Tarbut

TARBUT (Heb. "culture"), Hebrew educational and cultural organization maintaining schools in most Eastern European countries between the two world wars. Especially active in Poland, it maintained there 183 elementary and nine secondary schools, 72 kindergartens, four teachers' seminaries, an agricultural school, and four evening schools (1934–35), and published periodicals, curricula, and textbooks. Instruction was given in Hebrew, and biblical and modern Hebrew literature, and the education was Zionist oriented, promoting pioneer settlement in Ereẓ Israel. Tarbut started activities in Russia, particularly after the February 1917 Revolution, but was soon proscribed, with all Hebrew activity, by the Soviet authorities.