Drawing class in the Jewish High School of Mukachevo

More than ten thousand Jews lived in Mukachevo, they made up nearly half of the city’s population. Though the overwhelming majority were Orthodox and Hassidic Jews, secular Zionism also appeared in the city. In 1925, Chaim Kugel, one of the leaders of the Jewish Party of Czechoslovakia, opened the only Hebrew high school in the country that provided secular education and was open to girls as well. Classes were taught in modern literary Hebrew; and the education at the school was approved by the state. The school, which had to struggle with the fierce resistance of the Hasidic rabbis, did not prepare his students for aliya (immigration to Israel), but sought to foster self-conscious Jewish intellectuals for local communities. Following the annexation of the area to Hungary, anti-Jewish provisions disrupted the Hebrew language training.