Cheder metukan

Cheder metukan ("improved cheder", sometimes interpreted as "revised cheder", "progressive cheder" or "reformed cheder" and sometimes transliterated as cheder methukan) was a type of elementary education schools for young Jewish children introduced by the Zionist movement at the break of the 19th and 20th centuries in the Russian Empire (which at that time incorporated considerable parts of Poland and Lithuania) to address the problems of the outdated and inefficient system of traditional cheders. The curricula of the cheder metukan differed depending on the organizer, but the major distinctive features were introduction of the elements of secular education (such as history of the Jews and geography of Eretz Yisrael), / "Ivrit veIvrit" way of teaching (using Hebrew as the sole medium of teaching), and education for girls. The conservative circles saw this as a threat to their status in the system of education and in the Jewish society, and ardently opposed the introduction of these schools.

Hebrew through Hebrew

This method was based on the following principle:

• In the development of oral speech, the native language ("mame-loshn", i.e., Yiddish) must be completely excluded and the Hebrew words must be associated directly with things or concepts rather that with the words in native language. The grammar must be acquired intuitively, the way as it is acquired in the mother tongue.
• The acquisition of material should occur on the basis of imitation and analogy; the meaning of words and grammatical phenomena should be revealed with the help of visual aids (objects, actions, pictures), i.e., without explanations in the mother tongue.

Opposition

Opponents angrily quipped that they were not cheder mehtukan (), but cheder mesukan (, "dangerous cheder").

In the autobiography, Chaim Weizmann described the situation as follows:

Notable persons

• Avraham Cholodenko founded the first cheder metukan in Kyiv
• Chaim Weizmann was an active supporter of cheder metukan movement
• David Zakai taught in cheder metukan in the Mogilev Governorate
• Pinchas Perelmn () (1880-1921), non-Chasidic rabbi of Yekaterinoslav, founded there a cheder metukan (where young Menachem Mendel Schneerson did not go).
• Simon Rawidowicz was a teacher in a cheder metukan in his young years

Notes

References

Further reading

• Sbornik materÄ«alov ob ėkonomicheskom polozhenÄ«i evreev v RossÄ«i, Volumes 1-2, 1904, Section "Reorganization of the Cheder", pp. 309-312