Teaching Haskalah – Haskalah and teaching: Jewish education in the Czech Lands (a power play)

Abstract

The educational reforms proposed by Haskalah sought for an integration of Jewish (religious) and secular studies. The German-Jewish school system that was established in the period of Joseph II, on the other hand, deliberately excluded religious subjects from the curriculum. This paper argues that the economic independence which Jewish teachers enjoyed in the Josephine school system turned them into an alternative Jewish elite that considerably contributed to the modernization of Czech Jewry and ultimately promoted Haskalah's agenda. The argument is illustrated by presenting three educators from the Czech Lands: Peter Beer (1758-1838), Herz Homberg (1749-1841) and Naphtali Benet (1789/94-1857), and their respective attempts to re-model Jewish education by the publication of textbooks.