Translator’s Note

IN 1933 the Central Secretariat of Bnos Agudath Israel in Poland issued Sarah Schenirer’s Collected Writings, after advertising the upcoming publication in the pages of the Bais Yaakov Journal. The book included many articles that had previously appeared in the journal or elsewhere in Bais Yaakov publications; among them were reflections on Jewish themes, reports on events important to the world of Bais Yaakov and Bnos, and ethical instructions to young pupils. But it also included previously unpublished writings, including a brief but fascinating memoir that shed light on Sarah Schenirer’s childhood and on the beginnings of the Bais Yaakov movement. As a frontispiece, the book included a drawing of Sarah Schenirer, one which circulated widely in the movement in the absence of a photograph (it was well known that she refused to have her photograph taken). Advertisements for the upcoming volume sometimes provided a table of contents, which promised that it would include excerpts from Schenirer’s diary. In fact, those excerpts did not appear in the published work, although a few entries—whether the ones originally intended for publication or others is not clear—did appear in the 1950s in Hebrew translation. For more on this diary, see Appendix A....

‘Bais Yaakov, Let Us Walk in the Light of the Lord’

This chapter details the phenomenology of the Bais Yaakov movement during the Holocaust and after. The experiment that was Bais Yaakov was still expanding at a rapid rate and had hardly had a chance to come into its own when it fell victim to the destruction of European Jewry. Despite the disbanding of Bais Yaakov schools with the outbreak of the Second World War, numerous memoirs and histories of the movement attest to its continued clandestine activity during the war years. The networks forged in the interwar movement aided in the rapid re-emergence of Bais Yaakov schools and Bnos groups in the immediate aftermath of the war. Bais Yaakov established itself more permanently after the Holocaust in the centres of Orthodox life throughout the world, particularly in North America and Israel. Bais Yaakov schools had already been founded in both countries during the interwar period, and the Beth Jacob High School established in 1938 by Sarah Schenirer's student Vichna Kaplan operated under the authority of the Central Office in Europe.

‘A New Thing that Our Ancestors Never Imagined’

This chapter examines the first few years of Sarah Schenirer's enterprise, a story one has access to almost solely through her own writings and the legends that surround Bais Yaakov's origins. Schenirer's revolution not only expanded the educational options for Orthodox girls, it also created a cohort of educated, mobile, committed, and independent Orthodox young women, giving them unprecedented opportunities to combine religious commitment and socio-economic freedom. These seminarians and young faculty at the Kraków seminary were her closest associates, her travelling companions on her many trips around Poland, and the ones who welcomed her on her return from every journey. Ultimately, Schenirer's account of her great programme to save Jewish girls through inspiring lectures, a library, and a youth movement sheds light on some of the ways that Bais Yaakov culture developed. Her descriptions of the beginnings of Bais Yaakov also provide insight into how she viewed the school she founded after her other projects had failed.

A Letter from the Hafets Hayim The Holy Sage, Rabbi of All Children of Exile, May His Saintly Memory Be for a Blessing

TO THE HONOURED LEADERS and those who cherish the Torah, those who tremble at the word of God who are in the town of Fristik, may God bless them and protect them.12 I have heard that God-fearing people, respectful of the word of God, have volunteered to found a Bais Yaakov school in this city for the study of Torah, the fear of God and the way of the land,...

‘Building Bais Yaakov’

This chapter analyses the crucial transition of the movement from its charismatic beginnings to the institutionalization of Bais Yaakov. Bais Yaakov has frequently been called a revolution in Jewish education. The chapter proposes that Bais Yaakov was a particular kind of revolution: a charismatic social movement that followed the trajectory that is inevitable for such movements if they are not to fail, from charisma to institutionalization and routinization. It focuses particularly on the year 1925, which marked the shift from a movement still under the sway of its founder, Sarah Schenirer, to one dominated by its Central Offices and the larger organizational framework of Agudath Israel, the political organization of Orthodox Jews. This shift was accompanied by a burst of literary creativity centred on the Bais Yaakov Journal.

