Tag #122656 - Interview #101182 (Simon Glasberg)

In addition to the temple, there was a Jewish school, this so-called chedder. They only taught Ivrit there, Hebrew, starting with the alef-beys, and including reading. I started to go to the chedder rather late, I believe I must have been in the 6th grade by then, so I was around 12. I attended the chedder for only 2-3 years. I could read well by then. Nowadays, I read the prayer book with punctuation, it’s rather hard for me to read without punctuation. That’s how it is. We were taught by a melamed, a teacher. He was an elderly man, I believe he was around 60 at that time, who didn’t have any special didactic methods, for, after all, he gave us texts to copy. For instance, he would say: ‘alef,’ he had a small board on which he scratched this – for he didn’t even have decent chalk, if I remember correctly, for there was a shortage of chalk –, and we all had a little notebook, and wrote down what he wrote.