Louis Abrahams
| Louis Barnett Abrahams | |
|---|---|
Portrait of Louis Barnett Abrahams by Solomon J. Solomon, 1908
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| Born |
3 October 1839 Swansea |
| Died | 3 June 1918 (aged 78) Hove |
| Nationality | English Jewish |
| Occupation | Educator |
| Years active | 1869–1907 |
| Known for | Headmaster of the Jews' Free School in London |
| Notable work | A Translation of the Prayer-Book for School Use (1908) |
Louis Barnett Abrahams (3 October 1839–3 June 1918) was a Welsh-born, English Jewish educator, the headmaster of the Jews' Free School in London.
Abrahams was prominent, and articles about him appeared regularly in mainstream British Jewish publications in his lifetime, including The Jewish Chronicle, The Jewish Encyclopedia, the Jewish Yearbook (UK - 1899), and the Young Israel (December 1899).
Abrahams began his studies at the Manchester Hebrew School, but left there to go to London, where he lived with his uncle, Rabbi Aaron Levy, a sofer and dayan (judge) on the London Beth Din. He became a student-teacher at the Jews' Free School on 1 June 1854, and then entered the University of London, completing a bachelor's of arts degree in 1863.
He became a teacher at the Jews' Free School, and became head of the English department in 1864. While continuing to teach there, he also studied at John Curwen's Tonic Sol-Fa College, graduating in 1874 and adding music to the subjects he taught at the Jews' Free School. He became a school administrator in 1884 and headmaster in 1897, succeeding Moses Angel.
As Moses Angel did before him, Abrahams disliked the Yiddish spoken by Jews newly arrived to England in a wave of immigration from Russia. In a 1905 speech at a prize-giving ceremony, he called Yiddish "that miserable jargon which was not a language at all". Instead, he favored immersion in English as a way of quickly assimilating Yiddish-speaking students. Along with the introduction of music to the curriculum, he founded a cadet corps at the school, built a gymnasium, and organized sporting activities for the students. He also moved the school away from purely theoretical studies and towards technical and vocational training, by opening new physics and chemistry laboratories and woodworking and metalworking shops. Under his leadership the school became "the largest public elementary school in the world". He retired from the school in 1907.
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