Yeshiva University High School For Boys - Elchanite Yearbook (New York, NY)

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pedients as raffles, library cards and history notes fees, Dr. Shapiro slowly enlarged his History library. It was at first located in Room 417. Then members of the English and Science Departments, viewing the success of the project, requested Dr. Shapiro to broaden the History library into a Talmudical Academy Library housing books of all types. This was done. Soon the library moved into what was then the play- room. Later, in 1944, when the administration decided to institute the study hall period it turned naturally to what was now popularly refer- red to as Docfs Library. A rebuilding job involving several thousand dollars was undertaken. Completed in November 1944, the library re- opened in more spacious and commodious quarters. Today the library is financed not only hiv the one dollar library fee payed by every stu- dent but also by an annual 3500 administration subsidy. The task of adding books to the library shelves is being dilligently pursued. That it was Benjamin Shapiro's persistent initiative and hard work that brought about the Talmudical Academy no one will deny. It is a con- crete and lasting result. Everyone admires Benjamin Shapiro for it. Student opinion on Dr. Shapiro. the teacher, is more divided. This Benjamin Shapiro is a man of average height and smiling de- meanor. He is dynamic. His mind is quick and incisive. As a conse- quence his manner of speaking is uniquely his own. Few students can be neutral on the subject of Dr. Shapiro. Most students either like him or dislike him. Often a student in the classroom will dislike Dr. Sha- piro, considering :himself wronged by a willful man. Upon being grad- uated, this same student, his judgment no longer clouded by imagined wrongs, will take a great liking to the man. At any rate, Dr. Shapiro's brisk and active manner has won him a host of followers in and out of T. A. Out of T. A., Dr. Shapiro is active socially. Last year he was elect- ed president of Berenziner Benevolent Association, a Landsmenshaft group. Throughout the war he worked hard to sell war bonds and solicit money for war charities. In his spare time Dr. Shapiro likes to play both table tennis and handball. He plays either game well, preferring to play what he calls a defensive game. Looking to the future, Dr. Shapiro declares that he would like to do some traveling. He sits back, pauses reflectively, and with typical Shapiro enthusiasm tells you that he would like to take another crack at those French archivesf' 16

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scheme by combing the British Museum for information, pausing mean- while to attend a seminar at the University of London. From there Dr. Shapiro went to Paris hoping to examine the French archives in the Bibliotheque Nationale. To his chagrin, he was informed that the archives were not so 1 open. Hampered thus by diplo- matic protocol Dr. Shapiro remain- ed nevertheless in Paris for two months pursuing his research. The last lap of his journey took Dr. Shapiro to Berlin where after six weeks of research at the Univer- sity he found his funds exhausted. This necessitated his immediate re- . turn to the United States. Soon af- .A ter his arrival Dr. Shapiro married Ellen Friedland. The press of re- sponsibility forced him to drop the Ph.D. thesis. In that same year, 1923, Dr. Shapiro began teaching in Talmudical Academy. His first pedagogual contacts with T. A. were brief since he only taught at T. A. during two or three afternoon periods. Later Shapiro abandoned some of his teaching commitments elsewhere and spent an entire six-period afternoon in T. A. Meanwhile Dr. Shapiro was teaching in the public school system. He taught almost every subject under the sun including English, History and Languages. In 1938 Dr. Shapiro was admitted to the bar. He had studied law at New York University during his spare time. Dr. Shapiro rarely makes court appearances due to his myriad teaching tasks. Rather he does the less glamorous tasks of pre- paring the necessary briefs. Incidentally, Benjamin Shapiro owes his appellation Doctor to his J. P. degree - - Doctor of Laws. Recently Dr. Shapiro was appointed Teacher-in-charge at the Evening School P. S. 157. This promotion was in recognition of the part Dr. Shapiro played in Americanizing the foreign born through comprehensive night school curricula. Earlier, Dr. Shapiro's book, The Adult Home Study Book had caused a stir in evening school circles. Today his book is used in many of the city's evening schools. So much for a factual picture of Dr. Shapiro's life! The story of the library will require a more detailed account. The library started in 1930 with an idea. Dr. Shapiro puts it this way. The students had no place in the building where they could do SL1DDl9lT161lt.Z11'Y reading for their History classes. I decided to accumulate a small History li- brary for the students. Pooling the students' money through such ex- 15

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Snupping the Chain of Preiudice BY SIMON DEUTSCH Prejudices, or p-re-judgements, are necessary to our lives for we all must act upon generalizations of our and of other people's past experiences.When we, therefore, approach an exception to a generalization, we will have in our minds a pre-judgement that the experience before us will be the same as those on which we founded our generalization. From this it follows that the usefulness of our prejudice depends on how well-founded it was. Pre-judgements based on little observation make up the first link in the chain of prejudice. Snapp-ing it can best be accomplished by instilling in the individual an instinctive and habitual cast of mind' in which he will not act on unjustifiable generalizations. This cast of mind will first be at- tained in his dealing with his daily occupations, and will perhaps be extend- ed to his dealings with other races, faiths, political 'beliefs and all the other field-s to which nprejudices' is applied' almost exclusively nowadays. The next link in the chain is stronger. If we find that our pre-judge- ment was wrong but refuse to acknowledge this to ourselves or to others we have again sinned. This second link is stronger because, if the first was due to carelessness or bad mental training, the second was usually caused by outside forces. To give a forceful example, most people lzave found out that their prejudice that all Negroes are bad was unfounded. Yet few ac- knowledge their mistake, even to themselves. Thus, while in the first link, the solution is to change the individual, the second link persists in spite of the individual. In the case of the Negroes, he might be afraid of losing his job were he to accept them as equals. He might find himself outcast for openly changing his mind. Often, rejecting one prejudice means rejecting others. In short, snapping the stronger link can be done only by first removing the outside forces which prevents us from acknowledging our mistakes. The problem as stated above is very much over-simplified. No con- crete solution has been offered but whatever its shortcomings, it is my stra- tegic plan for snapping the chain of prejudice. 17