Jewish Educational Proposals in Nineteenth and Twentieth-Century Florence

The variety of institutes for Jewish children in certain Italian communities, starting at the first half of the 19th century, substantiates the sensibility and interest in social and pedagogical problems evolving at that time. Deep social, economic and institutional changes were beginning to be perceived, not only by the moderate Italian intellectuals, but also by the representatives of some Jewish communities who, after the Napoleonic advent, started “to open the ghetto’s doors” by introducing the new ideas and behaviours circulating in those years. In some cases, new institutes were founded based on these ideas. Attention to early education was not limited to the opening of primary schools for the education of young Jewish Italians; it led to the creation of other institutions such as orphanages, kindergartens, arts and crafts schools, and boarding schools which had different characteristics from charitable institutes. Boarding schools were established to give rich Jewish families the opportunity to enrol their children in a school where it was possible to learn Jewish and civil disciplines, and where the level of teaching was higher than that in public and existing Jewish schools.