Sándor Scheiber Primary and Secondary School
Budapest, XIV. Laky Adolf utca 38-40.
The school’s history:
Jewish elementary and secondary school
education has a long history in Hungary. After the state unified a number of educational
institutions in 1919 teaching was carried on in the Secondary School of the Foundation of
the Israelite Community of Pest and the Girl’s Secondary School of the Foundation of the
Israelite Community of Pest.
After some initial problems Jewish education flourished between 1929 and 1939, high
enrollment figures in the schools, excellent directors, teachers, and high levels of
parental involvement. Between 1939 and 1944 these schools could resist systematic attacks
on their integrity only with increasing difficulty. During the second world war Jewish
education suffered losses that have yet to be compensated for.
After the second world war Jewish education
at the secondary-school level was continued at the Anna Frank High School, the name of
which has been changed to Sándor Scheiber Primary and Secondary School.
The school at present:
The school maintained by the Union of
Hungarian Jewish Communities is adequate to the demands of serving as a practice school
for our Institute. The composition of students is representative of Hungarian Jewish
children of age groups ranging from elementary-school to high-school level. Students study
religion and Ivrit from the time they enter the school until graduation, celebrating
Jewish holidays together and living Jewish day-to-day life.
Activities at school:
Students of the Seminary in their second,
third and fourth years of study visit classes, conduct teaching practice exercises,
participate in the school’s celebrations and become acquainted with all general and
specialized areas of teaching and education.
The school’s religious and state leadership, teachers and staff are helpful but
critical; they have high expectations regarding our students, many of whom take positions
there as lecturers, accompanying personnel, child supervisors and educational technicians.
The Seminary maintains a regular and constant association with director Gábor Kohn and
religious director Tamás Lowy.
Our students may visit classes in subjects other than religion as well. They can take part
in demonstrative classes, analyses and group visits to classes, can teach religion and
Hebrew and participate in educational competitions. They can take their teaching
examination in the last month of their fourth year of study in Judaic studies class or in
some cases in Hebrew class. The leadership of the school is present at these examinations
as commissioned examiners, reporting on the student’s performance.
In 1998 four of our students chose to take
their teaching examination at the Sándor Scheiber School and one of the four, Judit Lieb
is currently employed there.
Six of our students are currently (in 1999)
practicing teaching and will take their teaching examination at the school.
Other educational and practice institutions
The colorful nature of the Jewish community
and increases in student enrollment at our institution made it necessary to find other
educational institutions where our students can practice teaching. These are the
following:
Lauder Javne Jewish Community School,
Budapest, XII. Budakeszi út 48.
American Foundation School, Budapest, VII. Wesselényi utca 44.
Benjamin Nursery School, Budapest, XIV. Ungvár utca 72.
Orthodox Nursery School, Budapest, VII. Dob utca 34.
Bet Menachem Lubavitcher Nursery and Elementary School, Budapest, XII. Tamási Áron utca
41.
Bálint Community House, Budapest, VI. Révay utca 16.
Religious communities, Talmud-Torahs
Our students also practice teaching at
Jewish community centers of Budapest and rural areas and in the Talmud-Torahs of these
communities. Children who do not otherwise participate in Jewish education, often their
parents and sometimes even their grandparents go to the Talmud-Torahs, wishing to study in
depth the five books of Moses and in written and oral doctrine. They can do so only in
“Sunday school”, where our students teach relying on the strong preparation they
received at school and with erudite methods that fit their personality.
 Our teacher candidates’
participation and active leading role is important at the communities’ holiday
celebrations. Our students regularly take part in religious celebrations organized in
Szeged, Debreen, Pécs, Miskolc, Kaposvár, Zalaegerszeg, Veszprém, Székesfehérvár,
Nagykanizsa, Szolnok, Nagykorös and, beyond the borders in Komarno, Kassa, Érsekújvár,
Temesvár and Szabadka.
Students assist the communities’
preparation for the holiday, providing written and demonstration materials, and also some
of our own publications, they participate in the prayers and in the ceremony, help prepare
meals appropriate to the holiday, bring games and answer the congregation’s questions.
Jewish
Museum
Budapest, VII. Dohány utca 2.
The richest Jewish collection of Europe,
housed in a building of historical import, in the building of Theodore Herzl’s, the
Zionist State’s spiritual father’s birth is a popular tourist attraction for Jews and
non-Jews alike. Our students’ linguistic intelligence and knowledge in Jewish studies as
well as their coursework in communication and objective knowledge during the fourth year
of their study make it possible that they work as guides at the Jewish Museum. All of our
students of teaching are required to prepare for and give a class at the Museum.
Jewish
architectural environment
Hungary has a number of abandoned and delapidated
synagogues and Jewish cemeteries in rural areas which are an important part of our
endangered architectural environment. In the framework of a special project our students
survey these areas, taking note of what must be done. They supplement national
environmental protection activities with reading the tombstones, in other cases with the
planting of trees, in yet others with the systematization of prayer books. Our students
involve members of the local community in these activities, first and foremost the
schoolchildren, aiming at the kind of cooperation during which we work to protect and
preserve the treasures of our environment together.
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