‘Building Bais Yaakov’

This chapter analyses the crucial transition of the movement from its charismatic beginnings to the institutionalization of Bais Yaakov. Bais Yaakov has frequently been called a revolution in Jewish education. The chapter proposes that Bais Yaakov was a particular kind of revolution: a charismatic social movement that followed the trajectory that is inevitable for such movements if they are not to fail, from charisma to institutionalization and routinization. It focuses particularly on the year 1925, which marked the shift from a movement still under the sway of its founder, Sarah Schenirer, to one dominated by its Central Offices and the larger organizational framework of Agudath Israel, the political organization of Orthodox Jews. This shift was accompanied by a burst of literary creativity centred on the Bais Yaakov Journal.