Preparations are under way for the establishment of four state schools with an entire elementary and high school curriculum in the Yiddish language, Mrs. Polia Barash, newly-appointed Rumanian Inspector General of Yiddish Education, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency today. In addition, it is planned to initiate classes in Yiddish as part of the curriculum in a number of other Rumanian schools which have a large percentage of Jewish students.
Mrs. Barash revealed that the four all-Yiddish schools will be located in Bucharest, Timisoara, Jassy and Satu Mare. Three of them will be boarding schools. The entire faculty and administrative staff of the schools will receive their wages and other rights on the same basis as all other teachers in the country. The first school will be opened in Bucharest as soon as textbooks can be edited, a curriculum drafted and faculty hired, Mrs. Barash declared. Pending completion of a survey, she added, it is not yet known which schools have enough demand for separate courses in Yiddish to warrant the establishment of a special curriculum for them.
In pre-war Rumania there were some 40 elementary and five high schools maintained by Jewish communities in this country. After the exclusion of Jewish students from state schools by the Antonesou regime, the number increased to 69 elementary and 23 high schools. The one Hebrew school which remained in existence after the liberation closed when the Jewish school system became part of the state set-up.
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