Sarah Schneirer

Founder of the Bais Yaakov Movement

Sarah Schneirer, like most Jewish girls in her homeland, attended Polish schools, completing eight years of elementary school with honor. She exhibited at an early age great love of reading, and when absorbed in a book could be totally oblivious to her surroundings.

In 1913, Sarah Schneirer and her family fled war-torn Poland, and found refuge in Vienna. There her first thoughts were for the upcoming Sabbath of Chanukah: She must find a Synagogue where she could pray. Following the directions of an obliging landlady, she entered the Synagogue of Rabbi Fleisch of the Stumperfergasse. The Rabbi, Rabbi Fleisch, addressed the congregation, spoke of Maccabees, their challenge and their heroism. He spoke also of Judith and of what a Jewish woman could accomplish. Something stirred within Sarah Schneirer's heart as she listened, enthralled, to his gripping words Schneirer became Rabbi Fleisch’s most avid student, never missing a sermon, doggedly writing down each lesson.

Nebulous dreams of teaching Jewish women were beginning to take shape, were growing clearer in her mind. To ensure that her small part in transmitting the tradition of the Jewish people would be perfect, she overcame her shyness and showed Rabbi Fleisch himself her notes. The Rabbi was impressed with their accuracy and with the almost photographic memory of this unassuming seamstress. He suggested that she study the works of Rabbi Shamshon Rafael Hirsch and Rabbi Marcus Lehmann; by eating only one meal a day she managed to save enough money to buy one of Hirsch's books.

With war's end, Sarah Schneirer was ready to return to Cracow -- and ready to give over all that she had learned. All she had to do was find someone to listen. Her efforts to reach out to women and older girls met with little success: To them her words sounded strange and outmoded. And then she turned to the children, beginning with only five. They listened, they learned, they remembered her lessons.

The school grew. After one year, more than eighty students were crowding to hear the classes, all given proudly in Yiddish. A larger apartment was rented. Former students, barely out of class themselves, were pressed into service, to teach those still younger. The school grew and a movement was slowly born.

In 1924, Schnierer attended the convention of Agudath Israel, the organization that was such a strong force in the life of Polish Jewry. Her fierce determination and her beliefs communicated themselves to the assemblage, and Agudath Israel began its involvement with Bais Yaakov, with Schnierer at its helm.

In a small side street in the Cracow ghetto, in a large tenement fronted by narrow stone steps leading to crowded flats, stood the Bais Yaakov Seminary. Schneirer's first class consisted of twenty-five girls, none older than sixteen. They studied hand-written texts penned by their teacher, learning a methodology that was at the same time simple and effective, pages and pages of lessons designed to keep bright, eager children interested and excited about their Jewish heritage.

Even as she trained the teachers to teach, she helped establish the schools for them to teach in. She traveled the length and breadth of her land, accompanying her young charges as they embarked on their new adventure of teaching in--and often founding--Bais Yaakov schools. She spoke to groups that were sometimes interested, sometimes hostile, urging the opening of still another school.

The quiet seamstress stood at the head of a vibrant, growing movement. In 1931, at the ground-breaking ceremony of the new seminary building in Cracow, as she watched her dream come to fruition.

She was young, only fifty two-years old, when she passed away, after a difficult illness. Even on her deathbed, she was still teaching, still writing, still penning lessons for her students.