The Vilna Rabbinical School and Teachers' Seminary was a controversial Russian

Russian Empire

The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...

 state-sponsored institution to train Jewish teachers and rabbis, located in Vilna

Vilnius

Vilnius is the capital of Lithuania, and its largest city, with a population of 560,190 as of 2010. It is the seat of the Vilnius city municipality and of the Vilnius district municipality. It is also the capital of Vilnius County...

, Russia

Russian Empire

The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...

. The school opened in 1847 with two divisions: a rabbinical school and a teachers' seminary. The Rabbinical School was closed in 1873 and the Teachers' Seminary closed in 1914. The school taught secular studies, unlike the traditional cheder

Cheder

A Cheder is a traditional elementary school teaching the basics of Judaism and the Hebrew language.-History:...

s and yeshiva

Yeshiva

Yeshiva is a Jewish educational institution that focuses on the study of traditional religious texts, primarily the Talmud and Torah study. Study is usually done through daily shiurim and in study pairs called chavrutas...

s. This new curriculum, as well as the government control, made the school "unpopular."

Curriculum

The school taught German language

German language

German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....

, Hebrew language

Hebrew language

Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...

, Hebrew Bible

Hebrew Bible

The Hebrew Bible is a term used by biblical scholars outside of Judaism to refer to the Tanakh , a canonical collection of Jewish texts, and the common textual antecedent of the several canonical editions of the Christian Old Testament...

, Talmud

Talmud

The Talmud is a central text of mainstream Judaism. It takes the form of a record of rabbinic discussions pertaining to Jewish law, ethics, philosophy, customs and history....

, algebra

Algebra

Algebra is the branch of mathematics concerning the study of the rules of operations and relations, and the constructions and concepts arising from them, including terms, polynomials, equations and algebraic structures...

, geometry

Geometry

Geometry arose as the field of knowledge dealing with spatial relationships. Geometry was one of the two fields of pre-modern mathematics, the other being the study of numbers ....

, trigonometry

Trigonometry

Trigonometry is a branch of mathematics that studies triangles and the relationships between their sides and the angles between these sides. Trigonometry defines the trigonometric functions, which describe those relationships and have applicability to cyclical phenomena, such as waves...

, physics

Physics

Physics is a natural science that involves the study of matter and its motion through spacetime, along with related concepts such as energy and force. More broadly, it is the general analysis of nature, conducted in order to understand how the universe behaves.Physics is one of the oldest academic...

, astronomy

Astronomy

Astronomy is a natural science that deals with the study of celestial objects and phenomena that originate outside the atmosphere of Earth...

, world history, Russian history, Russian language, geography, and handwriting and drawing.

History

Rabbi Yisroel Salanter, a major figure of the Mussar movement

Mussar movement

The Musar movement is a Jewish ethical, educational and cultural movement that developed in 19th century Eastern Europe, particularly among Orthodox Lithuanian Jews. The Hebrew term Musar , is from the book of Proverbs 1:2 meaning instruction, discipline, or conduct...

 who then lived in Vilna, was pressured to lead the seminary. Rather than accept the position, Salanter fled to Kovno, even though Rabbi Yitzchok Volozhiner encouraged him to take the position.

In 1872, a secret Narodnik

Narodnik

Narodniks was the name for Russian socially conscious members of the middle class in the 1860s and 1870s. Their ideas and actions were known as Narodnichestvo which can be translated as "Peopleism", though is more commonly rendered "populism"...

 study group was formed by Aron Sundelvitch. Vladimir Jochelson

Vladimir Jochelson

Vladimir Ilyich Jochelson was a Russian ethnographer and researcher of the indigenous peoples of the Russian North.- Biography :...

 was a member of this group.

Notable faculty

• Leibele Antokolier (a.k.a. Arieh-Leib b. Akiba Luria, "The Keidan Genius")

• Shmuel Yosef Feunn (author, maskil, and educator)

• Aaron Samuel Liebermann

• Solomon Salkind (1806 – March 14, 1868), author of Shirim li-Shelomoh, Kol Shelomoh, and Shema Shelomoh.