Decline of Catholic Schools
smartertimes.com

The New York section has a big article on the decline of Catholic schools:

In the New York Archdiocese, which extends from Staten Island north almost to Albany, fewer than 75,000 students now attend 245 Catholic elementary and high schools, down from 212,000 students in 414 schools in the early 1960s.

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Sabbath Phylacteries
smartertimes.com

Smartertimes observed the other day, in writing about the Times coverage of the Boy Scouts, that "there are some topics that are so culturally foreign to the Times newsroom that the paper is almost bound to err in covering them."

Orthodox Judaism is right up there with the Boy Scouts on that list of topics. The latest example comes in an article about an eruv in Westhampton Beach. An eruv is a ritual boundary that permits carrying on the sabbath within its limits. The Times article, early on, describes 68-year-old Eugene Milanaik as "stashing a backpack filled with his Sabbath essentials — two prayer books, a prayer shawl, and phylacteries — in a plastic bin at the Hampton Synagogue, so he would not need to carry them on the Sabbath."

Read More...

Sabbath Phylacteries
smartertimes.com

Smartertimes observed the other day, in writing about the Times coverage of the Boy Scouts, that "there are some topics that are so culturally foreign to the Times newsroom that the paper is almost bound to err in covering them."

Orthodox Judaism is right up there with the Boy Scouts on that list of topics. The latest example comes in an article about an eruv in Westhampton Beach. An eruv is a ritual boundary that permits carrying on the sabbath within its limits. The Times article, early on, describes 68-year-old Eugene Milanaik as "stashing a backpack filled with his Sabbath essentials — two prayer books, a prayer shawl, and phylacteries — in a plastic bin at the Hampton Synagogue, so he would not need to carry them on the Sabbath."

Read More...

Decline of Catholic Schools
smartertimes.com

The New York section has a big article on the decline of Catholic schools:

In the New York Archdiocese, which extends from Staten Island north almost to Albany, fewer than 75,000 students now attend 245 Catholic elementary and high schools, down from 212,000 students in 414 schools in the early 1960s.

Read More...