Schools

Because Odessa was such a modern and liberal city, there was an exceptionally strong secular ethic among its Jews. Nevertheless, the city contained many of the religious schools common to every other large Jewish community, including a famous yeshiva headed by Rabbi Chaim Tchernowitz, where scholars such as the great Hebrew poet Chaim Nachman Bialik both studied and taught. At the beginning of the 20th century, there were about 200-khedorim left in Odessa, serving 5,000 mostly impoverished pupils.

In Odessa, the movement to assimilate into national Russian culture (though Jews were often denied the opportunity to assimilate into the local Russian culture) was particularly strong. Secular or nominally religious schools, whether Russian, Hebrew, or Yiddish, were quite attractive to the majority of Jews, even early in the community's history. In 1826, a secular public school was established to instruct young Jews in a combination of religious and modern methods, with considerably more emphasis on the latter. Subjects included Talmud, Hebrew, Russian, French, German, mathematics, science, and rhetoric. Ten years later a similar school was founded for girls, with the addition of needlework. Steadily increasing numbers of Jewish students enrolled in Russian schools of all varieties. Secular colleges teaching agriculture, arts, music, and liberal professions were also popular, as were vocational schools, most notably the well-known school of the Trud Society, which offered courses in mechanics, cabinet-making, and ironwork among other subjects