Baron, Dvora (1887-1956)

Dvora Baron, a major writer of the Modern Hebrew Renaissance, or the Tehiyah, was one of the only woman writers to gain recognition in the Hebrew literary canon of the period. Born on December 4, 1887 to the town rabbi of Ouzda, on the outskirts of Minsk, Baron was educated by her father and her elder brother in ways that were highly unusual for girls of her geographical, historical, and religious milieu at the turn of the twentieth century. Women and girls, not systematically educated in Hebrew texts, were largely unable to bring their Hebrew textual skills to bear in the creation of a modern Hebrew literary idiom. Baron was a rare exception and much of the scholarship on Baron’s literary corpus focuses on her unusual achievement as a woman in the Modern Hebrew literary arena.