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Originally published in 1939
Some of this information may no longer be current and in that case is presented for historical interest only.
Edited by GET NJ, COPYRIGHT 2002
The Protestants do not subsidize an elaborate educational system. They
have, however, several important theological centers, notably the Presbyterian schools at Princeton and Bloomfield; the Dutch Reformed seminary, one of two in this country, at New Brunswick; and the Methodist
institution at Drew University, Madison. Several small schools are supported by the Episcopal Church. The Baptists support the International
Baptist Seminary in East Orange where foreign-born students are trained
and ordained as missionaries to their native countries. The scope and intensity of the struggle between modernist and fundamentalist in the schools
appears to have intensified the generally conservative trend of Protestantism
in the State.
The Jewish population of 225,306 is served by 188 houses of worship
(membership figures not available). Each synagogue or temple is an independent organization and its government is congregational. Divided into
Reformed, Conservative, and Orthodox sects, Jews differ more upon questions of custom, ceremonial and theology than upon tenets of faith. Orthodox Jews, the largest group, stem chiefly from Russia and Poland; while
conservatives, usually representing the second generation, come also from
Eastern Europe and from Central Europe. The reform movement is con-
fined mainly to Jews of German descent, with an accretion drawn from
Jews of Middle and Eastern European origin or descent.
Both the reformed temples and the orthodox synagogues engage in considerable philanthropic work, much of it nonsectarian. Jewish religious
instruction centers in the reformed Sunday Schools and the orthodox and
conservative in the Talmud Torahs, schools where thousands of youths
study the Hebrew language and Jewish ceremonies and customs.
Among the Negro population (208,828) the church is the most important and the financially strongest institution. Since 1812, when the free
Negroes organized the First Baptist Church at Trenton, the number of
Negro churches has increased to 412, with a membership of 71,221 representing 19 denominations. The Baptist is the largest group with 159
churches and a membership of 41,129. The group next in importance, the
Methodist, established the Mount Pisgah A. M. E. Church at Free Haven
(now Lawnside) in 1813. St. Philips Church, another historic body, was
organized at Newark in 1856. The Negro church is becoming more of a
social center, and its ministers more and more interested in social and
political affairs. The rapid influx of Negroes from the South has caused a
large increase in the number of meeting places. In urban centers this
sudden increase in membership has been largely responsible for the "storefront" churches, buildings formerly used as stores.
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