Sarah Schenirer
| Sarah Schenirer | |
|---|---|
Sarah Schenirer
|
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| Born |
July 15, 1883 Krakow, Poland |
| Died | March 1, 1935 (aged 51) |
| Cause of death | Cancer |
| Resting place | Krakow, Poland |
| Other names | Soroh Shenirer |
| Occupation | founder and director of Bais Yaakov movement |
| Known for | Founder of Bais Yaakov school network in Poland |
Sarah Schenirer (also Soroh Shenirer) (July 15, 1883 - March 1, 1935 (yartzeit 26 Adar I 5695)) was a pioneer of Jewish education for girls and began a change in the way women were perceived in Orthodox Judaism. In 1917, she founded the Bais Yaakov (lit. "house of Jacob") school network in Poland.
Sarah Schenirer was born into influential rabbinic family in Krakow, Poland on July 15, 1883. Her parents, Bezalel Schenirer (born in Tarnów) and Reizel were both descendants of well-known rabbis. 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 In her memoirs, she describes herself as the unassuming and withdrawn daughter of Belzer Hasidic parents.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 teased her for her desire to learn the Torah and called her "the little pious one." She attended elementary school for eight 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 Flesch, a disciple of Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, and Modern Orthodox Judaism. His sermons emphasized the role of women throughout Jewish history, which inspired Schenirer.
Schenirer occasionally attended lectures at the university, where she befriended young Jews who were in a campus program called Ruth, where she observed them lighting candles on the Sabbath, in violation of halakha. She perceived from this the need for better Jewish education.
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 wouldn't catch on. However, he agreed to take her to see the Belzer Rebbe in Marienbad, who gave her his blessing in two words, "Mazel uBrocha." However, it's noted that in Schenirer's own description of the meeting, she stated only 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 Hassidim to go to Bais Yaakov.
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