‘A New Kind of Woman’

This chapter evaluates the character of Bais Yaakov as a ‘revolution in the name of tradition’. The revolution that was Bais Yaakov was not limited to the direct participants in the movement, but also reshaped marriage practices, family structures, and the face of Orthodoxy at large. The chapter explores the parallels and resonances of the movement with such Orthodox phenomena as German neo-Orthodoxy, hasidism, and the yeshiva, as well as with other revolutionary elements of its immediate context, including socialism, Zionism, feminism, and Yiddishism. While Bais Yaakov presented itself as combatting the secular ideologies of the interwar period, it also adopted some features of these ‘isms’ in shaping its own distinctive and novel character. The chapter then presents a reading of the relationship—sociological, symbolic, and discursive—between Bais Yaakov and the traditional Jewish family.