The wartime experience underlined the core problem in the struggle for continuity in the Jewish way: how to transmit the heritage of the House of Israel to the upcoming generation. Practically the only means of Jewish education for the young was the crude, painfully inadequate cheder of the period. Today the term "cheder" has been resuscitated, ironically, as the designation of full-day primary schools of the Charedi (inflexion of piety), in strong contrast to the cheder of old as well as the normative yeshivah day school. For a long time, the cheder in America was the makeshift "mom" school-hence its name-for instruction in the rudiments of Judaic knowledge run as a private enterprise by a self-appointed instructor, who might not necessarily have either pedagogic or scholarly qualifications. Often there was little rapport between the sorely tried melamed and his often unruly and unwilling pupils.

We have seen how in the early days of the Orthodox Union, projects in elementary education of a more meaningful kind were undertaken, together with other programs to meet the needs of youth. The extent to which these undertakings continued through the successive post-Mendes administrations is unclear. One advance can be clearly noted, however: the establishment by many congregations, at the Orthodox Union's prompting, of their own Hebrew schools. These were on a distinctly better educational level than most of the Charter schools, and in a better setting. On a still better level were Talmud Torah schools established by groups of Orthodox congregations and community groups.

In due course, the realization came that the afternoon Hebrew School and Talmud Torah, adjuncts to the public school, were also not the definitive solution to the problem. Those, in turn, ultimately gave way to the Hebrew day school, or yeshivah ketanah. In the interim, however, the afternoon Hebrew school and Talmud Torah, successors to the older-type cheder and way-clearers for the day school, produced the cadres around which formed the working force of the American Torah community.

Despite its limitations, from this second-stage source came, in its 1920s to 1950s heyday, results that counted for much: the imbuing of many with at least a persisting Jewish awareness and grounding in Jewish basics; and of a lesser number with steadfast loyalty to the Torah way and strong purpose and commitment in forwarding Jewish fife. Out of their ranks came communal and synagogal leadership-lay and rabbinic both-and both the builders and the students of the newly rising yeshivoth. It is their children and their children's children who crowd the vast array of yeshivoth today. It is they and their families to whom these institutions have ever looked for support and, yes, for leadership, too.

Educational endeavor strove to keep abreast of advancing Americanization. The acculturation process-given freer rein by the wartime cutting off of immigration and propelled by the American dynamic-was seen by many as entailing a greater or lesser departure from time-honored Jewish ways. This, for the most part, was as yet tacit rather than ideological, without a sense of break from the ancestral faith. The heterodox and radical social movements that some brought with them from the Old Country found additional followings, but still constituted minor fractions of the Jewish populace. Religious standards so imperiled by the governing circumstances were further shaken by social change, however. This was sharply marked as families with improved means moved from long-established Jewish neighborhoods to newer areas.