Proměny vzdělávání českých Židů za vlády Josefa II.
Changes in the Education of Bohemian Jews during the Reign of Joseph II.

Summary/Abstract: The decade of Joseph II’s reign was crucial for Jewish history in the Habsburg monarchy. For the firsttime, in the context of the growing Enlightenment-absolutist tendencies of the state and changing attitudestowards members of non-Catholic Christian denominations, the Jewish issue became an importantpart of state policy, and the monarch did not hesitate to intervene in almost all spheres of Jewish lifeduring his reign. He sought to gain greater control over this minority, distinct in both religion and language,to bring it closer to the life of the majority society and make it more useful to the state. The keyarea through which he intended to promote these aims was Jewish education. All of this was closely relatedto the Enlightenment-absolutist state’s efforts to comprehensively reform the monarchy’s educationalsystem, the aim of which was to provide education under state supervision for broad sections ofthe population, thus helping to “elevate them morally” and turn them into useful citizens of the state.However, since Jewish education in its traditional form played a crucial role in the process of preservingJewish identity, most Czech Jews viewed the changes that Joseph II brought about in this area with apprehensionand distrust. The importance of education for the Jewish community was understood by allconcerned – the monarch, the highest central and provincial authorities, the Jewish enlighteners whosupported state policy – but resisted by their opponents within the Jewish community, that is to say adherentsof the rabbinic tradition, which led to a number of clashes related to these developments. Thisarticle first outlines the forms of Jewish education in Bohemia in the second half of the 18th century,then discusses the efforts of the Josephine state to transform them and enforce compulsory secular educationfor Jews in the context of the Habsburg monarchy. Finally, it sheds light on the various Jewish reactionsto these developments and reflects on the outcome of events in this field.

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