Geoffrey D. Claussen, “Repairing Character Traits and Repairing the Jews: The Talmud Torahs of Kelm and Grobin in the Nineteenth Century,” Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry, vol. 30, no. 1 (2018): 15–41.
This article explores some of the unique characteristics of the Talmud Torahs of Kelm and Grobin, the Musar movement educational institutions founded by Rabbi Simhah Zissel Ziv in the late 19th century. I consider these institutions' unique curricula, their efforts to influence Jewish education by exporting their model of musar study to other yeshivas, the ways that they were rejected by many Jews and especially by rabbinic authorities, and their efforts to separate themselves from many aspects of Jewish society while nevertheless hoping to effect social change. I argue that the Talmud Torahs had limited success in directly influencing Jewish society on the whole, but that they did have a significant influence on the development of traditional Jewish education in eastern Europe. The article appears in a
special issue of Polin dedicated to Jewish Education in Eastern Europe, edited by Eliyana R. Adler and Antony Polonsky.
