Education for Girls

My grandchildren, who have grown up in a secular environment in Israel, find it odd that I, their (hopefully) broad-minded grandmother, should have gone to a secondary school for girls. In Israel it is only those segments of the population which adhere to ancient tenets of gender identification that maintain gender-segregated schools for their offspring. In England, where I grew up, the situation was similar but the ideas behind it were different.

Those were different times when I began attending school, back in the 1940s and 1950s. England was recovering from the war and struggling to maintain its place in the world. To my generation of children it seemed the most natural thing in the world to take the eleven-plus exam and be sent according to one’s result to either a grammar school or a secondary-modern (comprehensive) school. Naturally, the aspiration of my refugee parents was that I should be accepted by one of the grammar schools, and that was what indeed happened. I passed the exam and was given a place at a nearby grammar school for girls, the Brondesbury and Kilhurn High School. Secondary-modern schools were mostly co-educational and were considered inferior.

Secondary education for girls had not been widely available for as long as it had been for boys. Even in secular England, for hundreds of years education had been considered suitable only for boys. If a girl could read and write that was fine, but more important was her ability to maintain a home, sew, cook, embroider and fulfil the requirements of the male-dominated society. That was the way society was run, and there were no religious associations involved, to the best of my knowledge.

After all, women were considered inferior intellectually and were not given the vote until 1918 in England, with most European countries following suit soon afterwards. Early in the twentieth century exceptional Englishwomen such as Henrietta Barnett and Philippa Fawcett campaigned for secondary education to be extended to girls, organized financial and moral support and established the first high schools for girls in London and elsewhere. They may have been influenced by the system prevailing in the USA, but they were certainly pioneers in the context of Britain.

Since Israel’s foundation – and even beforehand — the concept of segregation of the sexes was rejected, and most of the country’s institutions, including schools, were based on the principle of gender equality. Thus, the age-cohort that parallels mine took it quite for granted that secondary education should be co-educational. After all, the basic principle underlying society as a whole was that of equality, and only the educational institutions allied with the orthodox Jewish population maintained separation of the sexes. In the 1960s the British education system was radically overhauled, and many of the single-sex secondary schools were dissolved or converted into mixed-gender schools

The question remains whether either of the two systems yields better academic results and psychological benefits. Studies have shown that girls tend to perform better academically in single-sex schools, though it’s not clear what effect co-education has on boys.

Teenage years are difficult enough at the best of times, but it seems to me that restricting youngsters to an environment that bears no correspondence with general society deprives them of the ability to learn to cope with real life. So probably the sooner youngsters learn that the world consists of both boys and girls the healthier it is for all concerned.

‘The Kukotsky Enigma’ by Ludmilla Ulitskaya

In the grand tradition of Russian literature, this book (which has been translated from the Russian by Diane Nemec Ignashev) describes what befalls several generations of a Russian family under the shadow of political events and the sweep of history. It shows the ominousness of towering developments, the minutiae of daily life at different social levels, and the sll-pervading magnificence of the Russian soul.

Pavel Alekseevich Kukotsky is a talented physician, the scion of a long line of physicians, whose ancestors had come from Germany to settle in Peter the Great’s Russia. The period of the First World War and the Bolshevik Revolution, caused massive disruption to Russian society. Pavel was already a medical student when his father was killed while serving as a physician in the Russian army.

Pavel’s medical career as a specialist in obstetrics and gynaecology leads to his professional concern with treating women suffering from the after-effects of illegal abortions, his determination to legalise this procedure, and his marriage to Elena, one of his patients. Elena comes together with her two-year-old daughter, Tanya (Tanechka), and her devoted family servant, Vasilisa. These four individuals form the basic family unit, albeit united more by association than by blood, on which the entire narrative rests. Various friends, professional associates, neighbours and colleagues also people the pages of the book, and it is through their connections with one another, the vicissitudes of their lives, and the tides of political developments, that we see how events that occur on a larger stage affect the lives of individuals. Throughout the narrative the perils as well as the benefits of pregnancy and childbirth are in evidence.

Pavel Alekseevich is made vaguely aware of Stalin’s intention to discredit and murder Russia’s Jewish doctors and, as the reader may know, because of Stalin’s sudden demise this plan did not come to fruition. Through the characters in the book we are able to experience the general upheaval caused by Stalin’s death and the confusion surrounding the subsequent lying-in-state and funeral. However, life in Moscow for Kukotsky, an esteemed physician, is not disrupted, and the family is even granted a dacha where they can spend summers.

The book contains a middle section which deviates from the narrative flow, and seems to describe some philosophical-transcendental-symbolic process of birth-life-death. Among the figures encountered in this strange, surreal landscape is one known as ‘the Judean,’ which I take to symbolize the eternal Jew. The other figures are equally symbolic and confusing. I must say that I found this part extremely tedious and annoying, even pretentious, and after reading several pages I did something I very rarely do – I skipped it.

