‘So Shall You Say to the House of Jacob’

This chapter investigates how Bais Yaakov was able to forge an Orthodox discourse designed to attract young women, producing a long-running journal that featured a wide variety of articles of Jewish and general literary interest as well as other books and publications for a female readership. This enterprise began in 1923, when the young Po'alei Agudah (Agudah Workers' Organization) activist and writer Eliezer Gershon Friedenson decided to support Bais Yaakov by publishing a periodical with that name. The first issue of the Bais Yaakov Journal set the basic template, serving as the movement's primary mouthpiece by spreading word of its sacred mission and its remarkable accomplishments. A secondary goal was to bolster support for the Agudah among girls and women; the paper later endorsed Agudah candidates for national elections and called on its readers to vote. Ultimately, Bais Yaakov forged a rhetoric which celebrated girls' Torah study and religious activism, uncovering traditional resources that could be mobilized for these new purposes.