THE MEMORIAL BOOK OF PÁPA JEWRY - JewishGen

A third teacher, Lipót Ehrenfeld, was also a brave fighter for the idea of Hungarian
liberty: he was dispatched to the river Drava to help crush the rebellious minority nationalities.
The innovative ideas of Lipót Lőw failed to succeed, so most parents chose not to enroll
their children at the public school, opting for a private school instead, until government
commissioner, Antal Hunkár, closed down the private schools. After the defeat of the Hungarian
War of Independence, the Bach-era set new directions for the school as well. The Governor’s
Council in Sopron ordered the school to be reorganized. Specialization was introduced. Teachers
were usually employed for only one semester. The language of instruction could have been
German, with the syllabus basically supplied by the Austrian curriculum. School fees depended
on the parents’ financial situation and ranged from 12 kreuzers to 2 forints, determined by the
community officials.
A new period in the life of the school began with the 1859/60 school year. From this point
on, the practice of employing teachers for only one term stopped. Instead, teachers were
employed for three years and after a period of probation, they received tenure.
The Hungarian language regained its
previous status. In 1863 an alternating system was
introduced, according to which the teacher (formmaster)
stayed with his class from the first grade
until the fifth grade. Samuel Horovitz, N. Spatz, and
Fülöp Klein were teachers of this period.
From 1875 to 1880, there were two Jewish
public schools in Pápa belonging to the two Jewish
communities. When the two communities united,
the orthodox school took over the teachers from the
other school. This is how Ármin Schor, Mór
Öszterreicher, and Franciska Reiner née Rosenthal
got to the schools of the főhitközség, the head
community, as it was called then.
Apart from the elementary school, the need
for a secondary school had long been felt by the
Pápa community. This was shown by the first
attempt in 1878, at the initiative of chief rabbi Dr.
Breuer, to create a Jewish reáliskola, a secondary
school for modern languages and sciences. In the
school year 1878/79 they opened first grade, which
had 47 pupils, of which one was Roman Catholic.
Antal Csemegi, Kálmán Vikár, and Ármin Schor
36
Dayan and religious education teacher
Hermann Eckstein
were the teachers. The community could not support the costs of the secondary school so after a
year of the experiment the school closed down.
On August 15, 1899, the school board discussed the initiative by Lipót Buxbaum, who
"came up with the idea of founding a denominational higher elementary school in the local
Jewish community"(polgári iskola). Chairman of the school board, József Steiner, made a fine
speech supporting the realization of the idea. On August 20, 1899, the board of Pápa Autonomous