HBT@170 Our Religious School: The Early Years

From the Archives Committee

HBT @ 170 Our Religious School: The Early Years

By Michael Cole

With the focus on education for our anniversary year and the announcement of the Cotler School, the Archives committee will use this space to highlight noteworthy educational moments from our past 170 years.

Our religious school actually dates from 1859, just three years after the establishment of the congregation, according to a History of Holy Blossom Temple written by Heinz Warschauer, our eminent post-war education director. There were already ten children in the class which met in the home of the teacher. There were, however, some problems. The teacher also held the positions of shochet, chazan, and mohel. It was difficult to find a person who was adept at all these tasks, teaching especially. At the same time, the children spoke only English, were thoroughly Canadian, and more taken with lacrosse or ice skating than Hebrew or Bible. The teachers who came from Poland or Germany spoke poor English and were also unfamiliar with the interests of their students.

Heinz (as he was known to all) notes that “the teacher did not understand what made the children ‘tick’, and the children had no desire to be kind to their teacher. Some of them must have been pretty rough to some of the teachers! For all we know, it might very well have happened that the teacher had to interrupt his lesson from time to time to slaughter a chicken! This would hardly help the teacher appear important.”

Several gentlemen came and went, until, in 1862, Holy Blossom acquired a worthy teacher and chazan. The Reverend (a title used by religious leaders both Jewish and Christian) Mr. Heilbron, responding to an advertisement in The Jewish Messenger, came to Toronto from New York. He came with good credentials and was highly recommended by Rabbi Isaacs, the newspaper’s editor. The Rev. Mr. Heilbronn would have made an excellent choice to teach our children and lead services, and even to slaughter chickens. However, as a mohel, he was less than perfect in a job in which only perfection will really do. In 1864, he was given notice.

Throughout the 1870s, not one of the functionaries of Holy Blossom was a good, or even adequate, teacher. Heinz observes that “The effect of the poor teaching at Holy Blossom during those first twenty years cannot be overestimated. There was reason to doubt that Judaism was as alive, meaningful, and beautiful to those children as it should and could have been.”

During the 1880s the synagogue hired the renowned Cantor Herman Phillips. A student in Berlin of no less than Louis Lewandowski, the distinguished composer of Jewish liturgical music, Cantor Phillips was not required to slaughter chickens or circumcise baby boys, but only lead services, preach sermons, and teach children. Apparently, he was a good teacher, although, as Heinz notes, “he used the stick in class and threw out the children who misbehaved.” Cantor Phillips arrived at Holy Blossom in 1883, but left in 1890, because he objected to the congregation’s desire to use an organ at services.

In 1886, Edmund Scheuer arrived in Toronto, and, with him, Jewish education at Holy Blossom, and in Toronto, was changed forever. That will be the subject of our next instalment.