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[Page 361]

As in the majority of shtetlekh [towns] of Lithuania-Belarus, in our shtetl instruction first took place mainly in a kheder [religious primary school] and then in yeshiva [religious secondary school].

The school year in the kheder began when the boy was four years old. The teacher would often have a helper who would carry the boy to the kheder in the morning.

The mother came along the first time and threw a coin (a kopike) from above, which meant that an angel threw it down, so [the boy] would learn well and he would constantly receive gifts.

In Kartuz-Bereza until 1905, the studying with the melamdim [religious school teachers] was divided into categories – from [those teaching] the youngest, which consisted of teaching boys the Hebrew alphabet, how to recite blessings and to read the Krias Shema [prayer recited at bedtime and in other daily prayers], up to the highest teachers who taught Gemara [Talmud and commentaries].

They studied according to “terms.” A “term” lasted from Passover to Sukkous [Feast of Tabernacles] and then from Sukkous to Passover.

After the first term, when the boy could already read Hebrew, he went to the higher teacher, where he would learn praying, Khumish [Five Books of the Torah] and Rashi [commentaries].

The teachers were: Nioma the melamed [teacher], Lipa the melamed, Esterka's [husband] Yosl, Dovid-Chaim, the shokhet Ora, Mamereh's [husband] Moshe Elihu.

After studying there for four terms (two years), the boy advanced and left to study Gemara with Yosl the Ulinover or traveled to Malech to the yeshiva.

Richer boys studied Gemara and Mishnius [written compilation of oral Torah] with Reb Ayzyk the religious judge.

Girls in general did not study. Only the middle-class richer girls studied a little writing with Arke the teacher.

Before my time, there were a few melamdim who they called lerer [teachers, instructors], such as Faywl the candymaker, Hershl the lerer, who would teach Hebrew grammar and a little reading and writing in Yiddish and Hebrew.

The richer children studied with Reb Ayzyk Molodowsky (the father of Kadya Molodowsky [famous Yiddish poet and writer]), who taught using the system of “classes.” He taught the students Hebrew grammar, history.

There also was a city Talmud Torah [primary religious school for poor boys] supported by the Jews. The Talmud Torah was located in the house of prayer. They taught praying, a little bit of Khumish [Five Books of the Torah]. The poor were taught there and the teachers were not interested in whether the boys

A street in Kartuz-Bereza – on the right the Gvirisher [rich man's] house of prayer

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knew anything. Ignorant children actually graduated from there. There, the whip was the boss…

In 1908, a diploma-ed teacher with “golden buttons” [on his jacket] came to Bereza; he was named Gerashov. He opened a school with three classes [grades], with Russian as the language of instruction and once a week he also taught singing. With him, the boys studied until 12 noon and the girls from one in the afternoon. Boys who already knew the Russian alphabet well were accepted there; one studied there for three years. It was an elementary school for Jews because they did not study on Shabbos.

There was a tumult in the shtetl – they are turning the children into gentiles! They are studying without hats. But the population realized that the school was very necessary for the shtetl and the parents sent their children to it. Some children, after graduating from this school, went to gymnazie [secondary school]; after [graduating], several children studied by themselves, that is, they were “non-matriculated.”

In 1910, Vajnsztajn, a teacher, and his wife, came to Bereza to open another school, especially for girls. Handicrafts were taught there, too.

Shlomo Ganz [spelled Gandz in other articles] taught girls to read and write Yiddish and Russian at his house.

After the outbreak of the First World War, in 1915, the first German occupation occurred. All of the khederim and schools were closed. It was not the time for learning. The Talmud Torah began to teach and closed. Thus it lasted until 1917 when the Germans loosened the tension a little after the Russian Revolution.

At a meeting at the library, according to the initiative of Shika Berman, a nursery was organized by Shika Berman, Temtsha Roczanski, Alya Motya Boksztajn and Zajdl Chajkov. They took the premises of Gerashev's [spelled Gerashov above] former school and arranged a school for children and called it a Nursery.

Bajltsha Berman, Chana Bilczik, Rajzl Goldman, Fajgl Perlovich, the former gymnazie students, worked there, without pay, as teachers. There they taught reading and writing in Yiddish and Russian.

