eyes of G-d, he now had personal first-hand experience to support this belief. By working closely and effectively with blacks, protestants, and Irish and Italian Catholics, Lander had gained a personal appreciation for their concerns and had come to value their friendships. While never neglecting the needs of his own people, Lander gained the respect of his non-Jewish colleagues because of his empathy and devotion to their needs. In 1947, as he continued to fine tune his Columbia doctoral dissertation, Rabbi Lander accepted a part-time evening teaching position at CUNY’s Hunter College in midtown Manhattan. His work on the Mayor’s Committee continued unabated. The following year, Charles Evans Hughes, Jr. submitted his resignation as chairman of the Mayor’s Committee on Unity. Hughes’s successor was Edward Lazansky, who felt that 68 The Lander Legacy Catholics and Jews were capable of taking care of themselves and that the Committee on Unity should concentrate solely on improving opportunities for the city’s black population. The Committee’s director, and Rabbi Lander’s close colleague over the previous four years, Dan Dodson, soon thereafter returned to his post at NYU. Having identified many of the root causes leading to urban violence and after having submitted a series of administrative and legislative recommendations adopted by City Hall and the State of New York, the Committee now saw its role evolve into that of an enforcement arm that would act to secure these new civil rights protections on a more permanent basis. Eventually the Committee on Unity was replaced by just such a standing city agency, the Commission on Human Rights, which was granted the authority to enforce the newly enacted civil rights legislation. As he saw the activities of the Committee winding down, Bernard Lander decided that the time had come for him to move on. With more time finally available, he was able to complete, submit, and defend his doctoral dissertation at Columbia, which awarded Lander his Ph.D. degree in late 1948. Although Dr. Lander became a full-time member of the Hunter College faculty the following year, he soon found that he was not cut out for merely a pedagogic career. The yearning for social service still burned strongly in his heart and so, shortly before the decade ended, Bernard Lander sought and accepted a new position with the New York City Youth Board. Since returning to New York from Baltimore, Bernard Lander had devoted himself to the ideal of building unity among the diverse ethnic factions of New York. But it was another sort of unity that captured his attention during the winter of early 1948. Bernard, at the time, was not only investigating religious tensions in Washington Heights; he was also living in the neighborhood. An advantage of having returned to New York as a single man was that he was able to reside with his parents, whose home sat only a few short blocks from the Yeshiva campus. During the long winter nights, Bernard was in the habit of retiring to the warmth of Yeshiva’s beis medrash (house of learning) following Shabbos. There he would indulge in intense learning and lively discussion until the early hours. He found these weekly sessions both spiritually and intellectually invigorating, providing him with renewed energy to face the coming week’s challenges. Unity 69 So it was no doubt the case that Bernard was deep in study at Yeshiva on the Saturday night that Sarah Shragowitz attended a party at a friend’s apartment. Fortunately for Bernard, his brother Nathan, who was also living at their parents’ home at the time, did attend the gathering that night. There he met Sarah, blessed with the same wholesome natural beauty of her Biblical namesake, who impressed Nathan with her character and intelligence. When Sarah explained that she had one semester remaining at New York University where she was majoring in sociology, Nathan instantly mentioned his brother who was, by this point, a few months shy of earning his doctorate in sociology from Columbia. Nathan understood, perhaps better than Bernard himself, what his older brother was seeking in a wife, and after spending some time exposed to Sarah’s poise and charm, he concluded that here was an excellent candidate. Nathan began to inquire about Sarah’s family background and learned that she was the daughter of the only rabbi in Port Chester, New York, a village in the town of Rye off Long Island Sound. When Nathan later reported his encounter to Bernard, he urged his brother to not let this opportunity pass him by. Bernard greatly respected his younger brother’s opinion on all matters, including matters of the heart, so he swung into action. His first step was to call on his friend Dr. Abraham Katsh, chairman of the Department of Hebrew Studies at NYU to learn, if by chance, he knew a student named Sarah Shragowitz. Dr. Katsh informed Bernard that Sarah was a student in his class—a very bright student—and fully supported Nathan’s opinion of her. He invited Bernard to sit in on the class so that he could introduce them. Bernard agreed. But, alas the fates that had caused them to miss each other at the party were still at work, and when Bernard arrived to Dr. Katsh’s class, he was informed that Sarah was absent that day because she was studying for a major test in another subject. After speaking with Dr. Katsh about Sarah for a second time, and receiving yet another strong endorsement, Bernard felt that he had completed his due diligence and decided to phone Sarah directly. The over-the-phone introductions went well, and the two agreed to meet the following day. Sarah was naturally apprehensive, but once they met, she found that she had a great deal in common and much to talk about with this energetic, highly intelligent young man. Although they did not breach the 70 The Lander Legacy subject at that first meeting, they both quickly saw in each other the potential for marriage. As the courtship moved forward, it soon became time for Bernard to visit Sarah’s family in Port Chester, where he met Sarah’s father, Rabbi Moshe Shragowitz, a stately man who exuded an air of old-world dignity. Rabbi Shragowitz had emigrated from Kletsk in 1923 with his wife, Hinde, and their young son, Jacob. Before coming to Port Chester, Rabbi Shragowitz had served for ten years as a congregational rabbi in Somerville, New Jersey. It was there that the couple’s third daughter, Sarah, was born in 1926. The family moved to their current home in this quaint shipbuilding town in 1936 where, over the course of the ensuing forty years, Rabbi Shragowitz would serve the small Jewish community as its rabbi, chazzan, shochet and mohel (spiritual leader, cantor, ritual slaughterer, and ritual circumciser). From his very first encounter with the Shragowitzes, Bernard Lander had nothing but the utmost respect and affection for Sarah’s parents. Moshe Shragowitz was a true rabbinic scholar, steeped in Torah tradition, and an outstanding community leader. Hinde, he regarded as a pillar of chesed (kindness), ceaselessly engaged in charitable acts throughout their community. In Sarah, Bernard had found the life partner who had eluded him for so long both in Baltimore and in New York. Sarah was likewise drawn to Download 1.89 Mb. Share with your friends:
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