Shabbat Shalom!

By DR. ELAZAR GOELMAN

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Transcribed from the clipping

ON HERZLIAH ANNIVERSARY In spite of all its troubles Israel found it important to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of an educational institution. It was during the school year of 1905-6 that the first Hebrew High School in the world was established and named appropriately, Herzliah, after the man who organized the world Zionist movement.

Twenty-five years later a Hebrew High School and Teachers Institute by the same name made its appearance in New York City. Just as the beginning of primary education was a boon to the Hebraization of Palestine so was the emergence of secondary education a step in that direction.

The problem of the future of Hebrew elementary school graduates weighed heavily upon the minds of the parents and troubled the conscience of the educators. Yet, when Dr. Judah Leib Matmon-Cohen announced in September, 1905, the opening of the Gymnasium Herzliah, in Jaffa, he was greeted with a shower of abuse and suspicion.

To the European educated Jew, a Gymnasium was in the category of the Holy of Holies where few of his kind could ever enter. Perhaps the physical appearance of Herzliah, a two-room house in an Arab alley, in the filthy city of Jaffa, was just a shocking sight to him.

Many of the teachers were incensed the point of drawing up a protest resolution against the impudence of a colleague. Were it not for the pleas of the venerable educator Yishai Adler and the author Alexander Ziskind Rabinowitz, there would have been on record a stinging resolution opposing the establishment of the Herzliah Gymnasium.

TRIUMPH OF EDUCATION Much to the surprise of many observers Herzliah began its growth from the very first year of its founding. Increasing numbers of students from Russia and other countries eagerly came to Palestine for the sole purpose of attending classes in the Jaffa Gymnasium, as Herzliah was commonly called at the time.

Four years later the cornerstone was laid for a new school building, and the added facilities naturally brought about a continued expansion of its educational program despite the lack of appropriate textbooks on the secondary level and the absence of adequately prepared staff members.

With the organization of the "Agudat Hagymnasia Haivrit," a sponsoring group, the institution passed from private hands to public control. The fruitful partnership between the Jews in Palestine and their brethren elsewhere was responsible for the growth and development of Herzliah. Palestinian teachers and writers gave of their enthusiasm and energy to the school.

East European Jews sent their teenagers to study there and also appropriated funds for its maintenance. Jews from England and other parts of the Western World contributed liberally toward the same goal.

How this transcription was made

Date and publication rest on the collector's slide label; no masthead, folio or printed dateline appears on this clipping.

Context added by this archive

LABEL ORDER: Maria's label lists slide 77 as 'The Kansas City Star April 29 1949' then 'Buffalo Jewish Review March 2 1956'. The images are reversed: s077_1 is the Buffalo Jewish Review column and s077_2 is the Kansas City Star piece. No masthead, no folio, no printed date; date is label-only.

Attribution to the Buffalo Jewish Review rests on the column's own last sentence, which names 'the principal of our own Buffalo Hebrew School, Samuel Israeli'. 'Shabbat Shalom!' is a STANDING COLUMN HEAD in an ornamental border, not an article headline; it is recorded in headline because the form requires it, but the column's two subjects are given by its own crossheads, 'ON HERZLIAH ANNIVERSARY' and 'TRIUMPH OF EDUCATION', which are transcribed in the excerpt as set.

There is no deck. PRINTER'S ERROR PRESERVED: 'Many of the teachers were incensed the point of drawing up a protest resolution' — a dropped 'to', kept as printed.

WORDS FOR THE PLACE AND PEOPLE: 'Israel', 'Palestine' four times, 'the Hebraization of Palestine', 'Jaffa' twice ('the filthy city of Jaffa'), 'an Arab alley', 'the Jews in Palestine', 'Palestinian teachers and writers', 'East European Jews', 'Jews from England and other parts of the Western World', 'the European educated Jew'.

WHAT IS ABSENT: no Arab inhabitant of Jaffa is named, quoted or counted. Arabs appear once, as a possessive adjective attached to an alley, and the city they lived in is called filthy. The Palestinians of 1956 are not in this column under any name, because in this column the word 'Palestinian' has been given to somebody else.

The alumni list — Moshe Sharett, Eliahu Golomb of the Haganah, the poet Abraham Shlonsky — was read at page magnification only; the quoted sentences above were transcribed from magnified crops.

Cite this clipping

"Shabbat Shalom!," Buffalo Jewish Review, 2 March 1956. Covering Palestine archive, CP-1956-050. https://coveringpalestine.org/archive/cp-1956-050