Another odd ‘jewish invention’ myth that has been claimed is the idea that jews ‘invented compulsory education’ with Debbie Lechtman writing that:
‘COMPULSORY EDUCATION
Jews were the first to come up with the concept of public and compulsory education. In 64 CE, Rabbi Yehoshua Ben Gamla decreed that all Jewish children, age six and up, should attend school, whether their parents could afford to pay for their studies or not. The Jewish community was receptive to the idea and began establishing subsidized or public schools for their children.
According to educational philanthropist George Hanus: “[This] is the first instance in recorded history of a people instituting compulsory universal education funded by the larger community…Many scholars believe Gamla’s model was the inspiration for free public education systems in the contemporary West, including the United States.”
A little over a hundred years earlier, in 75 BCE, Simeon ben Shetah argued that education should be compulsory. The Torah itself emphasizes the importance of parents educating their children.
The Talmud states that children should begin their formal education at age six and that their education should override all other tasks and responsibilities.
Literacy among the ancient Israelites was shockingly high, around 15-20 percent. Though that sounds low by today’s standards, in the ancient world, such a percentage was astronomical.’ (1)
This is as fine as far as it goes as Ben Gamla did indeed rule that all jewish boys – not girls though mind you – should receive a compulsory education so they could read and understand the Written Torah in circa 64 A.D.; (2) he was – and thus the jews were – not the first to have such a system with the Spartan system of compulsory education – which we know the jews knew of – (3) of the Agoge being created at the earliest between 700 B.C. to 1000 B.C. by the Laws of Lycurgus. (4)
Further there is some indication that the Laws of Solon (between 500 B.C. to 600 B.C.) also involved compulsory education specifically in the form mentioned by Plato of reading and swimming, which differed from Sparta’s compulsory education but never-the-less would be a similar compulsory education system to that advocated by Ben Gamla in 64 A.D.
It is also worth pointing out that the Spartan system of the Agoge was probably far closer to what we’d think of as a compulsory education today and was not only in theory compulsory – which is Ben Gamla’s system and which clearly was only universal in theory since (as even Lechtman admits) only 15-20% of jews were literate in the years after it was enforced – (5) but rather known to be compulsory and this was directly enforced by the Spartan state. (6)
So no jews most certainly did not invent the first system of compulsory education.
References
(1) https://www.rootsmetals.com/blogs/news/israelite-jewish-inventions-during-ancient-times
(2) https://voices.sefaria.org/sheets/246260?lang=bi
(3) On Spartan-jewish relations see my article: https://karlradl14.substack.com/p/classical-sparta-and-the-jews
(4) https://www.britannica.com/topic/Lycurgus-Spartan-lawgiver
(5) https://www.rootsmetals.com/blogs/news/israelite-jewish-inventions-during-ancient-times
(6) On this see Douglas MacDowell, 1986, ‘Spartan Law’, 1st Edition, Scottish Academic Press: Edinburgh, pp. 42-46
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