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Jewish People's and Peretz Schools

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The Jewish People's Schools and Peretz Schools (Yiddish: ײִדישע פאָלקס שולן און פרץ שולן, French: Les Écoles juives populaires et les Écoles Peretz), along with its secondary school Bialik High School (Yiddish: ביאַליק מיטלשול, French: École secondaire Bialik), is a private co-educational Jewish day school system. It is located in Côte Saint-Luc, an on-island suburb of Montreal, Quebec.

Jewish People's Schools and Peretz Schools
ײִדישע פאָלקס שולן און פרץ שולן
Location
Map
6500 Kildare Road
Côte Saint-Luc, Quebec, Canada
Coordinates45°28′42″N 73°39′26″W / 45.4784°N 73.6571°W / 45.4784; -73.6571
Information
TypePrivate Jewish day school
Religious affiliation(s)Judaism
Established1913; 111 years ago (1913)
Principal (JPPS)Marnie Stein
Principal (Bialik)Avi Satov
GradesK–11
LanguageEnglish, French, Yiddish, Hebrew
AffiliationCAIS, QAIS, AJDS
Websitejppsbialik.ca

Established by members of the Labour Zionist Poale Zion movement in 1913, the school soon divided into two institutions, the Peretz Schools and the Jewish People's Schools. The two reunited in 1971, and Bialik High School was founded shortly thereafter. The JPPS–Bialik school system currently offers both English and French sections, as well as the International Baccalaureate Primary Years and Middle Years Programmes.

History

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The Peretz Schools

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On 20 October 1910, the Fifth Poale Zion Convention held in Montreal passed Chaim Zhitlowsky's resolution for the establishment of a secular Yiddish-based school system across North America to transmit the movement's core Zionist and socialist ideals.[1] A supplementary school called the National Radical School was established in 1913 in Montreal's Jewish immigrant quarter of the Mile End, meant as a secular alternative to the traditional synagogue schools of the 1870–1910s and the Talmud Torah system.[2] The school expanded to over two hundred students by 1914. The school was not officially tied to the Poale Zion party, and by 1914 the party had lost control of the school to the Jewish Labour Bundist genosen.[3]

In 1918, the National Radical School was renamed the Jewish Peretz Schools (Yiddish: ײִדישע פרץ שולן, Yiddishe Peretz Shuln) after writer I. L. Peretz, and purchased its first building on Cadieux Street near Prince Arthur Street.[4] The secular Jewish curriculum was centred on the Yiddish language and literature, as well as on Jewish history and folklore.[5] Principals and teachers invited international Yiddish figures into the classroom; guests of the Peretz Schools during the 1920s and 1930s included Aaron Glants-Leyeles, Sholem Asch, Peretz Hirschbein, David Pinski, Shmuel Niger, and Chaim Zhitlowsky.[5]: 144  By the mid-twenties, both Hebrew and the study of Jewish tradition were introduced into the Peretz Schools' curriculum.[5]

Moving to a renovated factory on Duluth Street, the school added a kindergarten in 1941, and established a full-day school in 1942. The school remained on Duluth until 1960 when it moved to Wavell Road in Côte Saint-Luc following the westward migration of the Jewish community.[2]

The Jewish People's Schools

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J. I. Segal with afternoon school class of Jewish People's School, c. 1918.

The emphasis on Yiddish over Hebrew at the National Radical School was hotly debated, and a group of dissident activists emerged.[5] In 1914, a group of educators led by Dr. Yehuda Kaufman, Moshe Dickstein and Abraham Parnass, broke away from the National Radical School to establish the independent Jewish People's Schools (Yiddish: ײִדישע פאָלקס שולן, Yidishe Folks Shuln; Hebrew: בתי ספר עממיים יהודיים).[6] Classes initially took place in a house, with volunteers as teachers.[7] The new school emphasized the equal importance of Hebrew and Yiddish in Jewish life, and placed greater emphasis on Jewish tradition than did the National Radical School.[8] The school would eventually settle on St. Urbain Street near St. Cuthbert Street in 1920, staying there until 1952. A second building (designed by architect Maxwell M. Kalman) opened in 1926 on the corner of Waverly and Fairmount, remaining there until 1963.[4]

In 1927, the Jewish People's Schools established itself as an all-day Jewish school, the first in Montreal since the synagogue schools of the 1880s–1900s.[4] The school taught public school curricula along with Jewish education, history, and literature, Hebrew and Yiddish, and the ideology of the Labour Zionist movement, at the cost of ten cents per week.[9] As the Jewish community migrated westward, a new branch was built at Van Horne Avenue and Westbury Avenue in 1956.[4] While the Jewish People's Schools moved in the direction of Outremont's middle-class element, the Peretz Schools continued to serve more of the working class elements of the Jewish community.[10]

