The Lander Legacy
Download 1.89 Mb.
|
|
at the time, Hunter College, he accepted his first post as part of Yeshiva University’s administration, that of Visiting Director of Graduate Studies (see next chapter). But promoting his qualifications to Dr. Belkin was not the only time that Rabbi Churgin attempted to provide Bernard Lander with a career impetus. As Lander later learned from Professor Gershon Churgin, the professor’s brother, Pinkhos, had privately named two possible successors to fill his shoes as president of Bar-Ilan University. One was Rabbi Dr. Emanuel Rackman, and the other was Rabbi Dr. Bernard Lander. The Bar-Ilan board floated the idea and asked if Lander was interested in being considered as its next president. After due consultation, Lander Learner to Leader 87 reported that while he was flattered by the late Rabbi Churgin’s confidence and endorsement, he and Sarah were now the parents of three young daughters and could not easily leave their own parents behind were the family to pick up and make aliyah at that time. The board ultimately selected Rabbi Dr. Joseph Lookstein to succeed Churgin as president, who in turn, was succeeded in the post twenty years later by Churgin’s other choice, Rabbi Rackman. It would be Lander’s leadership role with another major Jewish organization that would propel him even further across the national stage. While he was serving as rabbi of Congregation Beth Jacob in Baltimore, Lander’s cousin, Benjamin Koenigsberg, had urged him to become involved with the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America. Also known as the Orthodox Union, or simply the OU, the group continues to serve as the major sanctioning body for Kashruth observance among America’s food processors. But this was not its sole, nor even its primary, role. Founded in 1898, the OU, one of America’s oldest Jewish institutions, was established by the same rabbis who created the Jewish Theological Seminary or JTS, America’s first acknowledged Judaic school of divinity. The OU was established as a bulwark against the rising hegemony of Reform Judaism in America. It served to establish and strengthen Orthodox synagogues, youth programs, and day schools and became known as the nation’s leading exponent of Orthodoxy and Religious Zionism in America. By 1902, rifts between the OU and JTS became pronounced. In order to buoy its flagging fortunes, a group of JTS supporters that year succeeded in attracting a well-known European scholar, Solomon Schechter, to the United States to head the school. Schechter immediately set about to “liberalize” the seminary, hoping to attract enrollment from among American-born rabbinic candidates. Exactly 100 days after Schechter’s arrival, the OU broke with JTS, charging that it was leading Jews in the very direction that the OU had been established to avoid. It was announced that the OU and its affiliates would no longer recognize as legitimate the semicha (ordination) bestowed by JTS upon its rabbinic graduates. This move prompted Schechter and others to found the Conservative movement as a sort of “middle path” between the traditional course of Orthodoxy and the modernist road of Reform. 88 The Lander Legacy In 1923, the OU Kashruth Division was initiated when it contracted with the H.J. Heinz company to oversee the preparation of the company’s condiments and other food products. The familiar OU hekhsher (seal of approval), was first displayed that year on bottles of Heinz Ketchup. The OU grew rather slowly until the 1950s when it actively sought to enlarge its scope of affiliated Orthodox synagogues. As rabbis trained by Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik and ordained at Yeshiva’s RIETS seminary were dispatched to OU-affiliated synagogues across the country, Orthodox Jewry saw its influence spread beyond the confines of New York and the eastern seaboard. Today the OU remains the largest Orthodox Jewish organization in America. It has survived and flourished due to an ability to adapt effectively to American-style pluralism without forgoing Halachic principles. Bernard Lander began attending the OU’s biannual conventions in the 1940s. Over the ensuing years he witnessed and keenly understood how demographic forces were causing Jews to rush to the suburbs and abandon their Orthodox synagogues in the old neighborhoods. Lander lent his support as the OU fought valiant battles on behalf of Orthodoxy— through such programs as the Torah Umesorah network of Jewish day schools—seeking to preserve and further expand Orthodoxy amid the new post-war American Jewish landscape. At the OU convention held over Thanksgiving weekend of 1954, Dr. Lander joined a group of young activists as a new generation of leadership was swept into office. Lander, along with Samuel Brennglass of Massena, New York, was elected national vice-president while Lander’s good friend, Forest Hills attorney Harold Boxer, became national secretary. Boxer, in his professional travels throughout the country, had made a point of visiting not only Orthodox, but also Conservative synagogues. He shared with Lander his observations that while the Conservative movement had been operating a successful national youth group (United Synagogue Youth) for more than three years, nothing of the sort yet existed under the Orthodox umbrella. Lander, Brennglass, and Boxer placed the creation of just such a national synagogue youth movement at the top of the OU’s agenda. Brennglass drafted the resolution that called for the immediate establishment of the National Conference of Synagogue Youth (NCSY), and while some debate ensued, support for Learner to Leader 89 the resolution was overwhelming. Boxer was named as the NCSY’s first chairman, and Bernard Lander stepped up to serve on the new group’s governing body, the NCSY Youth Commission. The enthusiasm that brought the NCSY into existence soon