The Yavne [religious Zionist] School was founded later with a dramatic circle at the library and reading room and they gave performances that also brought in income. Fifty percent of the [ticket] purchases went to the library and fifty percent to the nursery.

Paying wages, they hired the teachers, Yona Reznik. Brukha Kamenski and a Brisk teacher, who was in Bereza. The school proceeded as a normal educational institution.

In 1919, during the Polish regime, a great deal of help came to us in Bereza from our brothers in the United States. The Joint [Distribution Committee] also helped.

Bereza was partly burned then. In 1915, almost the entire market and its surrounding streets were burned. Not only the population in general made use of the support – the nursery received special attention. The children there received rolls in the morning and also soup for lunch. The Joint also provided money to pay the teachers.

There were two bathhouses in Bereza for washing. One, a municipal one near the market, and one that was called the gvirshe [rich man] The Germans turned this bathhouse into a horse stable.

The Jewish Committee (which distributed the American support) decided to make this bathhouse a school for children. The bathhouse was remodeled with the help of the Joint; windows were put in and the bathhouse was transformed into a school building.

Five rooms belonged to the school and two for the Talmud Torah, which did not have a place to teach because the house of prayer had been burned.

Yiddish, Polish as the national language, and Hebrew according to the old methods were taught in the school.

In 1922, the foundation for a Hebrew school was laid in Bereza. The Zionists in the shtetl brought Hebrew teachers and they began to teach Hebrew privately to a small number of children.

These attempts grew larger and they demanded a premises from the community. When the Talmud Torah went to teach in its own building, which it received as a gift from Mera Yokha's, the two rooms that it had occupied in

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the former bathhouse were empty, where the Yiddish school had been located.

Then the well-known dispute between the two schools broke out. The Yiddish school wanted the empty rooms for itself. The Hebrew school wanted them, too. There was a resolution to the dispute. The Yiddish school received half a room and the Hebrew school one-and-a-half rooms.

The Yiddish school, through its leaders, former Bundists, Shlomke Vajnsztajn, Gotl Pisecki, Meir Podostoice, Nisl Zakhajm and additional leftists such as Naftali Levinson, Alya-Mota Boksztajn, Yehuda Kaplan, Nioma Szapiro, Yehiel Solnic, joined the Central Yiddish School Organization. They received support from the Central [Committee]. The theater at the school was also organized by this group.

The dramatic circle at the school gave performances that covered part of the school budget.

A chorus of children and adults was also organized at the school led by Comrade Leibl Kaplan. They gave performances with the dramatic circle that had great success in the shtetl.

The leadership of the Hebrew school, which then joined the union of Tarbut [union of secular, Hebrew-language schools], developed vigorously. This school taught in two places and this was not comfortable for the children. The leadership, in the person of Yehosha Zalcman, Henekh Liskovski, Moshe Goldsztajn, Fajvl Yaver and others, decided to build its own school building. A spot was purchased at the Gmina [community] Street. In 1934, a beautiful building was constructed with a room for performances, [created] by taking apart a specially built wooden wall in the middle.

The young took part in various political movements: Hashomer Hatzair [the Youth Guard – Labor Zionists], Betar [Revisionist Zionist youth group]. In general, the life of the young people after graduating from the school was concentrated around their school – around the Yiddish one or the Hebrew one.

The youth organization performances, children's evenings, every undertaking was an event in the shtetl. The schools contributed a great deal to raise the cultural level of the shtetl and gave Bereza prestige in the Jewish world. The children's presentations by both schools would be visited by the teachers from both schools and often by the managing committee. Then

Student certificates from the Bereza Yavne [religious Zionist school] for school year 1925/26

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they would discuss which evening was more beautiful, successful.

It is a characteristic fact that there were parents who would send their daughters to the Yiddish school and their sons to the Hebrew one.

The entire cultural life was concentrated around the movement, not only of the young. Their parents also were devoted to their schools where their children studied.

It was like this until 1941, when the Germans, may their names and remembrances be erased, annihilated the shtetl and its Jewish residents.

A kind of symbol of sadness is the fact that both schools – the Yiddish and the Hebrew – remained intact while the entire shtetl lay in ruins.

The buildings were intact, but empty.

The subjects at the Bereza Yavne School for the student certificates for the school year 1925-26

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