1. Sarah Schenirer was born to Bezalel Schenirer and Reizel in Krakow, Poland.
18 Facts About Sarah Schenirer
1. 2.
Sarah Schenirer's parents were both scions of influential rabbinic families.
3.
Sarah Schenirer's father provided her with religious texts that he had translated into Yiddish.
4.
Sarah Schenirer was intelligent and had a strong desire to learn, and was envious of her brothers' opportunity to learn and interpret the Torah.
5.
Sarah Schenirer's sermons had emphasized the role of women throughout Jewish history, which inspired Schenirer.
6.
Sarah Schenirer returned to Krakow in 1917, where the inspiration she received in Vienna led her to seek to establish a school for girls.
7.
Sarah Schenirer initially approached her brother, who suggested that the idea was controversial.
8.
Sarah Schenirer opened a kindergarten for twenty-five children in her seamstress studio, where she emphasized love of Torah and mitzvos.
9.
Sarah Schenirer had begun to set up lectures and a library for Jewish women but she abandoned that plan.
10.
Sarah Schenirer was admired for her sensitivity and care for others.
11.
Sarah Schenirer instilled pride of being Orthodox in the students through song, plays, and dancing.
12.
Sarah 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.
13.
In 1933, Sarah Schenirer retired from her role within the institution, but remained very much involved until her death in 1935.
14.
In 1923, Leo Deutschlaender, together with Sarah Schenirer, set up a teachers' seminary, to train staff for the rapidly expanding network of schools.
15.
Sarah Schenirer married young, but was divorced from her first husband.
16.
On Friday, March 1,1935, Sarah Schenirer died from cancer, at the age of fifty-one.
17.
Sarah Schenirer had no children of her own; the girls of the movement filled that void for her.
18.
Today, there are many Bais Yaakov schools that carry Sarah Schenirer's name, including elementary and high schools, and a college 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.