Sarah Schenirer and the Bais Yaakov Movement: A Revolution in the Name of Tradition

by Naomi Seidman

Overview

Sarah Schenirer is one of the unsung heroes of twentieth-century Orthodox Judaism. The Bais Yaakov schools she founded in interwar Poland had an unparalleled impact on a traditional Jewish society threatened by assimilation and modernity, educating a generation of girls to take an active part in their community. The movement grew at an astonishing pace, expanding to include high schools, teacher seminaries, summer programmes, vocational schools, and youth movements, in Poland and beyond; it continues to flourish throughout the Jewish diaspora.

Naomi Seidman explores the movement through the tensions that characterized it, capturing its complexity as a revolution in the name of tradition. She presents the context which led to its founding, examining the impact of socialism, feminism, Zionism, and Polish electoral politics on the process, and recounts its history, from its foundation in interwar Kraków to its near-destruction in the Holocaust, and its role in the reconstruction of Orthodoxy in subsequent decades.

A vivid portrait of Schenirer shines through. The book includes selections from her writings published in English for the first time. Her pioneering, determined character remains the subject of debate in a culture that still regards innovation, female initiative, and women's Torah study with suspicion.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781837643905
Publisher:	The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization in association with Liverpool University Press
Publication date:	01/27/2024
Series:	Littman Library of Jewish Civilization
Pages:	448
Product dimensions:	6.69(w) x 9.61(h) x 0.93(d)

About the Author

Naomi Seidman is the Chancellor Jackman Professor in the Arts at the University of Toronto. She was previously the Koret Professor of Jewish Culture at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, and was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2016. Her previous books include Faithful Renderings: Jewish-Christian Difference and the Politics of Translation (2006) and The Marriage Plot; or, How Jews Fell in Love with Love, and with Literature (2016).

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations xi

Note on Transliteration xiv

Introduction 1

Part 1 A History Of A Revolution

1 'In A Place Where There Are No Men': Before Bais Yaakov 17

2 'A New Thing that Our Ancestors Never Imagined': Beginnings (1917-1924) 51

3 'Building Bais Yaakov': Institution and Charisma 69

4 'So Shall You Say to the House of Jacob': Forging the Discourse of Bais Yaakov 108

5 'A New Kind of Woman': Bais Yaakov as Traditionalist Revolution 144

Epilogue 'Bais Yaakov, Let US Walk in the Light of the Lord': Destruction and Rebirth 205

Part 2 Collected Writings Sarah Schenirer

Translator's Note 227

Foreword to the 1955 Edition Rabbi Shlomo Rotenberg 229

Foreword to the 1933 Edition 234

A Letter from the Hafets Hayim 236

Introduction to the 1955 Edition Vichna Kaplan 238

I Pages from My Life 241

II Bais Yaakov and Bnos Agudath Israel 253

III The Jewish Year 287

IV Jewish Women's Lives: The Sacred Obligations of the Jewish Woman 328

V Ten Letters to Jewish Children 337

VI A Letter from Mrs Schenirer, May She Rest in Peace 356

VII With Perseverance and Faith: From Kraków to New York 363

Appendices

A From the Diary 369

B Sarah Schenirer's Family Tree 381

C Map of Sarah Schenirer's Kraków 387

D Maps of Bais Yaakov Schools, 1935 (1) in Poland and Lithuania (2) in Austria, Czechoslovakia, Romania, and Hungary 391

E The Bnos Agudath Israel Anthem 395

Bibliography 399

Index of Citations 411

Index of Subjects 415

Editorial Reviews

National Jewish Book Awards 2019 Winner of the Barbara Dobkin Award for Women's Studies and Finalist for education and Jewish Identity

"Fascinating new book ... Seidman is one of the most interesting scholars working in Jewish studies today."
Rokhl Kafrissen, Tablet Magazine

"Seidman's study brings women's voices back to the centre of the history of Orthodoxy. Much of the reason that women have been overlooked in the study of Orthodoxy has been the subjects that scholars and fields of study define as worthy of attention. As Seidman's study reveals there is an abundance of data and archives to present a full - not simply a male - history of Orthodoxy."
Eliyahu Stern, Shofar

"Sarah Schenirer and the Bais Yaakov Movement, which so many have been waiting for, does not disappoint. Only after seeing how significant Sarah Schenirer was can we both wonder why it took so long for a rigorous study of Bais Yaakov to appear, and realise how appreciative we have to be to Seidman for removing the veil of hagiography from this subject."
Marc B. Shapiro, Shofar

"By combining her thoughtful monograph with a full translation of Schenirer's available Yiddish writings, Seidman has made these important documents widely available in English for the first time ... her nuanced portrait will only encourage other scholars to delve further into the many unanswered questions surrounding a movement that she has amply and subtly shown to be 'a revolution in the name of tradition'."
Eliyana R. Adler, Shofar

"An extremely valuable aspect of the book is its broad context, which allows the reader to see Schenirer's work against the background of the changes taking place at that time not only within Orthodox Judaism itself but also in the emergent feminist, socialist, Zionist, and Yiddishist movements."
Joanna Lisek, Shofar

"Naomi Seidman is uniquely qualified to write the definitive biography of Sarah Schenirer... Seidman portrays Schenirer as a learned, charismatic educator, worthy of being taken seriously in the field of modern Jewish thought... I recommend this book to anyone interested in the history of Jewish women's education or allied fields."
Debbie Weissman, Nashim

From the Publisher