Visitors at the Hebrew Sunday School

In the summer of 1840, Rebecca wrote to a niece about an occurrence at a recent session of her Sunday School. Just as school was beginning, two men entered the classroom. They said that the children outside had invited them in and asked if they might stay. Rebecca gave her permission.

As the classes ended the older of the two men stood up and asked if he might speak. He and his companion, he said, were Seventh-Day Baptists (a Protestant denomination, in general agreement with other Baptists except for the proper day for the Sabbath which they observe on Saturday).

The man told how he had been ridiculed since his youth for keeping Saturday "like the Jews." Now he "felt happy there were communities of Israelites spread over the land...he deemed it a privilege to keep their holy Sabbath [and] prayed God would bless them." His words, Rebecca wrote, impressed the children. The two men then quietly left.

(For an anecdote about a Jewish visitor to the Sunday School, click here.)

(This letter is in the Miriam Gratz Moses Cohen Papers, No. 02639, Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.)

Happy Birthday, Hebrew School

Rebecca Gratz opened the first Hebrew Sunday School on February 4, 1838, and to mark the anniversary I've been asked to write a post for the blog, "Jewesses with Attitude," at Jewish Women's Archive.

To read it go to: http://jwablog.jwa.org

Rebecca Compared to the Biblical Deborah

Rebecca Gratz founded the first Hebrew Sunday School Society in America in 1838. Based on the Protestant template, her school offered the children of Philadelphia's Jewish community age-appropriate lessons about their religion. The school broke with Jewish tradition in that it was run and taught by women.

In 1840, a Dr. Salomon visited her classroom. He was a learned man who had lectured in his native language at the local German synagogue, but he did not speak English. However, he brought Rebecca a Bible, pointed out a verse he wanted her to read and offered her his hand. The verse was Judges 5:7. It is from the song of Deborah, the woman judge who brought leadership and authority to the Israelites during a time of social disorder. In the King James version of the Bible (the English translation which Rebecca would have used), it reads: "The inhabitants of the villages ceased, they ceased in Israel until that I Deborah arose, that I arose a mother in Israel."

American Jews faced less dire problems than the Israelites of Deborah's time, but there were real tensions. In Philadelphia a group of disaffected congregants had recently left Rebecca's synagogue Mikveh Israel to help form a new one. In the South, many of the old Jewish families hoped to keep their faith alive by embracing a reformed Judaism, which would retain the religion's ethical base but jettison the practices and observances they found onerous. Meanwhile, Evangelical Christians were actively seeking to convert Jews. It must have seemed to Dr. Salomon that Rebecca Gratz alone represented one of the few unifying forces of the time endeavoring to strengthen and nurture the children of Israel.

(This post is based on a letter, dated March 29, 1841, from Rebecca Gratz to her niece Miriam Cohen. It is from Miriam Gratz Moses Cohen collection No. 02639, Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.)