Soviet Russia is shortly to have a pedagogical college in the Yiddish language according to the decision of the Soviet educational authorities. A special commission to inquire into the matter has been appointed.
The college is to serve the purpose of preparing teachers for the great number of Yiddish schools recently opened in the Union of Soviet Republics.
In White Russia alone there are now seventeen Yiddish intermediate schools; twenty whose program extends over seven years have been started. There are eighty-nine elementary schools, twenty-nine kindergartens and thirty-four childrens’ homes.
In the cities of Minsk and Witebsk there are two Jewish pedagogical schools for the instruction of teachers and mechanics.
Lunatscharsky, the Soviet Minister of Education, in speaking recently at the conference of Jewish Communist cultural workers emphasized the fact that the Russian language used as a means of instruction in Jewish schools retards the cultural development of the Jewish masses. The substitution of Russian by Yiddish is a necessity which should be accomplished as soon as possible. Lunatscharsky, in speaking of the Back to Land movement among the Russian Jews stated that no culture which is imposed by the intellectual classes can exist.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
