My First Lessons in Wolfenbüttel

In the year 1803, on Sunday afternoon the 5th of June, I and my uncle, accompanied—from the town gate onwards—by a soldier, arrived at the bet midrash, located at the Zimmerhofe. The soldier left us when Mr. Ruben (Polli) came out to receive us (Polli was my grandmother’s natural cousin, and so my uncle’s second cousin, once removed) and brought us to the home of Ph. Samson, on the opposite side of the street. There I was given something to eat—it was brown cabbage. Mr. Samson interviewed me, and around 2:00 we marched to Harz Street, in front of the old bet midrash. Mr. Kalman (born in 1733, I believe) stood in front of the door, a gray cap over the white and so forth. From the next day on, the Talmud-learning began; since I was not yet 9 years old, I was spared the leinen [reading out loud]. We were kept busy every afternoon until 5:00, in winter until around 4:00. Only Friday morning was devoted to the ḥumash. Mr. Kalman had Mendelssohn’s translation of the Bible in front of him; in addition Mr. Benlevy from Sandersleben (now in Hildesheim) taught two periods of Jewish writing (until April 1804; later Polli); G. Bertrand (a novelist who died in 1811) taught German writing, reading, and math for four or five periods a week. The other or higher rabbi, who lived one story above, was R. Lik from Burg-Ebrach (near Bamberg) who had studied in Poland and therefore dressed in Polish style, a gentle man, but married to a devil named Miriam. He was a kabbalist, stayed later than everyone else in the synagogue, and sat in on the morning Talmud lesson wearing tallit and tefillin. I found the following fellow students: 1) with R. Lik: Meier Gumpel (b. 1786), who left the Institute in November 1804 and died in Braunschweig; Moses from Burg-Ebrach who wore a threecornered hat and left in 1804—I think he went to Ballenstadt; 2) with R. Kalman: Salomon from Altona (a brother of David Berlin who left in April 1808), who was around 14 or 15 years old; Hirsch from Hamburg, who was the same age and in 1805 was sent home because of illness; Jakob Frensdorf from Hannover, born in August 1792, who was in the bet midrash from 1802 until May 1805.—There were no school rules, no guidelines and hardly any pedagogy. Friday afternoons we picked over the beans and peas; in our games and scuffles we were left to ourselves.