Subsequently, the book resumes its chronological course, introducing the reader to a wide range of interesting characters, among them a Jewish intellectual, a colleague of Pavel Kukotsky, whose theorizing about Russian society and its ethnological development gets him into trouble with the authorities, and he is sent yet again to Siberia for a period of exile. His twin sons also play a role in the life of the Kukotsky family, and of Tanya is particular, as does a whole gallery of strange and interesting characters, who wander in and out of the narrative.

The author is evidently familiar with the scientific subjects she describes, and reading the book constitutes an induction of a kind into a wide range of medical terminology and processes. The writing (and the translation) is dense and rich, and apart from one or two typos and malapropisms it reads well. When I finished the book I felt that I had been given a better idea of what it must have been like to live through that period of immense change and turmoil in Russia, and to come through it, if not unscathed, then at least still living, breathing, and kicking.

Mismanagement

As Israel rolls inexorably towards its third lockdown (or whatever you want to call it), one cannot help feeling more than slightly peeved (British euphemism for bloody angry) as to how and why we have got to this point.

I personally have rarely left my house for the past nine months, and if I do I always wear a mask over my mouth and nose while trying to stay as far away as possible from other people. My hands are sore from constant washing. It’s true that various relatives have occasionally entered the house, but in most cases we have managed to keep our distance from one another, and we never hug and kiss one another. I fear that I have become an anti-social monster, and may never be able to engage in natural social interaction again.

It would seem, however, that despite constant reminders and prodding by so-called leaders to maintain those few basic rules, the general public is unable or unwilling to abide by them. The evening news on television shows scenes of crowds at Ben-Gurion airport boarding flights to Dubai or Abu Dabi (what for, for God’s sake?), as well as at ultra-orthodox weddings and funerals, and at celebrations in Arab villages. All the passengers on a recent flight that returned from Dubai had to go into quarantine because several of them were found to be infected with Coronavirus. Among those passengers were the head of Hadassah Hospital and several senior civil servants. How ironic. One or another of our political leaders, including our Prime Minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, are either getting infected or constantly having to go into quarantine because they have been in contact with infected persons. There seem to be a lot of them around in our ruling circles.

Binyamin Netanyahu doesn’t miss an opportunity to appear on prime time television to vaunt another of the diplomatic achievements for which he claims sole responsibility (together with his arch-ally Donald Trump), or the arrival in Israel of the first batch of anti-Coronavirus vaccines which, too, he claims as his personal success. But where is his leadership when it comes to restricting the increasing rate of infection that threatens to bring the country down economically, not to mention psychologically and socially?

Last night the CEO of a retail chain made a hearfelt and heart-rending appeal on television for shops and shopping malls to remain open in the approaching lockdown. He made the perfectly valid point that while they are not the principal source of the spread of infection, they are the most hard-hit when all or most retail trade is banned during a lockdown. Entry to shopping malls and shops is controlled and supervised, and guards ensure that orderly queues form outside stores when the limit on the number of customers inside has been reached. The sight of crowds of people at the airport and elsewhere give his argument added weight.

It is no consolation to see that lockdowns have been imposed in other countries just as their festive season begins. Israel’s government has had every opportunity to restrict or at least monitor the situation, and instead of doing so seems to be encouraging people to travel to the UAE, where the infection rate is not under control, wringing its hands and protesting that it is powerless to control the situation among the Arabs and the ultra-orthodox Jews.

That being the case, what right does it have to impose restrictions on the entire population and make us all pay for the crimes and misdemeanours of the selfish few?

‘Heretics and Heroes; How Renaissance Artists and Reformation Priests Created Our World’ by Thomas Cahill

Although I studied a fair amount of history at school in England, and remember the concepts of Renaissance, Reformation and Counter-Reformation, they seem to have been lost in the mists of time, so when this book appeared on the list of Bibliophilebooks that I receive from time to time I seized the opportunity to refresh my memory of the subject.

Thomas Cahill has written a series of books entitled ‘The Hinges of History,’ dealing with the history of the human race, starting – amazingly enough – with ‘How the Irish Saved Civilization.’ The first of three volumes about ‘The Making of the Ancient World,’ is ‘The Gifts of the Jews,’ and describes ‘how a tribe of desert nomads changed the way everyone thinks and feels,’ while the two other volumes discuss the world before and after Jesus (‘Desire of the Everlasting Hills’) and the importance of the Greeks (‘Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea’). Another volume, ‘Mysteries of the Middle Ages,’ discusses ‘the rise of feminism, science, and art from the cults of Catholic Europe,’ culminating in the current volume, though another volume on ‘The Making of the Modern World,’ is planned.

So we can assume that the author takes an expansive view of history and – hopefully – knows what he’s talking about. He certainly displays a broad canvas in this volume, starting with what he whimsically calls a ‘philosophical tennis match’ between Plato and Aristotle or, more specifically, their different philosophical approaches.

Cahill chooses as the starting point for his exploration of the Renaissance the events that took place in 1282 in a church in Palermo and became known as the Sicilian Vespers. During the service the Italians revolted against their French overlords, with much bloodshed ensuing. The force behind the French control of Italian lands was the Pope and the concept of the Holy Roman Empire, with various European powers vying for hegemony in the region.