gave way to the realities of trying to manage a nationwide entity without benefit of adequate funding. Despite increasing dissension and frequent calls for disbanding the organization that arose from within the OU’s upper leadership, Boxer and Lander became unwavering advocates for maintaining support. “What would be the purpose of the OU itself if we were to abandon our Jewish youth?” Lander asked rhetorically. NCSY struggled to remain viable throughout the 1950s, and in 1959, under the direction of a new national director, Rabbi Pinchas Stolper, it finally turned the corner. Stolper assembled a cadre of yeshiva student volunteers and dispatched them to communities around the country to set up teenage Shabbatonim (Sabbath retreats). The tactic worked, as students recruited from the major New York Orthodox religious schools set to work and began introducing an exciting brand of Judaism to America’s disaffiliated young people. The wheels that were put into motion through Lander, Boxer, and Stolper’s pioneering work have continued to turn. Over the ensuing decades, NCSY Shabbatonim have ignited dormant feelings of Yiddishkeit (Jewishness) appreciation and religious observance among countless Jewish adolescents across the nation. The program is today considered one of the most successful outreach initiatives ever developed by the American Orthodox community. In his impassioned work to establish and maintain the fledgling NCSY, Bernard Lander emerged as a national leader committed to investing in Jewish youth. His advocacy over the ensuing years served to place and keep NCSY at the top of the OU agenda. As vice president, Lander also fought repeatedly to increase funding allocations to college campus programs, convincing the more reluctant that investing in such youth programs would yield higher returns than any other. Because of his work in the civil rights arena and his stature as a sociologist, Dr. Lander was tapped to serve as the OU representative to the Synagogue Council of America. The SCA was established as an expression of Jewish shared community known as Klal Yisroel (the entire Jewish people). Its primary agenda was in the area of community relations, where 90 The Lander Legacy it worked with other Jewish agencies to promote civil rights, foster urban development, and improve conditions for the less fortunate. While the SCA’s mission was in keeping with Lander’s commitment to social justice, he soon began experiencing second thoughts as the group moved further and further from basic Jewish principles, a drift that was attributable to the increasing influence of the SCA’s Reform leadership. This religious dynamic expressed itself in political terms since Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik had repeatedly resisted calls from the organization’s leaders to withdraw OU’s membership in the SCA. Such a bolt, Rabbi Soloveitchik feared, would be perceived as a failure of Jewish unity by the general community and act to harm overall Jewish interests. In 1967, Dr. Lander was offered the presidency of the SCA and again found himself at a crossroads. He could either accept the position and strive to change the course of the organization from within, or he could resign rather than head a group that was leading Jews away from Torah values. In a quandary of conscience, Lander turned to the man known simply as Reb Moshe. Rabbi Moshe Feinstein was a world-renowned Torah scholar and posek (an adjudicator of Jewish law). His expertise in Halakha was unparalleled, and he was regarded by most as the de facto rabbinic authority for Orthodox Jewry in North America. Reb Moshe counseled Lander that he could not, as an observant Torah-true Jew, agree to become the head of an organization dominated by the Reform and Conservative movements. Lander understood the wisdom of Reb Moshe’s advice and immediately resigned his position on the Synagogue Council. The group continued, with limited effectiveness, through the 1990s when it disbanded after the Reform movement acted to sanction mixed marriages between Jews and non-Jews and publicly condoned unions between gay partners. By the early 1950s, Bernard Lander felt that the arc of his career was starting to turn downward. He faced increasing frustration that his work in areas of social advocacy was not leading him anywhere. He began to pay attention to the repeated overtures he was receiving from congregations urging him to accept a pulpit position. The irregular schedules and uncertainties of his situation were beginning to take their toll. Sarah informed him that she wanted to see him at breakfast and dinner each day but not at lunchtime. Unfortunately, none of the congregational posts he investigated would allow him sufficient time and opportunity to continue his Learner to Leader 91 social activism and academic work. And he was not prepared to give those up merely in exchange for a regular work schedule. Throughout those years, Bernard Lander continued to enjoy the many public speaking opportunities that his position with the OU and Mizrachi had afforded him. He loved traveling and observing Jewish life outside of New York. In turn, he began to develop a strong following as word of his oratorical skills spread throughout the Jewish world. Yet, while the speaking tours were exciting, they failed to satisfy his deeper yearning to conduct a truly meaningful life. He continued to listen for opportunities that would allow him to fulfill his passion to promote Orthodoxy in America. The fateful call from President Belkin, asking Lander to consider returning to Yeshiva in order to head the school’s graduate program, was exactly what Bernard Lander had been hoping to hear. 93 Chapter ten The Yeshiva Years Not study is the main thing, but action. —Pirkei Avot (Ethics of the Fathers) 1:17 Bernard Lander had never fully left Yeshiva University, either spiritually or physically. He