JUDAICA - Wisdom In Torah

ward the first such school was opened in New York. In 1911
the National Workers’ Farband formed a committee to organize
and maintain these National Radical schools. This school
program was also supported by the Socialist-Territorialists and
by non-partisan groups. However, differences of opinion arose
on the place of Hebrew in the curriculum. One school in the
Bronx seceded from the National Radical movement and, after
the death of *Shalom Aleichem, took on the designation
of Sholem Aleichem School. In 1918 several schools of this
type organized the Sholem Aleichem Folk Institute. The Farband
likewise changed the designation of its schools to Jewish
Folk Schools.
In 1915 a new type of school made its appearance. Members
of the Jewish Socialist Federation opened a school in Harlem,
New York, and a year later, one in Chicago. In 1916 the
Conference of the Workmen’s Circle decided to “demand of all
its branches that they support the Socialist Yiddish Schools”;
and in 1918 their convention declared that the school enterprise
was the duty of the entire organization and of its Education
Committee. Thus there came into being three different
school organizations. The schools of the Workmen’s Circle and
of the Sholem Aleichem Institute put the stress on Yiddish language
and literature and Jewish history; the Farband stressed
Hebrew and national traditional upbringing. At the end of
1927 there were 103 Workmen’s Circle schools with 6,000 pupils.
In 1928 the Farband opened in Montreal a day school
vis-à-vis the Folkshulen, which operated as an institution for
supplementary education. By 1919 it had 559 pupils; the Peretz
schools in Winnipeg had 600 pupils. In 1929 the Sholem
Aleichem Institute conducted three schools in Chicago, three
in Detroit including a secondary school, and the New York
schools with an enrollment of 1,400 pupils. World War II upset
the whole school system. In 1956 the picture was as follows:
Workmen’s Circle, 85 elementary and six secondary schools;
the Farband, 57 elementary schools and seven day schools;
Sholem Aleichem Institute, 16 elementary schools and five kindergartens.
The International Order, a left-wing organization
(no longer in existence), maintained a number of schools with
an enrollment of approximately 4,000 as of 1939. In 1969 the
various organizations had the following numbers: Workmen’s
Circle, a total of 50 institutions (kindergartens, elementary,
and secondary) with 2,500 pupils; Farband, 21 schools with
1,700 pupils; Sholem Aleichem Institute, nine schools (five of
them with pre-school educational programs) and, jointly with
the Workmen’s Circle, one secondary school.
All these schools faced extraordinary social and pedagogic
problems in the early postwar period. The differences
in the educational ideologies of these organizations were substantially
reduced. Yet each continued its work on its own
(with the exception of the joint secondary school and the
teachers’ seminary). Since that time the large majority of these
schools have disappeared.
Latin American Countries
In most of the countries of Latin America with any apprecia-
EDUCATION, JEWISH
ble Jewish community there were Yiddish schools of which
the majority were secular. Such schools were established in
Argentina (1917–1921), Brazil (1945), and Mexico (1924) and
originally the language of instruction was Yiddish. The schools
were oriented to a Yiddish Bundist ideology and in Argentina
a teachers’ seminary was also established which by 1955
had graduated 265 teachers to work in such schools and had
170 pupils in 1967. However, with the steady acculturation of
the Jews the vernacular, by and large, replaced Yiddish as the
language of instruction although the schools still styled themselves
as Yiddish. The establishment of the State of Israel and
particularly the Six-Day War in 1967 gave tremendous impetus
to the study of Hebrew.
General
A few Yiddish language schools, all of them supplementary,
are to be found in cities throughout the world under both ultra-Orthodox
and secular auspices. In Israel, particularly in
Jerusalem, there are many ḥadarim in which the language of
instruction is Yiddish and in which the curriculum is hardly
different from that of Eastern European ḥadarim of the Middle
Ages. In most of the major yeshivot in Israel the language
of instruction is Yiddish; the students, however, speak mainly
Hebrew among themselves. In England, both in London and
Manchester, there were Yiddish language schools associated
with the ultra-Orthodox ḥasidic groups. In these schools a
minimum of instruction in secular subjects was given in order
to accord with the Compulsory Education Act.
Bibliography: H.S. Kazdan, Fun Kheder un “Shkoles” bis
Tsisho (1956), 452; idem, Di Geshikhte fun Yidishn Shulvezn in Umophangikn
Poiln (1947); Z. Yefroikin, in: Algemayne Entsiklopedye Yidn,
5 (1957), 166–219, includes bibliography; N. Mayzel, ibid., 415–9; S.
Rojansky, ibid., 359–47, includes bibliography; E.H. Jeshurin, 100 Yor
Moderne Yidishe Literatur (1965), 260–458, a bibliographical list.
[Chaim S. Kazdan]
jewish education in the united
states of america
Early National Period
During the colonial and early national periods, Jewish education
was not regarded as a communal responsibility. Congregational
life was led by volunteer trustees and non-ordained
religious functionaries (ḥazzanim). Indeed, the first rabbi to
settle in the United States did not arrive until 1840. While Jews
acquired burial grounds, built synagogues for public worship,
and established mechanisms for aiding the poor, education
was not treated as a public concern. Tutoring in Hebrew language,
prayers, and Torah (primarily reading and translating)
was provided for a fee, most commonly by independent
teachers. On occasion, congregations would contract with an
instructor to provide education to indigent children.
In the generation that the American colonies became
a nation, the most prominent Jewish religious figure in the
United States was Gershom Mendes *Seixas. Congregation
Shearith Israel in New York, at which Seixas received his edu-
ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 6 189