🗓️✨ Luach Hayom – Today in Halacha & Jewish History: 26th Adar

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🗓️✨ Luach Hayom – Today in Halacha & Jewish History: 26th Adar

 

📅 Today’s Yahrzeits[1]

 

🕯️ Rebbetzin Sarah Schenirer — Founder of Beis Yaakov

Their Background[2]

🕯️ Rebbetzin Sarah Schenirer (1883–1935)

Founder of the Beis Yaakov Movement

Rebbetzin Sarah Schenirer was a visionary Jewish educator and the founder of the Beis Yaakov school system for girls, a movement that transformed Orthodox Jewish life and ensured its continuity for future generations. Born in KrakĂłw, Poland, into a deeply religious Chassidic family, she grew up with a strong love for Torah but with limited formal opportunities for Jewish learning available to girls at the time. Sarah Schenirer was raised in a Belzer Chassidic environment in KrakĂłw, with family ties to Belz and Sanz.

Witnessing widespread assimilation among young Jewish women in early 20th‑century Europe, Sarah Schenirer recognized that the lack of structured Torah education for girls was placing Jewish observance and identity at risk. Her inspiration to begin Beis Yaakov came during World War I in Vienna, after hearing sermons by Rabbi Moshe (David) Flesch, a neo‑Orthodox rabbi influenced by Rav Samson Raphael Hirsch. In 1917, with courage and faith, she opened a small school for girls in her own home in Kraków. This modest beginning became the foundation of the Beis Yaakov movement—“House of Jacob”—which provided girls with education in Torah, Jewish values, and a deep sense of spiritual purpose. She sought and received encouragement from the Belzer Rebbe, who famously gave her a blessing (“mazel u’vracha”), even though he initially limited participation by Belz families.

Despite having no formal teaching credentials, Rebbetzin Schenirer’s sincerity, dedication, and clarity of vision won the support of leading rabbinic figures, and the movement was eventually adopted and expanded by Agudat Yisrael. During her lifetime, Beis Yaakov schools spread rapidly across Poland and beyond, educating tens of thousands of girls and training teachers through seminaries she helped establish.

Rebbetzin Schenirer saw Jewish women as the spiritual foundation of the home and the nation. Though she had no children of her own, generations of students called her “Our Mother Sarah.” Her legacy lives on today in Beis Yaakov schools throughout the world, shaping Jewish families and communities with faith, knowledge, and pride.

Yehi zichrah baruch.

[1] Taken from Luach Itim Labina

[2] Please not that these historical notes were prepared with the assistance of Copilot Pro, an AI Research Agent, and have not been independently verified.

About The Author

Rabbi Yaakov Goldstein is a 6th generation descendent of the famous Chief Rabbi of Izhmir, Rav Yehoshua Avraham Krispin, who authored a number of Sefarim, and was a colleague of Rav Chaim Falagi, and father in-law of the Pesach Hadvir. He currently lives with his wife Shayna, and twelve children K”H, in Tzfas, Israel. Rabbi Goldstein received Semicha from Rabbi Schneur Zalman Labkowski of the Tomchei Temimim headquarters in 2005 and served as a chaplain in the Lotar/Kalatz and K9 unit of the IDF from years 2005-2008. He is also a certified Shochet, and has performed Hashgacha work in slaughterhouses. Rabbi Goldstein is the director of Shulchanaruchharav.com, the world’s leading web-based Halacha database, and is the director of the Home Study Semicha Program, a self-study web-based Semicha program. He is a prolific author of over 50 Sefarim studied by a wide range of readers throughout the world, which is used regularly in Semicha programs around the globe. He is a world renowned Posek, answering questions to a web-based market, and serves as a local Posek, Rav, and Lecturer, in the Tzemach Tzedek community Shul in Tzefas, Israel. His many classes can be heard both from his website, Vimeo and YouTube channel. Students can join live to classes given in the Tzemach Tzedek Shul, through the “בית חבד צפת Chabad Tsfat” YouTube channel.