had maintained close ties to many of his former professors and classmates, several of whom were now members of the Yeshiva faculty. Even during his years in Baltimore, it was a rare week that did not find him traversing the short distance between his parents’ home and the Yeshiva campus. Now he was being summoned to come aboard in a new role that he felt would overcome the angst and anxiety he had been experiencing in recent years. His hopes were high as he prepared for his return to the halls of Yeshiva. Dr. Lander knew Dr. Samuel Belkin and had met with him several times over the prior decade since Lander’s return to New York City. Lander viewed himself as a member of the Yeshiva family, and thus he had never been reluctant to share his opinions about the school’s mission with Belkin. While Lander applauded Belkin’s plans to establish a new medical school as “a great leap forward,” for example, he also let Belkin know, by means of personal correspondence, that a day-college program, serving students not qualified for or not interested in the 9:00 am–3:00 pm program of intensive Talmud study at RIETS, would be even more effective in strengthening Orthodox Judaism than a medical school. Lander concluded his missive with “One can accomplish more with regard to the inculcation of a religious spirit, in a college atmosphere than in a medical school situation.” Ironically, it was the successful quest for a Touro College medical school that marked the final years of Dr. Lander’s life. Dr. Lander responded to Samuel Belkin’s invitation to serve as dean of Yeshiva’s Graduate Division with humble enthusiasm. As a Yeshiva alumnus, he wrote back that he considered it “a great honor and privilege” to be 94 The Lander Legacy able to build Jewish life through service to his alma mater. He recognized that this opportunity had arrived at the perfect moment in his life, and he told Belkin that he was ready to assume his responsibilities immediately. But there was one obstacle. At this point, Dr. Lander held a full-time faculty position at Hunter College that he intended to maintain. An awkward situation would arise if a member of Hunter’s faculty also held the title of dean at another school. The matter was easily resolved, however, when Belkin agreed to change his title from dean to “Visiting Director of the Graduate Division.” As a key figure in the Yeshiva hierarchy, Samuel Belkin had followed closely in the footsteps of the school’s founder, Bernard Revel. Like Revel, Belkin had served as rosh yeshiva (principal or head) at RIETS, gave brilliant shiurim (lectures) in Talmud and Codes (codified books of law), and sat on the school’s rabbinical ordination committee. As president, Belkin strove to see Yeshiva University take its place among the great American institutions of higher learning. At the time Bernard Lander became a member of its senior administration in November 1954, the school was in full expansion mode. The Albert Einstein School of Medicine was being organized and set to open its doors in the fall of the following year. The atmosphere of energetic activity was infectious as Dr. Lander took up his new responsibilities, hitting the ground running with a dazzling burst of new initiatives. Lander immediately implemented a new departmental structure at one of the graduate division’s two units, the School of Education and Community Administration or SECA. SECA now would consist of four faculties: psychology, religious education, secular education, and social work. He promptly assigned four key tasks to each of the department heads: 1) Conduct research and determine which American schools are known to operate the best programs in your field. Then study their curricula for ideas on how to elevate the quality of your own program. 2) Determine the requirements for accreditation in order to allow for the granting of Masters and Ph.D. degrees in your field. Establish specific admissions requirements for your department. 3) Develop a defined program of study for your department that will facilitate accreditation. The Yeshiva Years 95 Lander next set the same requirements for the faculty at the Bernard Revel Graduate School of Jewish Studies, the other division of Yeshiva’s graduate school. By June 1955 both deans had developed programs with clearly defined admission requirements, designed course curricula, and identified needed faculty. The effect of these measures was immediate and highly positive, particularly in the area of faculty morale. Professors at both graduate schools understood that accreditation would enhance the academic standing of their programs and, as a by-product, elevate their own academic stature as well. Once SECA’s departmental structure had been defined and the curriculum developed, it served as a template for two separate graduate programs Lander had envisioned: a School of Education and a School of Social Work. Dr. Belkin supported these initiatives and agreed to consult with an expert in the field of education to prepare and submit a grant proposal to the Ford Foundation. Despite the consultant’s promises, this tactic met with failure. Lander believed it was because the third party expert did not possess, and therefore could not adequately express, the passion for the project that only intimate familiarity could engender. Assuming the task himself, he prepared a detailed proposal that captured not only the cold statistics, but also the burning need for this project on the part of the school and the community. He successfully built a comprehensive case on behalf of a “pioneering school” of education and was eventually issued a $500,000 grant from the same Ford Foundation that had earlier turned the school down. The news of this achievement spread quickly, and no one was more delighted than Samuel Belkin. “I will not forget what you have done for Download 1.89 Mb. Share with your friends:
|