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During the last two centuries there has been a methodological struggle over teaching the deaf. Do deaf people learn to communicate by means of gestures and signs (the “manual method”) or is it important for them to learn speech and lip-reading (the “oral method”)? In the second half of the nineteenth century, many schools for the deaf made the transition from the manual to the oral method, which the Milan conference of teachers of the deaf decided to promote in 1880. In this conversion, Jews played an important role. Yet there appears to be a clear link between their efforts and Jewish tradition, including its perception of the deaf. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many small cultural and religious minorities are confronted with the problem of how to introduce their offspring into their own religious culture and values and at the same time to integrate into society. Often education is considered as the main tool to manage the problem. The historical case of the Dutch Jews and their perception of Jewish secondary education highlight the arguments in the shaky balance of integration and segregation. Coming from a situation in which Jews were set apart from society before 1850, they intended to integrate but at what price? This article uses source material from Jewish papers in which the discussion about Jewish secondary education dominated the contents from 1890 to 1928, the year in which the first Jewish secondary school was realised. The awareness of puberty as a dangerous age stimulated the discussion and underlined the old and new arguments in favour of their own secondary school as a matter of survival for Jewry. Why it took such a long time before the school was realised was mainly a consequence of the internal struggle between proponents and opponents, who both fostered the strong desire not to be set apart, but at the same time were worried about the increasing assimilation. This article explores to what extent the arguments were based on cultural and religious values and beliefs, and the way in which societal developments strengthened the points of view. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]