The importance of the invention of printing is noted, as is the seminal role played by Christopher Columbus, and his voyage of discovery. These and other events are discussed with humor and insight into the character of the individuals involved and the spirit of the time. Cahill writes with verve about the figures of Luther and other religious reformers, as well as analysing the work of numerous painters and sculptors, providing many color illustrations in doing so.

The complicated history of Europe’s interconnected royal houses, with their internecine vying for power and supremacy, overshadows the course of events throughout the region, eventually leading to the flowering of art, music and literature in what came to be known as the Renaissance, namely, the rebirth of culture inspired by the former glory of Ancient Greece. The rivalry between the Italian city-states, as well as between them and France, led, albeit indirectly, to the patronage extended by the flamboyant figure of Lorenzo de Medici, also known as Lorenzo the Magnificent, to Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo in Florence, as well as to the commissioning of Michelangelo by Pope Sixtus to paint the Sistine Chapel in Rome, as well as many other rulers’ patronage of the artists of the day.

Even in distant England the Renaissance made its mark, and both Henry the Eighth and his daughter Elizabeth were instrumental in inter alia stimulating the flowering of the arts, drama and literature there. Although their reigns and those of Elizabeth’s Tudor siblings were riven by clashes over whether Catholicism or Protestantism should be preeminent, the arts continued to flourish. All this took place despite these conflicts, the Black Death, the Great Fire of London, the dissolution of the monasteries, and sundry other shocks and disasters that beset the realm.

Throughout the Middle Ages and subsequently, Europe was fraught by conflicts between states, some of them the result of longstanding rivalries, some even going back to the Crusades, and others being disputes over territory, religion, or supremacy. Thus, the Hundred Years War between England and France raged between 1337 and 1453. Similarly, the Thirty Years War was waged in central Europe between 1618 and 1648, mainly between rival dynasties seeking preeminence over the German lands. Other conflicts were fought between sundry Italian city-states, in Spain over the succession to the throne, etc., and in some of them the Pope was involved, either actively or behind the scenes. Some of the conflicts of religion in Mediaeval Europe were eventually resolved by the acceptance of the edict that each ruler should determine the religion of his subjects, ‘cuius regio eius religio.’ But conflict and war characterized Europe until the period of wretched reflection that followed WWII.

The book ends with a curious ‘Postlude,’ in which the author focuses on three figures he regards as giving hope to our modern world. One of these is Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German cleric who preached love and was hanged by the Nazis. Another was Pope John XXIII, whose biography Cahill has written. And the third was an obscure American Christian woman, Muriel Moore.

This ending of the book is disquieting. It puts the writer in an uncomfortable light, and calls into question the veracity of everything he has written. This is a man with a hidden agenda, so that it is difficult to take anything he writes at face value. What a pity.

Children who were Saved

To mark the anniversary of the Kindertransport project, in which Britain agreed to accept ten thousand unaccompanied refugee children, the vast majority of whom were Jewish, from Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia in 1938 and 1939, the AJR (Association of Jewish Refugees) held a special zoom meeting. This was hosted by British celebrity Dame Esther Rantzen and one of the main speakers was Sir David Attenborough, whose family had hosted two girls from Germany.

Over seven hundred people participated in the zoom meeting, though on my screen I saw only twenty-five. The focus of the event was the role played by host families who took in children they had never met and gave them a home in the UK. Sir David Attenborough spoke affectionately about the two girls, Irena and Helga, who were taken in by his parents, and the way he and his two brothers suddenly acquired two teenage sisters. Neither of the girls could speak English and the Attenboroughs did not speak German, but they all seem to have quickly overcome the language barrier. The families have remained in touch to this day.

A particularly touching moment was when Sir David recollected the moment when his mother turned to the girls and said ‘Now we are one family’ after Chamberlain had announced over the radio that England was now at war with Germany.

Another speaker was taken in by the family of former British Prime Minister, Clement Attlee, and spoke affectionately about them, too, though he was less enamoured of their habit of taking cold baths.

There are myriad stories of sad partings from parents, the experience of travelling alone on a train across Europe, the voyage by sea to England and then another train journey ending at Liverpool Street station in London. Today a beautifully-crafted statue, depicting children standing in a small, desolate group, stands just outside the station to commemorate the rescue, Each child had a label with his or her name, and the host families, who had also posted a guarantee of fifty pounds for each child, were at the station to collect ‘their’ child.

In some cases there was no one to collect a child, and it was incumbent on the various welfare organisations to arrange for their placement. The whole project was organized by Jewish and Quaker welfare organisations, with the cooperation of the British government. This display of British kindness, decency and generosity of spirit should never be forgotten.

My parents, who were refugees themselves, just slightly older than the children who came in the Kindertransport framework, were appointed house-parents at a hostel for these children in London, and remained in touch with many of them throughout their lives. The photo at the top of this post shows the children who were accommodated at the Sunshine Hostel which was run by my parents. I am the baby on the lap of one of the girls in the first row.