Elementary Religious Education among the Sephardim of Belgrade in the Nineteenth Century

The aim of this paper is to examine “Una chica mirada sovre el Talmud Tora” (Belgrade, 1867), a seven-page report about the religious school for Jewish boys in Belgrade, written in Ladino by its head who in 1864 introduced some reforms concerning the status and the curriculum of this institution.

This rare document, printed in the Rashi Hebrew font at the Printing House of the Prince of Serbia, provides valuable data on teachers, students, Hebrew and Ladino books of instruction, curriculum, as well as the internal organization of this traditional Jewish educational institution. Its author also sheds light on the difficulties and crisis which the institution encountered in the mid-nineteenth century when the Sephardim in Belgrade began to supplement their education in the traditional religious schools, which provided education in Hebrew and Ladino, with studies in Western-oriented non-Jewish state primary and high schools, where they received a general secular education, in Serbian. The author, concerned about this situation and the needs of his students, proposes to add innovations in the traditional educational system of the Sephardim in Belgrade such as training in modern citizenship, to be taught in Serbian.