The education of Transylvanian Jews
By the end of the First World War, the education system in Transylvania had been integrated into the wider education system in Hungary. The Union of Transylvania, Bukovina and Bessarabia with Romania in 1918 brought with it many changes, which involved the need to integrate these provinces into the new state of Greater Romania. The adjustment of Transylvanian Jews to the new political, economic and social order did not occur without difficulty. The problem of Jewish education during the interwar period must be viewed as a matter of the Hungarian minority, and simultaneously as a confessional issue of the Jewish minority, because the great majority of Transylvanian Jews spoke Hungarian and felt they belonged to the Hungarian culture.
After 1918, under the guidance of the Governing Council of Sibiu, the Romanianisation of the Hungarian schools in Transylvania was initiated. These changes to the educational system bore direct consequences on the Jewish communities, whose members continued to carry out their teaching and learning activities in the Hungarian language. In this context, of the reluctance of the Jewish communities to abandon Hungarian as their language of instruction, came the alternative proposed by the Zionist movement. Alongside the desideratum of political Zionism of building a national state in the territory of historical Israel, the leadership of this movement supported the affirmation of the Jews as a national minority in Greater Romania by implementing the rights stipulated in the Minorities Treaty, signed by the Allied Powers and Romania on 9 December 1919. These included the right to education in one’s mother tongue in institutions funded by the state, by local authorities, or by other public funds. In this sense, “Tarbut”, the National Association of Jewish Schools, played an essential role in the organisation of Jewish education during the interwar period. Established in September 1920, it developed a five-year educational programme for the learning of Hebrew, which was introduced in kindergartens and Jewish schools in thirty-two Transylvanian towns. Thus, the Hebrew language and literature became a compulsory subject in Jewish middle schools, high schools and vocational schools in Timișoara, Oradea and Cluj.
In November 1919, a Jewish secondary school was opened in Timișoara as an independent confessional school for boys and girls. The school comprised four middle school forms, four high school forms, four maths and science high school forms, and three commercial high school forms. The language of instruction was initially Hungarian, but after the implementation of the law of private education of 1925, which stipulated that the language of instruction in Jewish confessional schools should be Romanian or the “Jewish language” (Hebrew), the teaching of religion and of the Hebrew language and literature was carried out in Hebrew, while the Romanian language, literature, history and geography were taught in Romanian. According to the law, only the Hungarian language and literature were still taught in Hungarian. The Jewish secondary school in Timișoara operated until 1948.
Gidó A., Două decenii : evreii din Cluj în perioada interbelică, Cluj-Napoca, Institutul Pentru Studierea Problemelor Minorităților Naționale, 2014, p. 219
The second important achievement in the development of Jewish education was the opening of the “Tarbut” Gymnasium in Cluj in 1920, under the guidance of mathematician Antal Márk. There were four forms for boys, four for girls, and two for teacher training. Overall, 720 pupils were taught in this gymnasium. The forms operated under the direction of a board consisting of representatives of the Orthodox and Neolog communities. The language of instruction was initially Hungarian. However, following the legislative changes regarding private education, it was gradually replaced by the Romanian language, while the Hebrew language was preserved for the teaching of Jewish religion, literature and history.
Because of the discrepancy between the new legislative requirements which demanded the implementation of Romanian and Hebrew for teaching purposes, and the social reality of the fact that most teachers and pupils did not speak any language other than Hungarian, the authorities withdrew the right of publicity of the Tarbut Gymnasium in 1923, closing it in 1927.
At the same time, two primary schools of the Neolog and Orthodox communities continued to operate in Cluj. The school of the Orthodox community, also known as the “Ilkovics” School, was opened in 1875 and comprised a total of 600 pupils and 8 teachers in 1938. The school of the Neolog community (founded in 1903 and located on the former Regele Ferdinand [King Ferdinand] Street – currently Horea Street) was under the direction of Freu Lajos and comprised 160 pupils and four teachers in 1936. The Hebrew language and Judaism were taught five hours a week in the first grade, and three hours a week in the other grades.
The Orthodox primary and middle schools of Oradea, founded in 1883 by the local Orthodox community, continued to operate under the direction of Biró Márk (1918-1944). Starting from 1923, the language of instruction was Romanian, but daily classes were allocated for Hebrew and religion. The Neolog community of Oradea held a different view on education: under the influence of Rabbi Kecskeméti Lipót, the community decided to preserve the Hungarian language for educational and cultural purposes. Rabbi Kecskeméti argued that Transylvanian Jews had been informed by, and grown so deeply connected to Hungarian culture, that they viewed themselves as Hungarian Jews. To this end, a boys’ school was opened in Oradea, where the language of instruction was Hungarian, and Hebrew was taught during religion class.
Most of the Jewish primary schools started in the pre-World War I period remained active after 1918. Although many other new educational institutions were established in the interwar period, there were significantly fewer Jewish schools in Transylvania compared to other regions of Greater Romania (with the exception of Bukovina). The reason for the smaller number of Jewish schools in Transylvania, compared to other parts of the country, was the strong assimilation of Transylvanian Jews into the Hungarian cultural environment. The state of Jewish educational institutions in Transylvania for the academic year of 1931-1932, compared to other regions of Greater Romania, is illustrative in this respect:
| No. of Jewish schools | No. of teachers | No. of pupils | The estimated Jewish population of the region | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Transylvania | 45 | 224 | 5000 | 200,000 |
| The Romanian Old Kingdom | 114 | 378 | 10,000 | 265,000 |
| Bessarabia | 62 | 349 | 5471 | 206,000 |
| Bukovina | 12 | ? | 1000 | 93,000 |
Biblioteca Digitală a Bucureștilor, www.digibuc.ro
Essential information regarding the Jewish presence in public higher-education institutions in Transylvania is contained in the Anuarul Universității "Regele Ferdinand I" din Cluj (Yearbook of the “King Ferdinand I” University of Cluj). During the academic year of 1938-1939, of the 323 recipients of doctorates, 70 declared themselves as Jewish. In addition, the yearbook recorded the number of students enrolled in faculties according to ethnicity:
| Ethnicity | No. | Percentages |
|---|---|---|
| Romanians | 2029 | 56.58 |
| Hungarians | 553 | 17.87 |
| Jews | 286 | 9.25 |
| Saxons and Swabians | 147 | 4.75 |
| Other nationalities | 79 | 2.55 |