Sarah Schenirer
Sarah Schenirer (; ; July 15, 1883 - March 1, 1935 (yartzeit 26 Adar I 5695)) was a Polish-Jewish schoolteacher who became a pioneer of Jewish education for girls. Although Shimshon 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," Schenirer's accomplishment was to begin a change in the way women were perceived in Orthodox Judaism. In 1917, she founded an afternoon school in her apartment that was later used as a model by the Agudat Yisrael in its Bais  Yaakov (lit., "House of Jacob") school network in Poland, with worldwide lasting effect. Early life. Sarah Schenirer was born to Bezalel Schenirer (of Tarnów) and Reizel in Krakow, 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 In her memoirs, she describes herself as the unassuming and withdrawn daughter of Belzer Hasidic parents.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. Vienna. During World War I, Schenirer and her family fled from Poland to Vienna. 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). She wished to show her friends the beauty of traditional Jewish but she did not know how. Bais Yaakov schools. 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; later, however, 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 in Yiddish translation: The lessons at her schools consisted of explaining in simple terms to the students the meeting of the chumash (Pentateuch), and some other sections of Tanakh, and of instilling 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 Krakow 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 In 1933, Schenirer retired  from her role within the institution, but remained very much involved until her death in 1935. Teacher's Seminary. In 1923, Rabbi 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. Personal life. Sarah Schenirer was raised in a Belzer Hasidic family. She launched her movement only after receiving a blessing from the Belzer Rebbe. She married young, but was  divorced from her first husband because of incompatibility. 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. A review of "Sara Schenirer and the Bais Yaakov Movement" claims that Schenirer was "a prolific writer: her essays, plays, memoir and textbook on Judaism played a major role in establishing "Bais Yaakov"'s culture at the outset," though there is no evidence that any of her works were adopted in the curriculum. On March 1, 1935, Schenirer died from cancer, at the age  of fifty-one. Legacy. By 1939, there were about 250 schools established, and over 40,000 students in Bais Yaakov schools. One of her students was Rebbetzin Vichna Kaplan, founder of the first Bais Yaakov high school and teachers' seminary in America. In her will, she wrote: "My dear girls, you are going out into the great world. Your task is to plant the holy seed in the souls of pure children. In a sense, the destiny of Israel of old is in your hands." The admiration was mutual, and the girls within the movement called her "Sarah Imeinu", which translates  to "Our Mother Sarah", an honorific evoking the biblical matriarch Sarah. She had no children of her own; the girls of the movement filled that void for her. On the 70th anniversary of Schenirer's death in 2005, an "archival repository" was installed in Jerusalem in her honor. In the same year, some of her women supporters set out on a mission to restore her tombstone. Her original tombstone was destroyed when the Kraków-Płaszów concentration camp was built. Her tombstone was restored in 2005. Upon the restoration, the director of the Central Bais Yaakov gave a eulogy for Schenirer , and closed it by saying, "Frau Schenirer, we are not merely placing a memorial on your grave site. We are placing it upon our hearts: for us, and for all the generations who will come after us." Today, there are many Bais Yaakov schools that carry Schenirer's name, including an institute in New York that caters to religious Jewish women and girls, allowing them to complete their under-graduate and graduate studies in a religious environment, offering courses in Social Work, Social Sciences, Education, Graphic design, and more. The influential twentieth-century Hebrew-language educator and publisher Zevi Scharfstein  profiled Schenirer in his 1964 work "Great Hebrew Educators" (גדולי חינון בעמנו, Rubin Mass Publishers, Jerusalem, 1964). Literary references. 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".