Translator’s Note

IN 1933 the Central Secretariat of Bnos Agudath Israel in Poland issued Sarah Schenirer’s Collected Writings, after advertising the upcoming publication in the pages of the Bais Yaakov Journal. The book included many articles that had previously appeared in the journal or elsewhere in Bais Yaakov publications; among them were reflections on Jewish themes, reports on events important to the world of Bais Yaakov and Bnos, and ethical instructions to young pupils. But it also included previously unpublished writings, including a brief but fascinating memoir that shed light on Sarah Schenirer’s childhood and on the beginnings of the Bais Yaakov movement. As a frontispiece, the book included a drawing of Sarah Schenirer, one which circulated widely in the movement in the absence of a photograph (it was well known that she refused to have her photograph taken). Advertisements for the upcoming volume sometimes provided a table of contents, which promised that it would include excerpts from Schenirer’s diary. In fact, those excerpts did not appear in the published work, although a few entries—whether the ones originally intended for publication or others is not clear—did appear in the 1950s in Hebrew translation. For more on this diary, see Appendix A....