In the course of the tolerance legislation, elementary schools for Jewish children in the Habsburg Empire were established from 1782. In Galicia, these schools were under the supervision of the Jewish enlightener Herz Homberg (17491841), a pupil of Moses Mendelssohn, from 1787 until they were closed in 1806. In a short period of time, this set up a network of over 100 schools in which Jewish children learned the German language. On the one hand, Dirk Sadowski examines how educational concepts of the Jewish Enlightenment (Haskala) were put into practice here. On the other hand, he takes a look at the reality of schools and describes how the Jewish population and their elites - rabbis and community leaders - defended themselves against the repressive and traditional-endangering moments associated with schools.