Schools and educational institutions in the Jewish Ostend

The Jewish housekeeping school was founded in 1897 on the initiative of the Independent Order of B'nai B'rith (U.O.B.B.) and was initially located at Fahrgasse 146. In 1914, the school moved to Königswarterstraße. The building also housed a boarding school. 

The aim of the school was to counteract the social grievances of the "impecunious Jewish classes by educating the female youth in home economics", as it was formulated in the first annual report. It went on to say that Jewish girls should be educated in such a way that "by virtue of what they have learned, they first become employable and then, as the future wife of the little man, know how to manage their household sensibly and economically with limited means". The housekeeping school offered trainees aged between 14 and 20 a number of advantages. They received full board, free laundry and compensation in the event of illness.

The last principal was Lucie Laquer. In her speech at the "40 Years of the Jewish Domestic Science School" ceremony on October 3, 1937, she praised the virtues of the Orthodox pupils in particular: "We see a strong personal power and formation in the Orthodox pupils, who not only keep the laws of the Torah according to tradition and custom, but also combine real religiosity with a law-abiding attitude: a positive influence and a real power of persuasion emanates from them."

Salomon Breuer (1850-1926), rabbi of the Israelite Religious Society, founded the Torah school on Friedberger Anlage in 1891. The yeshiva was located directly next to the synagogue on Friedberger Anlage, which was consecrated in 1907. The Rosa Oppenheimer née Cramer Foundation made the house available free of charge.

In terms of content, the neo-orthodox legacy of Breuer's predecessor and father-in-law Samson Raphael Hirsch (1808-1888) was taken up. The aim was to study the Torah and rabbinical literature intensively for one to two years. Learning in the yeshiva was intended to lay the foundations for lifelong self-study. The weekly newspaper "Der Israelit" from September 10, 1925 stated: "This lively Torah life takes place in beautiful, bright and healthy rooms. A large lecture hall and four smaller classrooms are filled with students all day until late in the evening. (...) 52 bachurim [Talmud students, author's note] currently attend the main yeshiva, 24 of whom are sons of Frankfurt families, 12 come from other parts of Germany. The rest are from various countries, Switzerland, Hungary, Poland and Lithuania."

After the death of Salomon Breuer in 1926, his son Josef Breuer (1882-1980) took over the management of the Torah school. Breuer and many of his students emigrated to the USA in 1933 and the following years. He founded a yeshiva in New York, which in turn drew on the teachings of Samson Raphael Hirsch. The Torah school on the Friedberger Anlage was closed under duress on April 1, 1939.

At this stop, a visit to the exhibition "Ostend. A look into a Jewish quarter" in the Hochbunker (Friedberger Anlage 5). Opening hours and further information can be found at the following link: https://www.juedischesmuseum.de/de/besuch/hochbunker-friedberger-anlage/.

The Heinemann'sche Institut (also known as Heinemann'sches Töchterpensionat or Heinemann'sches Lyzeum) was founded in 1869 by the married couple Dorothea and Heinrich Heinemann. It was divided into a boarding school and a school, both located in the building at Theobaldstraße 6 (today Theobald-Christ-Straße). The girls' school had six classes and a total of 14 teachers. In an article in the newspaper "Der Israelit" from 1873, the purpose of the institute is described as the "cultivation of school science, education and teaching of young girls in the spirit of Judaism". 

The school was headed by Heinrich Heinemann, who professed community orthodoxy and was a confidant of Rabbi Markus Horovitz (1844-1910). After Heinemann's early death, his wife from his second marriage, Ida Heinemann, née Mayer, took over the management of the school. The number of female pupils rose to 130 in 1905. The Heinemann Institute had a strong influence beyond the borders of the German Reich. Students from Holland, Switzerland, the Russian Empire and the United States also lived and studied at Theobaldstrasse. 

The boarding school was transferred to Amalie Rosenthaler in 1916. Ida Heinemann and her son Isaac Heinemann retired from the institute. The school was dissolved at the end of the 1921 school year.

The yeshiva associated with the Conservative synagogue on Börneplatz and the Jewish community was founded by the first rabbi of this synagogue, Marcus Horovitz (1844-1910), at the beginning of the 1890s. The school was initially located on the premises of the Börneplatz synagogue and moved to the building at Theobaldstraße 6 in 1928, where there were also living quarters for the students.

In 1922, the Orthodox rabbi Jakob Hoffmann (1881-1956) from Hungary came to Frankfurt and took over the management of the school. The curriculum of Hoffmann's yeshiva consisted of a combination of religious and secular education, giving pupils the opportunity to take the Abitur and attend university. An appeal for donations from 1929 states that the Hoffmann yeshiva "equips young people who want to dedicate themselves to the rabbinical and teaching profession with a deep and comprehensive knowledge of biblical and Talmudic scripture and, in addition, it provides students and young people who have left school with thorough Torah knowledge drawn from the sources before entering professional life". In the lower classes of the yeshiva, students from Germany predominated, in the upper classes those from Eastern Europe. A total of around 60 students attended the yeshiva at any one time. Most of the lecturers came from Poland and Hungary.

In the years of National Socialist persecution, many pupils attended an agricultural preparation camp after the yeshiva and went to Palestine with the youth aliyah. In March 1937, Jakob Hoffmann was expelled from the German Reich. He emigrated to the United States, where he lived in New York until 1952. Hoffmann died in Tel Aviv in 1956.

