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Organized Jewish religious life in California dates to the High Holidays of 1849, when services were conducted in San Francisco and Sacramento. The following year when men and women gathered in San Francisco plans were made to establish a congregation.
By the 1870s, the Jewish congregation day school movement had collapsed in disarray for a variety of reasons, including the lack of national coordination and the transient nature of the Jewish population. Also, state education systems began to satisfy the needs of many Jewish parents.
The history of Jewish education in the United States before the 20th century is as old as the United States itself; it is a part of overall U.S. Jewish history. That history begins early in the history of the first Jewish congregation in New York.
From the 19th century onward, public education became compulsory in most of Europe, and Jewish schools were established in order to maintain educational control over Jewish children. In the Beth Jacob system, women primarily learn Torah, and also some halacha (Jewish religious law), but not the Talmud.
How Did Jewish Education Get This Way? Before we start, let’s put some historical/sociological context to this educational system. Jewish society has always been an outlier, mostly because its principal religious and social activity is education.
The new California Jews built a substantive society that looked after its own, religiously and socially. They started kosher bakeries and founded boarding houses that served kosher meals. They also established synagogues, religious schools, relief organizations like the Hebrew Benevolent Society, and newspapers.
- Jonathan Ellowitz
Aug 29, 2018 · In the years that followed, especially in the wake of the Shoah and the rise of the State of Israel, Jewish day schools gained in both number and collective esteem. Once marginalized and...
