Sarah Schenirer

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Sarah Schenirer or Soroh Shenirer (1883 - 1935) was a Jewish educator known mostly for establishing the first Jewish Orthodox edcuation system for girls, known as Bais Yaakov ("house/home of Jacob") in Poland in 1918.

She succeeded to overcome initial resistance against the new type of schools and saw rapid development to about 300 schools in pre Holocaust Europe. Her initiative was approved by the leading rabbis of the times, such as the Gerrer Rebbe, Rabbi Avraham Mordechai Alter and Rabbi Yisrael Meir Kagan (known as "the Chofetz Chaim").

In 1923 Shenirer set up a tecahers' Seminary to train staff for her rapidly expanding network of schools.

“The Main goal of the Beth Jacob school,” wrote Sara Shenirer, “is to train the Jewish daughters so that they will serve the L-rd with all their might and with all their hearts; so that they will fulfill the commandments of the Torah with sincere enthusiasm and will know that they are the children of a people whose existence does not depend upon a territory of its own, as do other nations of the world whose existence is predicated upon a territory and similar racial background. The Beth Jacob ideology stresses the following: religion; the fight against assimilation; the attachment to the Yiddish language.” ^[1]

In her novel Peleh Laylah, Israeli author Esther Ettinger, who studied at a Bais Yaakov school as a girl, weaves in passages from Sara Schneirer's writings.^[2]

[edit] See also

• Gender and Judaism
• Haredi Judaism
• History of the Jews in Poland
• Rebbetzin
• Role of women in Judaism
• Tzniut
• Yeshiva

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• "Sarah Schenirer: The Mother of Generations", article in "Jewish Observer"
• The Contribution of German Chareidim to the New Yishuv article from Yated Ne'eman
• Remembering Soroh Schenirer — Her Seventieth Yahrtzeit article from Yated Ne'eman