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Title: Multilingualism Among the Jews of Hohenems
Subtitle: A Micro-Historical Study
Author(s): GRABHERR, E.
Journal: Studia Rosenthaliana
Volume: 36    Date: 2002-2003   
Pages: 33-47
DOI: 10.2143/SR.36.0.504915

Abstract :
Internal Jewish criticism of the education system in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries focused on the neglect of Hebrew and inadequate methods of language instruction. Criticism was also levelled at the widespread system of learnig religious subjects by rote. It was argued that priority should be given to understanding content, than slavish memorisation. In fact the first wave of critics argued that the principal religious subjects should be taught in Yiddish, rather than iin Hebrew. At the same tie some called for the integration of secular content (mainly natural sciences and non-Jewish languages) into the Jewish education system. Aron Tänzer and his Hohenems's Jewish community argued in that perspective to replace Yiddish by German, the language of culture, without losing loyalty to the Jewish cultural tradition.

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