Jewish Pre-School and Pre-University Education in Interwar Cluj

In 1918, the Jewish community in Transylvania had 32 elementary schools and 2 civilian schools, with Hungarian as the language of instruction. In the city of Cluj presently the center of Jewish Transylvanian culture, Jews accounted for 13-15% of the population (16,700 inhabitants in 1941). When Tarbut Gymnasium closed down in 1927 (it had been established in 1920 as the third Jewish high school in Transylvania, after those in Timisoara and Oradea), no Jewish preuniversity education institution remained in the city, following the Romanianization of Jewish primary mid secondary schools in Transylvania. The high school was reopened during the Hungarian occupation (1940-1944). In 1927, Neologue rabbi Matyas Eisler drew up a religious education project meant to produce "Jewish individuals who would be a credit, in all situations, to Jewish religion and national dignity."