Talmud Torah School

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The Talmud Tora School (also Talmud Tora Realschule , hereinafter TTS) was a school in Hamburg's Grindelviertel that existed from 1805 to 1942 . Since 2007 the building u. a. the home of the Joseph Carlebach School, the school of the Hamburg Jewish community . It is located in the immediate vicinity of the Bornplatz synagogue . Before the Second World War, around 70% of Hamburg's Jews lived in the Grindelviertel and the surrounding districts of Eppendorf , Harvestehude and Rotherbaum .

The TTS was the largest Jewish school in Northern Germany at the time and in 1937 had over 800 students and 33 teachers. In 1932 it was visited by around half of the school-age Jewish boys in Hamburg.

history

After there had initially been various smaller Jewish schools, the Talmud Tora School was founded in 1805 as the first strictly Jewish school in Hamburg. It was founded on the initiative of the businessman and Talmudic scholar Mendel Frankfurter ; the building at Elbstrasse 122 was donated by the merchants Michel Lehrmann , Elias Ruben and Süßkind Oppenheim . The school was located in the middle of Neustadt, which at that time was the center of Jewish life in Hamburg.

Primarily the Torah and Hebrew were taught , along with writing and arithmetic. Right from the start, the school, which was financed by the community, had a high level of social responsibility: classes were free, meals were provided for the students and, if necessary, clothing was provided. Classes took place all day, there were no school holidays. Lessons were only free in the afternoons before the Sabbath and the Jewish festivals .

At first there was no headmaster in today's sense, but a school board whose head was usually the chief rabbi. From 1821 to 1849 this was Isaak Bernays , who fundamentally reformed the school and also introduced secular subjects: After that, German, geography and natural history were also on the curriculum. Bernay's successor was Anschel Stern in 1851 . Under his leadership, the school was expanded to become a "Secondary secondary school". Since the school had already grown to 230 students in 1851, the premises at Elbstrasse 122 were nowhere near sufficient. The school then moved to its new address, Kohlhöfen 20.

Rise of school

From 1871 the school became a "higher citizen school". This was the result of a renewed school reform, which led to a further expanded range of courses: from now on, French, English, mathematics and history were also part of the curriculum. The three-year primary school was followed by a six-year secondary school. Since the school was now attended by 400 students, the space in the building at Kohlhöfen 20 was no longer sufficient, so that the property at Kohlhöfen 19 next to it had to be bought. The additional building was completed at the end of 1872 and handed over to its intended use. After the death of Rabbi Stern in 1888, the school management was transferred to an independent headmaster. The first incumbent was Joseph Goldschmidt in 1889 , who had already been a teacher at the TTS from 1867 to 1876. Goldschmidt was considered a strict headmaster, but continued to help improve the school's reputation. In 1892 the school became a "Realschule".

New building at Grindelhof

Former Talmud Torah School (back)

As the number of pupils increased continuously, the two buildings at the Kohlhöfen were also too small, so that the community had to think about a new solution. The Hamburg banker Moritz M. Warburg finally donated 200,000 marks for the new school building. As a result, numerous other community members also took part, so that finally an amount of 525,000 marks was collected for the new building. The building at Grindelhof 30 was erected between 1909 and 1911 according to plans by government master builder Ernst Friedheim and inaugurated on December 20, 1911. So the school followed its students: in the second half of the 19th century, Jewish life had shifted more and more towards Rotherbaum and Harvestehude. Immediately next to the school building was the Bornplatz Synagogue, also built by Friedheim and until 1938 the largest synagogue in Northern Germany.

The school continued to be under the direction of Goldschmidt until he retired in 1921 due to age. His successor was Joseph Carlebach , who reformed the school again and thus laid the foundation for the expansion of the secondary school. Carlebach was appointed Chief Rabbi of Altona in 1926 and handed over the management of the school to Arthur Spier , who continued the reforms. Thus, from March 7, 1932, the TTS became an upper secondary school and was authorized to take the final examination.

In 1929 the school was expanded to include a building at Grindelhof 38, which was located in the immediate vicinity of the main building.

