Zhitomir Rabbinical Seminary
The Zhitomir rabbinical seminary was a rabbinical seminary during the time of the Russian Empire . It was on the outskirts of the city of Zhitomir , which in the 19th century had a large Jewish population as an important center of the Pale of Settlement , and existed from 1847 to 1873.
history
Importance of the institution
The seminar was founded following the educational reforms under Tsar Nicholas I. The purpose of these reforms was to adapt the Jews in Russia to the Russian population and to appoint state rabbis . These rabbis had a knowledge of Russian and a degree from a Russian high school or a state rabbinical seminary. After government approval, they were elected by the Jewish communities for a number of years. They were mainly responsible for administrative tasks such as the registration of marriages, births and deaths. Orthodox Jews who did not have to have knowledge of secular subjects and who were poorly paid “auxiliary rabbis” were brought in for religious tasks .
At a congress in Saint Petersburg in 1843 it was decided to build modern schools for the Jewish community. One of the participating rabbis was Menachem Mendel Schneersohn as a representative of the Hasidic Chabad movement. As a result of this congress, it was decided to set up state-funded schools in Zhitomir and Vilnius . The education of Jewish students in secular subjects also corresponded to the goals of the Haskala . However, since the religious training did not meet the requirements of the Jewish communities, the seminary graduates were often not recognized by them.
According to Sergei Uvarov , the Russian Minister of Education , the only aim of the state rabbinical seminars was to train teachers for state Jewish schools. These institutions were open to Jewish boys of all classes who were over ten years old and who were interested in religious and general education subjects.
While the seminar in Vilnius focused on language teaching, Zhitomir focused on mathematics. At the time of the Great reforms under Alexander II. Enjoyed the seminar the support of Nikolai Pirogov , who as head of the school district Kiev the corporal punishment allowed abolished, the intake of seminarians at universities, enabling them to serve as headmaster.
Headmasters, well-known teachers and students
The first head of the Zhitomir Rabbinical Seminary was Jakob Eichenbaum, a supporter of the Haskala, until his death in 1861. His successor was Chajim Slonimski , who ran the school until it closed in 1873. The reason given for the closure was that the school had failed to get enough rabbis with secular training recognized by the Jewish communities.
Among the teaching staff, Chaim Zvi Lerner (1815–1889) and Abraham Bär Gottlober , the Talmud teacher Eliezer Zweifel and the German teacher Imanuel Levin are mentioned.
Well-known students include Abraham Goldfaden , Solomon Mandelkern (1846–1902) and the Yiddish poet Isaak Joel Linetzki (1840–1914).
School operation
When it opened in 1847, the seminary in Zhitomir had 23 students, by the 1860s this number rose to almost 500. During the Crimean War , seminarians were exempt from military service. The school principal was Russian Orthodox , and the Jews represented on the school administration were called "overseers".
There were numerous boarding school students who lived on the school premises. They received scholarships and in return had to undertake to officiate as "State Rabbi".
During the holidays, the students performed plays in Russian, Ukrainian, and Yiddish. The theater group was named after the city of Berdychiv . The performances took place in front of families of soldiers who were injured or fallen during the siege of Sevastopol in the Crimean War . These performances met with multiple opposition. The censors in Kiev criticized the content of the plays, and members of the Zhitomir Jewish community protested that the exclusively male actors appeared in women's clothes.
Students were required to wear uniforms, similar to the uniforms in Russian church schools, and wore a peaked cap instead of a kippah .
The school year began around Rosh Hashanah , but the plan was based on the state high schools. School lessons were Monday to Friday, from 8 a.m. to 2.30 p.m., with four lessons of one and a half hours each. There were three religious education and morals lessons on Saturdays and Sundays. Prayers were said in the morning, before lunch, and in the evening.
In her assessment of the rabbinical seminars in Shitomir and Vilnius, the Slavist and historian Verena Dohrn states that “they were not the temples of knowledge that the students and the Maskilim had dreamed of. But the school provided many poor young people with a roof over their heads, a bed, warm clothing and Russian-German-Jewish training in secular and religious subjects without converting to Christianity. "
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ YIVO Encyclopedia: Crown Rabbi ( Memento of the original from March 27, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ YIVO Encyclopedia: Seminary
- ↑ Efim Melamed: The Zhitomir rabbinical school: new materials and perspective . Polin14, p. 113.
- ^ Verena Dohrn: The rabbinical schools as institutions of socialization in Tsarist Russia, 1847-1873 . Polin14, 2001, p. 84.
- ^ Verena Dohrn: The rabbinical schools as institutions of socialization in Tsarist Russia, 1847-1873 . Polin14, 2001, p. 91.
- ^ Verena Dohrn: The rabbinical schools as institutions of socialization in Tsarist Russia, 1847-1873 . Polin14, 2001, p. 104.
