Heder

The heder (Hebrew חדר , “room”) is a traditional elementary school where are taught the rudiments of Judaïsme and of Hebrew. It occupies a place important in the Jewish folklore, particularly in the culture Yiddish, where it symbolizes the place par excellence Jewish education.

History

Heder was an institution spread in all Europe until the end of. The lessons were given in the house of the Melamed , paid by the Jewish community or more often a group of parents. Teaching was traditionally exempted to the only boys, the education of the girls being ensured by their mothers residence. The groups included/understood children of various ages.

The children entered to the heder at 5 years. After having learned the Hebrew alphabet and to read it (with the pronunciation Ashkénaze, which was the same one as that of the Yiddish, the lingua franca of the Jews of east and Northern Europe since the Middle Ages), they started to study the Torah, while starting with Vayikra, then the Talmud (later Mishna, Gemara, and rabbinical comments). The reading with high voice and the training of the lessons by heart were the principal techniques of study. The end of the training of a pupil to the heder, at the 13 years age, was celebrated by its Bar mitzvah.

Some continued their studies in the Yeshivot in order to become Rabbin or Sofer had to continues to their studies At the Yeshivot, mainly those of Worms, Fürth and Prague.

Towards the end of, the system of the heder was criticized as well by the members of Jewish orthodoxy as by the partisans of the Haskala.
Pour the first, the teachers insuffisemment were insuffisemment qualified; those which exerted this trade often made it by defect, not having been able to become butchers, singers even grave-diggers, trades with the remainder better paid. Moreover, they advanced their pupils too quickly, because the expenses of education for the pupils of the higher classes were higher. For the seconds, assets with the ideals of the Lights, criticized the system as a whole, affirming that it led to an insulation socio-linguistics of the children, them preventing from being integrated and émanciper. They recommended the addition of lessons in the language of the country, and the matter addition in conformity with the spirit of time in general. These ideas were promptly put in practice by the Jews of Germany which founded with the Judaïsme reformed the Freischulen (“private schools”). This, and the introduction of obligatory public education, led at the end of the heder in the countries Germanophone S, but not in Eastern Europe, where it remained until the destruction of the local Jewish communities during the Shoah.

Nowadays

In the Western countries, the children are sometimes sent to the heder after the hours of course of school. Heder however was generally replaced there by the Talmud Torah, which functions like a traditional school, particularly in the American orthodoxe mediums and in Israel.

See too

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