Rieger, Eliezer
RIEGER, ELIEZER
RIEGER, ELIEZER (1896–1954), Hebrew educationalist. Born in Gribov, Galicia, Rieger settled in Palestine in 1920. He made notable contributions to methods of instruction in Hebrew, Jewish history, and modern Arabic in Ereẓ Israel and pioneered in the teaching of civics and the social sciences. He was supervisor of Jewish secondary schools in Palestine (1937–38) and professor of education at the Hebrew University (1939–50). He compiled the first Hebrew frequency word list (1935), which served as a basic guide for educators in Israel and the Diaspora. His textbooks on modern Jewish history were widely used, and he wrote comprehensive surveys on Jewish education in Palestine (1940 and 1945). Rieger was among the founders of the Hebrew University's teacher training department and its secondary school. He was one of the chief opponents of the "trend" school system (see Israel, State of: *Education), and as director general of the Ministry of Education and Culture (1951–54) was in charge of its replacement by a system of state education.
[Alexander M. Dushkin]