The Talmud Torah School from 1933 to 1945

When the National Socialists came to power , a lot changed for the school: initially girls were also admitted to the upper school. At the same time, the students were prepared for the coming emigration in class. Some teachers who were dismissed from the state school service due to the law to restore the civil service, switched to the TTS, including Ernst Loewenberg . During the November pogroms on November 10, 1938, the entire college and some of the older students were arrested.

On April 1, 1939, the TTS was forcibly merged with the Israelite Daughter School under the name “Volks- und Höhere Schule für Juden” . Alberto Jonas , the director of the Israelite Daughters School at the time, took over the management after Spier and his family had emigrated. In September of the same year, the building at Grindelhof had to be cleared. From now on, lessons took place in the buildings in the Karolinenviertel , which, however, also had to be cleared in 1942. The closure of all Jewish schools in Germany on June 30, 1942 also meant the end of the Talmud Torah School. Most of the 28 teachers and most recently 343 students who still attended or taught school in 1942 were deported and fell victim to the Holocaust . Only 76 students and three teachers survived.

After the war

The building at Grindelhof 30 is used again by the Jewish community today

The city of Hamburg bought the building from the Jewish Claims Conference after the war and used it for various purposes over the years, including for the Hamburg University of Applied Sciences, department of librarianship. It was returned to the Hamburg Jewish Community in 2004 . As early as August 2002, school operations were resumed under the old name in a building on Schäferkampsallee with initially 10 students. In 2005, however, it was temporarily discontinued because the number of students was too small to continue operations.

The building was renovated and has since been available again to the Jewish community for the Hamburg metropolitan region, which moved there on June 10, 2007. Since August 2007, regular school operations have been running again after 68 years. The school is called Joseph Carlebach School and was named after Joseph Carlebach , the last chief rabbi in Hamburg. It comprises a preschool, a cross-grade elementary school and, since 2011, a district school . The upper level of the district school has been officially recognized since 2020.

literature

Notation

In various sources there are always spellings with and without hyphen; the spelling without a hyphen is, although illegal, more common.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Lorenzen et. al: Talmud Torah School - More than just a building. ( Memento from September 15, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
  2. ^ Randt: Talmud Torah School. P. 144.
  3. ↑ It started on Elbstrasse. In: Hamburger Abendblatt. August 21, 2002.
  4. ↑ Kerstin Heinsohn (Red.): The Jewish Hamburg. Göttingen 2006, p. 240.
  5. ↑ Ursula Randt: The inauguration of the new building of the Talmud-Tora-Realschule (1911).
  6. ↑ Memory of Little Jerusalem in the heart of Hamburg. In: Hamburger Abendblatt. December 19, 2006.
  7. ↑ The Jewish Joseph Carlebach School moves into the Grindelhof. In: Hamburger Abendblatt. January 15, 2007.
  8. ↑ a b Talmud Torah: New School for Hamburg In: Die Welt. May 29, 2001.
  9. ↑ Life pulsates in Rotherbaum. In: Hamburger Abendblatt. December 2, 2006.
  10. ↑ New beginning on the Grindel. In: Hamburger Abendblatt. August 21, 2002.
  11. ↑ Talmud Torah School is being renovated. In: Hamburger Abendblatt. July 15, 2006.
  12. ↑ The Jewish community is back home. In: Hamburger Abendblatt. June 11, 2007.
  13. ^ Joseph Carlebach School: Twelve children make the start. In: Hamburger Abendblatt. August 29, 2007.
  14. ^ Reiner Lehberger, Hans-Peter de Lorent: Schools in Hamburg: A guide through the structure and history of the Hamburg school system . Hamburg 2012, ISBN 978-3-921174-23-4 , pp. 103-104 (first edition: Brunswiker & Reuter).
  15. ↑ Bulletin of the authority for schools and vocational training. In: www.hamburg.de. Authority for Schools and Vocational Training , April 16, 2020, accessed on April 20, 2020 (MBlSchul No. 4).

Coordinates: 53 ° 34 ′ 6.9 ″  N , 9 ° 59 ′ 1.2 ″  E