The Cracow Bais Yaakov Teachers' Seminary and Sarah Schenirer: A View from a Seminarian's Diary

Abstract:Academic scholarship on the Cracow Bais Yaakov teachers' seminary in interwar Poland, and on the Bais Yaakov movement in general, has relied to a large extent on internal sources, such as promotional literature, the Bais Yaakov journal, semihistorical accounts by interested parties, and memoirs written after the Holocaust. The reason for that was the dearth of other sources. The present article provides an analysis of excerpts from a hitherto unnoticed diary written by Bracha Levin, a Polish Lithuanian student at the Cracow Bais Yaakov teachers' seminary in the years 1929–1930. The diary records personal sentiments and observations about the seminary that were not intended for external view or public recognition, and thus is of immense importance for historical research. The wealth of information contained in it reflects the experience of other young seminary students like her: teenage girls struggling with religious faith, desiring freedom, love, and intimacy, attending the seminary for the purpose of acquiring professional training, and grappling with school expectations on the one hand and the challenges of modernity on the other. On the whole, the diary's critical attitude toward the seminary reflects the views and educational background of students coming from the Lithuanian regions annexed to Poland after World War I, and emphasizes the gap between those students and students coming from Polish Hasidic homes.