The Jewish Encyclopedia
of Western Pennsylvania
A project of the Rauh Jewish Archives at the Heinz History Center
The Pittsburgh Council on Jewish Education was a centralized agency intended to raise the standard of religious education for Jewish youth in Pittsburgh.
The United Jewish Fund formed the Council on Jewish Education in 1951 to implement the recommendations of the Self-Study on Jewish Education. It initially consisted of 56 delegates from Adath Jeshurun Congregation, Beth El Congregation, Congregation Beth Shalom, B’nai B’rith, B’nai B’rith Women, B’nai Emunoh Congregation, B’nai Israel Congregation, Hapoel Mizrachi, the Hebrew Institute, the Hebrew Teachers Association, Hillel Academy, Pioneer Women, Shaare Torah Congregation, Temple Sinai, Tree of Life Congregation, Yeshiva Achei T’mimim, the YM&WHA, and the Pittsburgh District of the Zionist Organization of America. The council also included 25 at-large representatives from the wider Jewish community and 19 ex-officio rabbis and school principals. Judge Benajmin Lencher was appointed president, and Dr. Aharon Kessler of the American Association for Jewish Education was hired as executive director.
Over the next two years, Kessler met monthly with educators from the three largest Jewish movements at the time, formed a Principal’s Council and a United Parent-Teacher Association, arranged a series of seminars for local educators, and formed an employment bureau to help hire teachers for area religious schools. The United PTA also published a current events newsletter for children called “Window on the World.”
The Council on Jewish Education was ultimately unable to transcend the divisions with the local community. In December 1953, it sponsored the College of Jewish Studies, which evolved over the next 15 years into the School of Advanced Jewish Studies.