Sarah Schenirer

• Name — Sarah Schenirer • Born — 15 July 1883 • Birthplace — Kraków, Poland • Died — 1 March 1935 • Place of death — Kraków, Poland • Resting Place — Kraków • Occupation — Founder and director of Bais Yaakov movement • Known for — Founder of Bais Yaakov school network in Poland

Sarah Schenirer was born to Bezalel Schenirer (of Tarnów) and Reizel in Kraków, Poland. Her parents were both scions of influential rabbinic families. Her father provided her with religious texts that he had translated into Yiddish. In her memoirs, she describes herself as the unassuming and withdrawn daughter of Belzer Hasidic parents. She was intelligent and had a strong desire to learn, and was envious of her brothers' opportunity to learn and interpret the Torah. Schenirer would write later in life: Her friends in her Polish school called her "the female Hasid". She attended elementary school for seven years. She then became a seamstress.

During World War I, Schenirer and her family fled from Poland to Vienna. While there, she became influenced by Rabbi Moshe Flesch, a disciple of Samson Raphael Hirsch, and Modern Orthodox Judaism. His sermons had emphasized the role of women throughout Jewish history, which inspired Schenirer. Later on, Flesch accepted Schenirer's invitation to "please visit our school." After her first marriage ended in divorce, Schenirer occasionally attended plays, and public lectures for the women; at one Friday night meeting of the Zionist Ruth Organization, she was pained to observe them lighting candles on Shabbat (Saturday), in violation of halakha (Jewish law).

Although Samson Raphael Hirsch's 1853-established Realschule provided girls with "rigorous elementary and secondary school education," and "thousands of girls in Russia attended female-only cheders in the 1890s,", there existed no formal curriculum, tradition or template for educating Orthodox girls. Schenirer returned to Kraków in 1917, where the inspiration she received in Vienna led her to seek to establish a school for girls. She initially approached her brother, who suggested that the idea was controversial. However, he agreed to take her to see the Belzer Rebbe in Marienbad, who gave her his blessing in two words: "Mazel uBrocha." In Schenirer's own description of the meeting, she stated that she wanted to "lead Jewish girls in the path of Judaism", without specifying that she planned to open a school and teach Torah; and he in fact refused to encourage the girls of his Hasidim to go to Bais Yaakov. According to the diary of a seminary student, Bracha Levin, Schenirer did tell the Belzer rebbe of her intentions of teaching young girls, to which he gave his approval, provided that she did not teach Hebrew. This was an assurance she could give, since she did not speak that language. And later on, she consulted with him on a halakhic matter concerning her school. Schenirer opened a kindergarten for twenty-five children in her seamstress studio, where she emphasized love of Torah and mitzvos. Schenirer had begun to set up lectures and a library for Jewish women but she abandoned that plan. She was admired for her sensitivity and care for others. After work, Schenirer stayed up late to study the weekly Torah portion and Tanakh (Hebrew Bible) in Yiddish translation: I enjoyed it tremendously", she wrote, "as it enriched my understanding of the Jewish heritage, and its beauty and depth of thought. But I also took a great interest in secular knowledge: education, history, literature. I especially admired the classical works of Polish and German writers. I loved reading them. The lessons at her schools consisted of explaining in simple terms to the students the meaning of the Chumash (Pentateuch), and some other sections of Tanakh. She instilled pride of being Orthodox in the students through song, plays, and dancing. Schenirer encountered no resistance from Orthodox leadership in setting up her school; on the contrary, her Kraków school was aided almost from the beginning by the local Agudat Yisrael, and by other local branches of the Agudah, until it was incorporated into the Keren ha-Torah of the World Agudat Yisrael. Within 5 years, the Agudah copied Schenirer's model, growing into 7 schools, with 1,040 students. By 1933, there were 265 schools in Poland alone, with almost 38,000 students. The main goal of the schools was to A review of Sara Schenirer and the Bais Yaakov Movement states that Schenirer was "a prolific writer: her essays, plays, memoir and textbook on Judaism played a major role in establishing Bais Yaakovs culture at the outset." In 1933, Schenirer retired from her role within the institution, but remained very much involved until her death in 1935.

In 1923, Leo Deutschlaender, together with Sarah Schenirer, set up a teachers' seminary, to train staff for the rapidly expanding network of schools. Deutschlaender, a neo-Orthodox pedagogue from Germany, and the head of the educational fund of the Agudat Yisrael (Keren ha-Torah), saw the need for professionally trained teachers.

Sarah Schenirer was raised in a Belzer Hasidic family. She married young, but was divorced from her first husband. Schenirer married again later in life. Although she remained childless, her students would speak of themselves as being her children. They are considered the legacy of Frau Schenirer. On Friday, March 1, 1935 (26th of Adar I, 5695), Schenirer died from cancer, at the age of fifty-one.

In her novel Peleh Laylah, Israeli author Esther Ettinger, who studied at a Bais Yaakov school as a girl, weaves in passages from Sarah Schenirer's writings. Her student Pearl Benisch wrote a book about Sarah Schenirer called Carry Me in Your Heart. Excerpts from the diary of Bracha Levin, written when she was a student at the Krakow Bais Yaakov seminary, and which provide new details of Sarah Schenirer's interactions with students, have recently been published by Rachel Manekin.