Pages from My Life

This chapter sheds light on Sarah Schenirer's childhood and on the beginnings of the Bais Yaakov movement. At first, Schenirer was not entirely happy with her newly founded Orthodox Girls' Union. Its activities were impressive enough, and the members listened to her lectures with enthusiasm and took an interest in the ideas she expressed. However, the girls still could not bring themselves to submit to the commandments of Jewish law and fulfil the obligations of Torah. This is because most of them were young women already, and it was not easy to persuade them to take on a new, truly Jewish life, with all its customs and traditions. Thus, Schenirer decided to start schools for young girls, truly Jewish schools, where the educational spirit would be in accordance with the perspectives of Israel of old.

Introduction to the 1955 Edition

This chapter details the phenomenology of the Bais Yaakov movement during the Holocaust and after. The experiment that was Bais Yaakov was still expanding at a rapid rate and had hardly had a chance to come into its own when it fell victim to the destruction of European Jewry. Despite the disbanding of Bais Yaakov schools with the outbreak of the Second World War, numerous memoirs and histories of the movement attest to its continued clandestine activity during the war years. The networks forged in the interwar movement aided in the rapid re-emergence of Bais Yaakov schools and Bnos groups in the immediate aftermath of the war. Bais Yaakov established itself more permanently after the Holocaust in the centres of Orthodox life throughout the world, particularly in North America and Israel. Bais Yaakov schools had already been founded in both countries during the interwar period, and the Beth Jacob High School established in 1938 by Sarah Schenirer's student Vichna Kaplan operated under the authority of the Central Office in Europe.

‘So Shall You Say to the House of Jacob’

This chapter investigates how Bais Yaakov was able to forge an Orthodox discourse designed to attract young women, producing a long-running journal that featured a wide variety of articles of Jewish and general literary interest as well as other books and publications for a female readership. This enterprise began in 1923, when the young Po'alei Agudah (Agudah Workers' Organization) activist and writer Eliezer Gershon Friedenson decided to support Bais Yaakov by publishing a periodical with that name. The first issue of the Bais Yaakov Journal set the basic template, serving as the movement's primary mouthpiece by spreading word of its sacred mission and its remarkable accomplishments. A secondary goal was to bolster support for the Agudah among girls and women; the paper later endorsed Agudah candidates for national elections and called on its readers to vote. Ultimately, Bais Yaakov forged a rhetoric which celebrated girls' Torah study and religious activism, uncovering traditional resources that could be mobilized for these new purposes.

Ten Letters to Jewish Children

This chapter explores ten letters which provide ethical instructions to Jewish children. The letters talk about the importance of the sabbath and the holidays for worshipping the holy Creator with sincere prayers and learning Torah. They warn Jewish children of the dangers of lying, swearing, speaking ill, and gossiping. They also urge Jewish children to act according to the commandments of the Torah. The letters then explain the importance of the commandments of honouring one's father and mother; of loving one's neighbour; of not seeking vengeance; and of avoiding arrogance. The chapter also reflects on the fifteenth anniversary of the founding of the Bais Yaakov schools.

‘In a Place Where There Are No Men’

This chapter discusses the circumstances of Kraków Orthodoxy at the beginning of the twentieth century that constitute the background of the emergence of the Bais Yaakov movement. While Kraków is the birthplace of the Bais Yaakov movement, it was actually conceived, as it were, in Vienna, where Sarah Schenirer had fled with a flood of refugees after the outbreak of the First World War brought the Russian army into Galicia. The canonical story of the founding of the movement insists that the inspiration did not and could not have come to her in Kraków, where Orthodox rabbis did not address their female congregants from the pulpit and where Jewish girls' education was treated with utter neglect. Sarah Schenirer's founding of a girls' school system was thus a pioneering venture into unexplored territory, in which the initiative of a single woman solved a problem that no one else around her recognized, cared about, or could resolve. There is one detail in her memoir, however, that complicates this picture. Extrapolating from her brother's words, it was not the case that no one in Kraków had so far considered using religious education to combat the defection of Jewish girls. Rather, this strategy, however obvious and even laudable it might be, was impracticable given the political realities of Orthodox life.