More than 300 delegates from around the United States attended the 1926 conference that created the Association for Jewish Culture and Education called at the initiative of the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) to create a permanent national organization for Jewish education. The official call says that the purpose was to overcome the fragmented and inadequate state of Jewish education in American Jewish communities.
It was held on May 16, 1926, at the Astor Hotel.
Its objectives included promoting Hebrew language and literature; increasing knowledge of Eretz Yisrael, then Mandate Palestine; strengthening Jewish youth organizations; promoting Jewish literature and the fine arts; encouraging Jewish education among children, youth and adults; and developing educational material about Eretz-Yisrael and Zionism.
A substantial proposed budget was $290,000 for its first year, including the educational and cultural organizations already affiliated with the ZOA, such as Young Judaea and Histadruth Ivrith.
Chaim Nahman Bialik was present. Ze'ev Jabotinsky was not invited although in the country.
And, of course, there was an important dispute over how explicitly Zionist the new organization should be.
The official program adopted by the conference spoke of Jewish cultural values, Hebrew, Eretz-Yisrael, Jewish aspirations, etc. But Max Rhoade of Washington, representing the minority of the program committee, proposed inserting a much more explicitly Zionist formulation. His amendment would have said that:
“Zionism as the expression of the Jewish national spirit is inseparable from Jewish education and culture…”
It called for Jewish education to be infused with “the Zionist spirit” and connected with the Jewish renaissance in Palestine.
That amendment was rejected.
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