The secondary school of the Israelite Religious Society was opened in 1853 on the corner of Schützenstraße and Rechneigrabenstraße, in the immediate vicinity of Judenmarkt (from 1885: Börneplatz). Thanks to a generous donation from Wilhelm Carl Baron von Rothschild, a new building was erected at Tiergarten between 1879 and 1881, which was able to cope with the large number of pupils. While 29 female and 55 male pupils attended the school when it opened on April 1, 1853, by 1903 there were already 617 pupils, 24 full-time teachers and 12 assistant teachers.

Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch (1808-1888), founding father of the Israelite Religious Society (IRG), advocated the principle of "Torah in Derech Erez" in both religious teaching and education. Accordingly, the IRG strove to reconcile a law-abiding lifestyle with secular education. In reality, however, the proportion of religious instruction, Torah study and Hebrew never amounted to more than a third of the total number of lessons.

The Realschule der Israelitischen Religionsgesellschaft was a state-recognized secondary school. Pupils aiming for the Abitur had to transfer to a public grammar school afterwards. In 1906, it was also recognized as a "public secondary school for girls". In 1923, the largest enrolment was reached with 766 pupils. This made the Israelite Religious Society's secondary school the largest Jewish school in the city. In 1928, the 75th year of its existence, the school was given the name of its founder: Samson-Raphael-Hirsch-Realschule.

About 200 pupils were deported to the German-Polish border region as a result of the expulsion of Polish Jews on October 28, 1938. The school was closed during the pogrom in November 1938. Until the Samson Raphael Hirsch Secondary School was closed in March 1939, there were no more continuous lessons. The approximately 80 pupils who remained at this time transferred to the Philanthropin elementary school or were rescued by Kindertransport. Only a few of the young people survived the Shoah.

"There is ample provision for the children of the well-to-do, but there is a lack of suitable Jewish schools for the children of the less well-off." These were the words of the founding committee's appeal for a Jewish elementary school in Ostend on May 24, 1881. According to the school's founders, the pupils of the new school were to receive "an education that meets practical needs and is geared towards their future commercial profession" and "are to be educated to become capable, employable and gainfully employed people as well as law-abiding Jews".

The school was opened on the corner of Schützenstraße and Rechneigrabenstraße on June 1, 1882 after successful fundraising. The first director was Dr. Mendel Hirsch. Within the first five years, the number of pupils grew to almost 300. In 1891, the school moved to the spacious new building at Röderbergweg 29. Many of the boys and girls who attended the Israelite elementary school came from Eastern European families and had little knowledge of German. The majority of pupils came from poor or lower middle-class backgrounds.

With the introduction of the common compulsory four-year elementary school in 1924, the number of pupils rose sharply. In 1929, 627 boys and girls attended elementary school. The majority transferred to the Israelite community's secondary school after the 4th school year. After 1933, the Israelite elementary school became a shelter for the increasingly isolated children. The last two head teachers, Rosa Jeidel and Alfred Speier, were deported to concentration camps and murdered.

After 1945, the property was used in various ways by the newly founded Jewish community. Until 2005, it housed a prayer room (in Yiddish "shul") with a Sephardic rite.

One of the privately run educational institutions was the Israelite Daughters' Boarding School Ettlinger, founded and run by the sisters Hermine and Berta Ettlinger. The ritually run institution was initially located at Hanauer Landstraße 20, later at Röderbergweg 30. It had room for twelve girls from wealthy families. Boarding schools of this kind served to prepare young women from small towns and Jewish rural communities for life as wives and companions.

Daily lessons included "thorough instruction in running a fine household, cooking, needlework as well as scientific and social education". The young women learned French and piano and regularly attended the theater and concerts. Weekly dance lessons at the Carl zum Lindenberg lodge were also part of the training. The girls' tasks also included light housework such as laying tables, cleaning silver and looking after their own wardrobes. The actual housework and cleaning, on the other hand, was done by a domestic servant.

The house was governed by a strict regiment: there were punishments for disobedience, staying up too late, coming home too late and for pranks. They consisted, for example, of getting up earlier in the morning, extra table setting, exclusion from amusements, but also admonishing conversations with Hermine Ettlinger.

The Israelite Orphanage was founded by private individuals in 1876. According to its statutes, the orphanage pursued the goal of "providing unprovided Israelite orphans (...) with an education in accordance with the principles of traditional Judaism and, as far as possible, to replace faithful parental care in the care of their minds and bodies". Children between the ages of six and twelve were admitted and could live at the institution until they had completed their vocational training. Frankfurt patron Mathilde von Rothschild (1832-1924) donated the new building at Röderbergweg 87, which opened in 1903. 

From 1918, the married couple Rosa and Isidor Marx ran the home, which could accommodate up to 75 children. From 1935, more and more Jews from rural areas fled to Frankfurt to seek protection from persecution. The number of residents soon rose to around 150. After the November pogrom of 1938, Isidor and Rosa Marx tried to take as many children abroad as possible. In the spring of 1942, Rosa Marx, the staff and the remaining children were deported and murdered. Isidor Marx survived in British exile. Today, the Rosa-Marx-Weg is located near the memorial site at the Frankfurt Grossmarkthalle. Through contacts in Switzerland and the USA, France, Holland, England and Palestine, 700 to 800 children were rescued from Frankfurt. The Frankfurt memorial to the Kindertransports by artist Yael Bartana was inaugurated on September 2, 2021 in the Taunusanlage.