Colonial education and class formation in early Judaism: a postcolonial reading

Abstract

The colonizers invaded the peoples and nations not only politically and economically but also culturally and emotionally. The tools of this invasion and the continuing domination over the colonized were not only militaristic and economic; they also included the developing of a stratified class structure, in which the colonized were judged in terms of their degrees of usefulness to the empire. Throughout the history of colonization, colonizers used education as one of the major devices to propagate their cultural values, ethos, and lifestyle among the colonized. The primary aim of the colonial education program was to create a separate class of people who were not only meek and suppliant in its attitude towards the colonizers, but also felt a degree of loathing for its fellow citizens. This class was formed mainly to establish an effective imperial administration and channel of communication between the colonizers and the millions those whom they governed.^Taking the colonial education system as one of the major analytical categories, this dissertation makes an inquiry into how colonialism functioned and continues to function in both the ancient and the modern world.By analyzing the role of the Greek gymnasium in Jerusalem, as mentioned in the books of Maccabees, from a postcolonial perspective, this study establishes a constitutive relationship between the colonial education and the formation of a hierarchical class structure among the colonized. More concretely, this study attends to the transition from the traditional Jewish educational system to the establishment of Greek gymnasium.^On the basis of the study of several texts--Ben Sira, the Dead Sea Scrolls, Philo, Josephus, and early rabbinic literature--the investigation seeks to determine how the institution of the gymnasium was used to educate the elites and enable Greek citizens, Hellenes, and Hellenistic Jews to function politically, ethnically, and economically within the larger Greek empire and particularly in Judea, by creating a separate class of the "Hellenized Jews" among the Jewish population.The dissertation reveals the continuity of the role of the colonial education system in the formation of a class structure among the colonized by exploring a similar historical incident from the modern period, the British colonial era in India and demonstrates how the British education introduced into colonial India in the early nineteenth century played a similar role in creating a distinct class of the "Brown Englishmen" among the Indians.^The present study not only examines similarities and differences between the Hellenistic education program in Israel and the British colonial education system in India, but it also demonstrates how postcolonial historiography provides insight into the policies of cultural infusion adopted by Hellenistic empires. In particular, the study of the expansion of Greek education in Hellenistic empires offers valuable insight into the cultural and political role of colonial education in modern forms of colonialism.