Markus Reich

He was determined to “make complete, worthy, happy people of the deaf.” While attending the Royal Institution of the Deaf he noticed that Jewish children were denied admission into the school.

That drove him to establish a Jewish institution for Deaf children along with his inspiration that came from two religious sources.

The first was from the Chief Rabbi of London Nathan Marcus Adler’s 1864 tract "The Morning and the Evening Sacrifice" which said, “special admonition to support the deaf within the Jewish community” that he based on Isaiah 29:18: “Is it not a duty that falls to all of us to take up these children and to protect them on behalf of God, to educate them so that, as the prophet tells us, everyday the deaf may hear the word of the book.” The second inspiration came from a passage from the Talmud: “Only the ignorant are truly poor.” So in 1873 he made his plan a reality and founded the Israelite Institution for the Deaf of Germany in a small house in Fürstenwalde an der Spree.

Unusually for the time, the Israelite Institution for the Deaf of Germany did not discourage the use of sign language.

Most Deaf institutions during this period used harsh tactics to promote speech, with the ultimate goal of enabling students to assimilate into mainstream society.

[1] During a financial crisis in 1884, Reich formed a support group for his institution called “Friends of the Deaf” (Jedide Ilmin), which included rich Jewish members of the community who came together to provide funding.

(pg 132) With the school expanding in both students and teachers he decided to remodel the institution in 1911, but he didn't live to see it completed later that year.

After his death, a teacher from the school wrote, “Reich had wholeheartedly entered the world and the being of the deaf.

The Israelite Institution for the Deaf of Germany, otherwise known as the Israelitische Taubstummenanstalt für Deutschland was founded in 1873.

Markus had been inspired to create this school with the mission to “preserve and plant in the hearts of the Jewish deaf the religion of their forefathers.” (pg.

Through the organization, Reich rallied rich members of the community to provide funding to the school.