Modern history

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Except for the Peretz Schools' continued stress of Yiddish over Hebrew, by the 1920s the overall philosophy, educational objectives and pedagogical approaches of the Peretz and Jewish People's Schools were essentially the same.[11] Still, despite the efforts that were made to reunite the schools beginning in the 1920s, ideological differences prevented the Peretz and Jewish People's Schools from merging for half a century.[10] In 1971, financial necessity (as well as the retirement of their two long-term principals) led to the merger of the Jewish People's School and the Peretz Schools.[5]: 135  The unified educational system created Bialik High School a year later, offering a comprehensive curriculum of both secular and Jewish education for secondary students.[4]

In 2003, the elementary school's Wavell and Van Horne branches were consolidated and the Wavell location sold.[12] A merger of JPPS–Bialik schools with UTT–Herzliah was announced in February 2011, but was soon rejected.[13] JPPS–Bialik decided in 2016 to sell the elementary school's building on Van Horne and move its elementary students to the Bialik High School campus in Côte Saint-Luc, due to declining enrolment.[14]

Notable people

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References

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  1. ^ Roskies, David G. (1990). "Yiddish in Montreal: The Utopian Experiment". In Robinson, Ira; Anctil, Pierre; Butovsky, Mervin (eds.). An Everyday Miracle: Yiddish Culture in Montreal. Toronto: Véhicule Press. pp. 22–38. ISBN 978-1550650099.
  2. ^ a b Pinsky, Marian. "National Radical School - Peretz Shule". Museum of Jewish Montreal. Retrieved 11 November 2018.
  3. ^ Srebrnik, Henry Felix (2011). Creating the Chupah: The Zionist Movement and the Drive for Jewish Communal Unity in Canada, 1898-1921. Boston: Academic Studies Press. ISBN 978-1-936235-71-1.
  4. ^ a b c d e Pinsky, Marian. "Jewish People's School (Yidishe Folks Shule)". Museum of Jewish Montreal. Retrieved 11 November 2018.
  5. ^ a b c d e Margolis, Rebecca (2011). Jewish Roots, Canadian Soil: Yiddish Cultural Life in Montreal, 1905-1945. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press. ISBN 978-0-7735-3812-2.
  6. ^ Robinson, Ira (2008). "The Canadian Years of Yehuda Kaufman (Even Shmuel): Educator, Journalist, and Intellectual". Canadian Jewish Studies. 15.
  7. ^ "History". Jewish People's and Peretz Schools. Retrieved 11 November 2018.
  8. ^ Wiseman, Shlomoh (1948). "The Jewish People's School of Montreal". Jewish Education. 20 (1): 58–63. doi:10.1080/1524-414891824476. ISSN 0021-6429.
  9. ^ Read, Anne (2018). "The Precarious History of Jewish Education in Quebec". Religion & Education. 45 (1): 23–51. doi:10.1080/15507394.2017.1367595. S2CID 148843756.
  10. ^ a b August, David (June 1975). The genesis period of the Jewish People's School in Montreal (Thesis). Concordia University.
  11. ^ "Our History". Jewish People's and Peretz Schools. 2003. Archived from the original on 19 January 2008. Retrieved 11 November 2018.
  12. ^ "Jewish School to Close Côte St. Luc Campus". The Gazette. 2 November 2003. p. A4.
  13. ^ Branswell, Brenda (11 November 2011). "Jewish day school systems scrap merger plan". The Montreal Gazette. Montreal. p. A4. Retrieved 12 November 2018.[dead link‍]
  14. ^ Wilton, Katherine (2 November 2016). "Montreal's religious and ethnic schools reposition to stay relevant". The Montreal Gazette. Retrieved 11 November 2018.
  15. ^ Cohen, Mike (2 June 2011). "Retired music teacher Botwinik to have Yiddish concert in his honour" (PDF). The Jewish Tribune. Montreal.
  16. ^ Kelly, Jeanette (19 September 2014). "Jewish Montrealers use Yiddish for new web series". CBC News. Retrieved 12 November 2018.
  17. ^ Cohen, Mike (18 March 2015). "Mitch Garber holds court in Vegas North" (PDF). The Suburban. p. 4. Retrieved 12 November 2018.
  18. ^ Orenstein, Gloria Feman (Fall 2007). "Torah Study, Feminism and Spiritual Quest in the Work of Five American Jewish Women Artists". Nashim: A Journal of Jewish Women's Studies & Gender Issues. 14 (14): 106. doi:10.2979/nas.2007.-.14.97. S2CID 162274882.
  19. ^ Macleod, Jennifer M. (14 February 2008). "Bewitching new fiction from former Montrealer". The Canadian Jewish News. Retrieved 12 November 2018.
  20. ^ a b Zipper, Yaakov (2004). Butovsky, Mervin; Garfinkle, Ode (eds.). Journals of Yaakov Zipper, 1950-1982: The Struggle for Yiddishkeit. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press. p. 356. ISBN 978-0-7735-2627-3.
  21. ^ Cohen, Tamara. "Shulamis Yelin". Jewish Women's Archive. Retrieved 12 November 2018.
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