Did you ever wonder who invented Sunday school?

Rabbi Melanie Aron

July 9, 2004

Did you ever wonder who invented Sunday school?

I have to admit, I don’t think I did. I guess I just assumed Sunday school had been around forever. But it hasn’t.

Sunday school for Jewish students was invented in 1838 in Philadelphia by a woman named Rebecca Gratz.

Of course this wasn’t the first Jewish school. The Torah tells us to teach our children and already in the Mishnah the rabbis tell us that the community is responsible for providing teachers for young boys. We know that in America, rich families would hire a tutor for their children and there were some cheders, where boys were prepared for Bar Mitzvah by older men frequently teaching in small rooms, hence the name cheder, but until 1838 there was no Sunday School, where boys and girls were taught together and where the focus was on Bible, ethics and Jewish thought and not on learning Hebrew by rote.

Rebecca Gratz had begun by teaching her younger brothers and sisters- she was one of 12 children, and then her cousins, nieces and nephews: by 1838 she was able to open a real Sunday school. After all Philadelphia was a major center of Jewish life at that time, with 750 Jews.

The Sunday school wasn’t held in a Temple. It was held in the upstairs of a fire station. I found a letter from a young student named Rosa Mordechai who lived from 1839-1936 that describes what it was like. I’d like to share some of her story with you.

Rosa liked to go to Sunday School. On Sunday mornings she would get to school early, so she could stand for a few minutes on the first floor of the fire station and admire the fire wagons before going upstairs. They were kept so clean and shiny, and she wondered that they were never called out to a fire during Sunday school.

Upstairs she found her place on her bench, which she shared with 9 other children.

There weren’t enough books, so they were not able to take them home. In fact there weren’t any Jewish books in English at all, so most of their books were taken from Christian Sunday schools. Sometimes if Rosa came really early, she could see the teachers patiently gluing white paper over the parts of the books that weren’t right for Jewish children. The children would try and peek underneath to see what they weren’t supposed to be reading.

In those days there wasn’t even a Jewish English translation of the Torah and the English Bible on the table at school was a King James Bible that contained the Old and New Testaments. By the time Rosa’s younger sister went to school Isaac Leeser had written the first religious school book in English for American Jewish children and translated the Torah and they didn’t have to use the Christian books any more.

Miss Gratz, as everyone called her, was pretty strict. She was the principal and it seemed like she could see everything going on in the school, even though there were four classrooms. Her eyes spotted mischief 100 feet away. If you got into trouble you were marched through the school right up to Miss Gratz’s desk on the high platform, and you had to sit there under the platform until Miss Gratz had time to talk to you alone.” Partly I envied those students,” Rosa wrote. “While they were up there waiting they didn’t have to do lessons and besides Ms Gratz was very nice and very pretty. People said she had once had a suitor, the son of the President of the University of Pennsylvania, but he wasn’t Jewish, so they never got married. Other people say that the famous book Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott used Rebecca Gratz, our principal, as the model for his Rebecca.”

On the wall there was a map of the ancient holy land and the Ten Commandments.

Rosa always tried to be on time and she hated to miss school, because there were prizes for attendance. Sunday school was only two hours, hardly enough time to teach the Bible stories, basic prayers and ethics, that were part of the curriculum. They didn’t really learn Hebrew as their teachers didn’t know much Hebrew either being mostly women. That was something new, letting women teach, and not everyone thought it was a good idea.

The most exciting day of the year came in March when they had annual exams. Why in March? Probably, because that’s when the school first opened. Also there wasn’t a set school year in those days.

All the children came into the big synagogue in Philadelphia, Mikvah Israel. It was the only time when girls and women were allowed in the main synagogue and didn’t have to go upstairs to the balcony. Each of the classes sat together and one by one Mr. Abraham Hart, president of the congregation and an important business man in town, asked them questions. Rosa was scared when it was her time but she did very well. They had all heard the questions before and had spent months memorizing the right answers, so their teacher was very proud of them. Afterwards there were books for the oldest children and pretzels and oranges as a special treat for everyone who had done well. Even as an old woman Rosa still remember the first verse she recited: “Come ye children hearken to Me and I will teach you the fear of the Lord.” And the rhythms she recited: “Who formed you child and made you live- God did my life and spirit give.”