But synagogue can also means a place for religious study. In some Islamic cultures even today (e.g. Afghanistan under Taliban rule), a "school" is synonymous wi

But synagogue can also means a place for religious study. In some Islamic cultures even today (e.g. Afghanistan under Taliban rule), a "school" is synonymous with a place for religious study--learning to read & write and even basic arithmetic is incident to the purpose of studying religious texts. Couldn't this have also been true of many Jewish communities in Eastern Europe? That is, "school" simply referencing religious study activities at the local synagogue, such that going to school quite literally implied going to the synagogue? After all, in the West schools for children as we understand them today are relatively modern inventions--not just the details (e.g. the Prussian system), but the whole notion generally. Christians historically didn't emphasize literacy as strongly as Judaism and Islam.[1] In general it was something acquired at home, and when and where schools were eventually organized they naturally had a more secular character, notwithstanding they were usually administered by clergy. Few Christians would ever conflate "church" and "school"--neither place nor function--but in some other communities (contemporary and especially historically) such distinctions are rather subtle if not empty. [1] AFAIU, Islam always emphasized literacy as a component of religious practice. But for the first several hundred years still maintained a distinction between secular and non-secular scholarship that we would recognize today. Then a sect of Islam erasing that distinction became predominate, achieving in Islam what many Christian sects have heretofore failed to achieve despite unrelenting efforts over the millennia. (Absolutely nothing new about the religious right trying to "put god back into the classroom". It's just that Christianity as a whole, especially Western Christianity, has been an outlier in maintaining a persistent theological and practical distinction.)