Pnina Rab (Peshke Goldberg)

"YAVNEH" HEBREW SCHOOL IN KARTUZ BEREZA

I remember very well the "Yavneh" Hebrew School of Tarbut net in Kartuz Bereza, because my brother and I studied there. The school was founded in 1922. Its beginning was an initiative of several teachers, lovers of language of the past, who taught their pupils Hebrew language on private lessons. When the number of pupils increased, those faithful of Hebrew education claimed to the community authorities for their own building, to be school and for other cultural activities.

In those days, Talmud Torah study group moved to another building, and they gave up one and a half of two empty classrooms, after exhausting debates and almost "fights". Considering that one classroom and a half wasn't enough, they rented the SHTUKER family's house and then the institution had two separate buildings. When the number of pupils increased again, they bought a piece of land on Gminia St. and built a new building for the school, a show room included.

I don't remember having met my brother in the playground ever. That's likely since in our days, the school worked in two different buildings, but I remember very well I used to meet my cousins SIMCHE FRIDENSHTEIN and CHAIM ALEXANDROVSKY. Besides the playground was a common place of our school Yavneh and of "Talmud Torah". The pupils of Talmud Torah somehow never went to courtyard.

I remember Director MANIA SERLIN and the teachers as well. In front of my eyes appear teachers PORTNOY, SHTEIN, NIBORSKY, ZOBRENER, TZUKERMAN, YAFE, GROSHILSKY, and also teachers CHANA and LIS. There were others too, but I can't remember them.

Time had pass. When I got married in Israel and our children were born, they attended at a school ; I paid attention and, essentially, we used to learn exactly the same things in our Yavneh school of Kartuz Bereza, than in Hebrew schools of Israel. We used to speak Hebrew with the "sefaradic" pronunciation, we were taught same subjects, we learned about Jewish festivities, we emphasized important facts in jewish history and Zionist movement. We used to go to the forest with bows and arrows too, a symbol of "Bar Kochba"'s heroism, in Lag Baomer. We also collected money for KKL and contributed with the few coins we received.

The dream of each one of us was to emigrate to Eretz Israel, and there speak Hebrew every day, every hour, with everyone.

Certainly besides Hebrew and Jewish studies, we learned other subjects, for instance polish language and history, since it was obligatory in Poland's regime. We had general studies that wasn't taught in other schools, at least the majority of them. At Yavneh school we studied music. A musician who worked in weddings, named ZVETZ, was our music teacher; we got to create a great mandolin orchestra.

It's important to point out the loyal activists who assumed the responsibility and care for school matters. Among them YOSHUA ZALTSMAN, ENACH LISKOVSKY, MOISHE GOLSHTEIN, FAIVL YBER and SHTUKER.

It's amazing and symbolic, since every building of Kartuz Bereza was destroyed and burned on WWI, and only two, according what I was told, remained straight: the Yiddish school and the Yavneh school's new building...