Bais Yaakov

Bais Yaakov, started by Sarah Schenirer in post-World War I Kraków, was at the time a revolutionary approach to Jewish women's education.

She obtained the approval of Yisrael Meir Kagan (author of Chofetz Chaim), who issued a responsum holding that contemporary conditions required departing from traditional prohibitions on teaching women Torah and accepting the view that it was permitted.

[3] Girls who were taught in the Bais Yaakov movement used their education as psychological support to survive World War II and the Holocaust.

The name Bais Yaakov comes from a verse in the Book of Exodus in which the expression "House of Jacob" is understood by Jewish commentaries on the Bible to refer to the female segment of the Jewish nation: Moses is instructed to "say to the house of Jacob, and tell the children of Israel", where the parallel expressions are interpreted as referring respectively to the female and male segments.

The schools' primary purpose is to prepare students to be contributors to family and community, as good Jews, wives, professionals, and mothers.

But extracurricular activities have, since the movement's earliest days, reflected a careful willingness to adopt and adapt secular practices that could enhance the educational experience, e.g., community theater, albeit tailored to Haredi values and mores.

One of the tenets of Orthodox Judaism is that it is impossible to fully understand the written Torah without the Jewish commentaries; so, Bais Yaakov girls are taught the Tanakh through this approach.

Girls in Bais Yaakov schools do not typically learn law from the text of the Talmud itself, but may study its non-legal portions of aggadah (homiletics).

Several Hasidic groups, also, extend their program to the "Seminary" level, where women train for two years to certify as teachers, in parallel with further Torah study.