Amanda Aussems

Amanda Aussems

Blog Questions for October 9, 2013

(Wednesday)

Modernization of Middle-Eastern Jewry:

Education and Women

1.  The Alliance Israélite Universelle was a French-Jewish organization that was founded in 1860 in Paris. Its main purpose was to emancipate and protect eastern Jewry. The mission of Alliance Israélite Universelle for Jews living in North Africa and the Middle East was to “transform its students”. This transformation meant making these Jews into modern citizens of the countries in which they lived while adopting some European customs and beliefs in the process. Ottoman and Middle Eastern Jews were trained at the Ecole Normale Israelite Orientale in France. Here they worked as directors and teachers in the schools but not in their own communities.
2. The Alliance Israélite Universelle was the first opportunity women had for formal education. They transformed them into agents of change; advocating that women’s education was essential to cultivating a thriving Jewish family because women had immediate impact on future generations.  An all-girls school, which taught ways of increasing potential marriage suitors with new domestic skills and techniques to enhance the survival of infants, was established by 1870. The school mandated that girls wear European clothes to school, and the young Jewish girls loved this! It could be seen that this change in attire gave the young women a new sense of belonging and liberation. The education received at the Alliance Israélite Universelle opened up so many new doors for Ottoman Jewish women. Female teachers were of great demand in Alliance schools and many other women became newspaper owners or journalists. One of the greatest impacts the Alliance had on women was in increase in literacy. Because women were now able to read and understand, they were more open to new ideas. Through classic French novels and poetry they were introduced to the idea marrying for love rather than marrying for status. Marrying for love was a new and very European idea which Jewish women became increasingly fond of. In addition, Jewish women were more privy to information concerning the public domains of the world that they may have been sheltered from beforehand.