Abstract
During the last two centuries there has been a methodological struggle over teaching the deaf. Do deaf people learn to communicate by means of gestures and signs (the “manual method”) or is it important for them to learn speech and lip-reading (the “oral method”)? In the second half of the nineteenth century, many schools for the deaf made the transition from the manual to the oral method, which the Milan conference of teachers of the deaf decided to promote in 1880. In this conversion, Jews played an important role. Yet there appears to be a clear link between their efforts and Jewish tradition, including its perception of the deaf.
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The authors wish to thank Corrie Tijsseling and Henk Betten, both researchers of Dutch Education of the Deaf, for their helpful comments.
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Open Access This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0), which permits any noncommercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and source are credited.
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Rietveld-van Wingerden, M., Westerman, W. “Hear, Israel” The involvement of Jews in education of the deaf (1850–1880). Jew History 23, 41–56 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10835-008-9070-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10835-008-9070-y