Bubbe's Place: Stories

Folk Shul

People of the Yiddish world believed that education would unlock all the doors for their children. They pushed, they pleaded, they prayed that their children would stay in school and learn. You will laugh when I tell you how my mother's chavera (lady friend), Chavera Stupnicker, would take her son's pants away as soon as he came home from school. That way she knew he could not sneak out to play with the other boys. He would have to stay home and study.

A's were not good enough for our parents. Years later when I taught school, I heard other teachers laugh at Jewish parents for demanding top grades from their children, for wanting their children to have all A's. They did not understand that in Europe, and even in America, when I was growing up, Jews could not get into schools, even when they had all A's. There were quotas for Jews, so that even all A's did not guarantee you admission, and lesser grades did guarantee your exclusion.

In addition to the Public schools, Jews organized after school schools. There were three-day Hebrew schools, and free Sunday schools, and Yiddish schools too. For the very religious, there were Hebrew parochial schools (Yeshivot). In Jewish neighborhoods you could go to the synagogue's Hebrew school or the Yiddish Folk Shul. The Folk Shul was a three-day school that met after public school was over. Here the emphasis was on the Yiddish language. In the Folk Shul they learned about the Yiddish holidays and the Sabbath. They studied Jewish history and legends. They read Yiddish books and recited Yiddish poetry. They sang Passover and Chanukah songs in Yiddish. Only when got to the high school classes did they begin to study Hebrew. They did not learn any prayers and the only Hebrew song they learned was Hatikvah (the Jewish National Anthem). In the synagogue Hebrew school, no Yiddish was taught. Here boys were prepared for their Bar Mitzvah. There was no preparation or celebration of a Bat Mitzvah when I was a girl.