The Rabbinical School of Vilnius

Collection description

Collection

Country:: Lithuania

Holding institution:: Lithuanian State Historical Archives

Holding institution (official language):: Lietuvos valstybės istorijos archyvas

Postal address:: Gerosios Vilties g. 10, 03134 Vilnius

Phone number:: (8 5) 213 74 82

Web address:: http://www.archyvai.lt/lt/lvia_naujienos.html

Email:: istorijos.archyvas@lvia.lt

Reference number:: f. 577

Title:: The Rabbinical School of Vilnius

Title (official language):: Vilniaus rabinų mokykla

Creator/accumulator:: Rabbinical School of Vilnius

Date(s):: 1847/1873

Language:: Russian

Extent:: 82 files

Type of material:: Textual material

Physical condition:: good

Scope and content:: The collection includes the papers of the rabbinical school of Vilnius, a state-run institution which was intended to prepare rabbis and teachers for the government-run Jewish school system (see the more detailed description under Biographical History). The materials chiefly cover the period between the late 1850s and the early 1870s.

The collection contains various data on the school's activity: lists of pupils, applications, grades and personal data records; records of examinations, including those taken by Jewish men and women seeking teacher's licences; data on the teachers at the school – salaries, promotions, state service ranks and so on; information on the school building and equipment, pupils’ dormitories and other technical information; and documents on funding, scholarships, donations and other financial matters. Some papers refer to Jewish elementary schools in Vilnius and other localities, including lists of teachers and pupils, data on exams, funding and other issues.

The collection also includes disciplinary records including data on expelled pupils, reports on breaches of discipline by pupils, and related issues. Papers from 1871 mention the involvement of the school's pupils in a quarrel that occurred in a tavern when an army orchestra played music which was regarded as offensive to the Jews; documents from 1868 mention a pupil of the school who was beaten "for translating the Mishna into the Russian language"; papers from the late 1860s mention an investigation into a complaint about fake graduation certificates allegedly issued by the school.

Files from 1867 include an appeal submitted to the governor general by Jewish residents of Vilnius, who claimed that the school was not successful in training knowledgeable rabbinical scholars and had become an unnecessary financial burden on the Jewish community. Certain documents mention cases of apostasy by pupils and teachers, such as the school's Russian language teacher, Moisei Gurvich.

Archival history:: Prior to the 1917 revolution the records of the Russian administration in Vilnius, including the materials of state-run institutions of education, were kept in a government depository. In the early 1920s they were transferred to the newly established Vilnius State Archive, which became a part of the Central State Archive of the Lithuanian SSR in 1940. In 1957, together with other pre-revolutionary documentation, these materials were included in the Central State Historical Archive of the Lithuanian SSR, predecessor of the current State Historical Archive.

The materials of the Jewish teachers’ institute which succeeded the rabbinical school constitute a separate collection (LVIA f. 570). Additional materials on the rabbinical school can be found in the archive of the headquarters of the educational district of Vilnius (LVIA f. 567).

Administrative/biographical history:: The Rabbinical School (or seminary) of Vilnius was opened in 1847, along with a parallel institution in Zhitomir, as part of the Russian government's program of state-sponsored education for the Jews.

The school's curriculum included a secondary school level general education, in addition to specialised teacher training or training for the rabbinate. The teaching staff of the School included some of the most prominent figures of the local maskilic circles, including Shmuel Yosef Fuenn and Avraham Dov Lebensohn. Graduates of the school were not able to obtain traditional rabbinical ordination, but more than a few graduates served as crown rabbis, including Zalkind Minor in Moscow and Abraham Drabkin in St Petersburg. Some of the pupils, such as Yona Gurland, Avraham Harkavi, Adolph Landau, Leib Levanda, Avraham Paperna, and Nikolai Pruzhanskii (Linovskii) became prominent Jewish-Russian writers or scholars. Others – Aharon Liberman, Vladimir Yokhelson and Aharon Zundelevich – were among the first Jewish socialist activists in Russia.

In 1873 the rabbinical schools in Vilnius and Zhitomir became Jewish teachers’ institutes.

Access points: locations:: Vilnius

Access points: persons/families:: Gurvich, Moisei

Subject terms:: Education; Education--Schools and universities; Education--Teachers and professors; Financial matters; Haskalah; Personal records; Rabbis

System of arrangement:: The collection consists of two inventories which are arranged according to chronological/thematic order.

Access, restrictions:: The collection is open for reference at LVIA.

Finding aids:: Basic information in Lithuanian and an inventory in Russian are available at the online catalogue of the Lithuanian Archives. A more detailed inventory in Russian is available at the Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People.

Links to finding aids:: https://eais-pub.archyvai.lt/eais/faces/pages/forms/search/F3001.jspx?_afPfm=-7dec7f9e.6

Yerusha Network member:: Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People

Author of the description:: Alex Valdman, Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People, 2014

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