Fonds JM-CAHJP/P134 - Alexander Dushkin Papers - P 134

Alexander Mordechai Dushkin was born in Suwalki, Poland in 1890, and was taken to the United States in 1901. He studied at City College, the Jewish Theological Seminary and Columbia University in New York, where he wrote the first doctoral dissertation on a Jewish educational theme (“Jewish Education in New York City”). Dushkin married Julia Aronson in Jerusalem in 1921 and had two daughters, Kinnereth Genslar and Avima Lombard. He died in Jerusalem in 1976.
1910-1918 was associated with the Bureau of Jewish Education under Dr. Samson Benderly at the Kehillah in New York City, and in 1916 went to Europe as a secretary of the American Jewish Relief Committee. 1919-1921 served as inspector of Jewish schools in Palestine and taught at the Hebrew Teachers’ College in Jerusalem.
1921-1922 was appointed secretary of Keren Hayesod in the USA.
1923-1934 directed Chicago’s Board of Jewish Education and founded the city’s College of Jewish Studies.
1934-1939 organized the Hebrew University’s department of education and was principal of the experimental Hebrew University Secondary School.
1939-1949 served as executive director of the Jewish Education Committee in New York.
1949-1960 established and directed the Hebrew University’s School of Undergraduate Studies, taught education and education administration at the University and served as Education Consultant to Hadassah Women’s Organization in Israel.
From 1962 he headed the Department of Jewish Education in the Diaspora at the Hebrew University’s Institute of Contemporary Jewry.
Dushkin edited educational publications in the United States and Israel and wrote many monographs and articles on Jewish education. In 1968 he was awarded the Israel Prize.