Sarah Schenirer (Polish: Sara Szenirer; Yiddish: שרה שנירר; July 15, 1883[1] - March 1, 1935 (yartzeit 26 Adar I 5695) was a Polish-Jewish schoolteacher who became a pioneer of Jewish education for girls.

[2] Schenirer would write later in life: "And as we pass through the days before the High Holy Days ... fathers and sons travel, and thus, they are drawn to Ger, to Belz, to Alexander, to Bobov, to all those places that had been made citadels of conceited religious life, dominated by the figure of the rebbe's personality.

[6] While there, she became influenced by Rabbi Moshe Flesch,[2] a disciple of Samson Raphael Hirsch, and Modern Orthodox Judaism.

"[9]: p.27 After her first marriage ended in divorce, Schenirer occasionally attended plays, and public lectures for the women; at one Friday night meeting of the Zionist Ruth Organization, she was pained to observe them lighting candles on Shabbat (Saturday), in violation of halakha (Jewish law).

Schenirer returned to Kraków in 1917, where the inspiration she received in Vienna led her to seek to establish a school for girls.

Schenirer opened a kindergarten for twenty-five children [2] in her seamstress studio,[6] where she emphasized love of Torah and mitzvos.

[5] After work, Schenirer stayed up late to study the weekly Torah portion and Tanakh (Hebrew Bible) in Yiddish translation: I enjoyed it tremendously", she wrote, "as it enriched my understanding of the Jewish heritage, and its beauty and depth of thought.

[4]The lessons at her schools consisted of explaining in simple terms to the students the meaning of the Chumash (Pentateuch), and some other sections of Tanakh.

Schenirer encountered no resistance from Orthodox leadership in setting up her school; on the contrary, her Kraków school was aided almost from the beginning by the local Agudat Yisrael, and by other local branches of the Agudah, until it was incorporated into the Keren ha-Torah of the World Agudat Yisrael.

[4] The main goal of the schools was to train Jewish daughters so that they will serve the Lord with all their might and with all their hearts; so that they will fulfill the commandments of the Torah with sincere enthusiasm, and will know that they are the children of a people whose existence does not depend upon a territory of its own, as do other nations of the world whose existence is predicated upon a territory and similar racial background.

[2] In 1923, Leo Deutschlaender, together with Sarah Schenirer, set up a teachers' seminary, to train staff for the rapidly expanding network of schools.

Deutschlaender, a neo-Orthodox pedagogue from Germany, and the head of the educational fund of the Agudat Yisrael (Keren ha-Torah), saw the need for professionally trained teachers.

[4] A review of Sara Schenirer and the Bais Yaakov Movement claims that Schenirer was "a prolific writer: her essays, plays, memoir and textbook on Judaism played a major role in establishing Bais Yaakov's culture at the outset," [3] though there is no evidence that any of her works were adopted in the curriculum.

[7] One of her students was Rebbetzin Vichna Kaplan, founder of the first Bais Yaakov high school and teachers' seminary in America.

"[2] Today, there are many Bais Yaakov schools that carry Schenirer's name, including elementary and high schools, and a college institute in New York that caters to religious Jewish women and girls, allowing them to complete their under-graduate and graduate studies in a religious environment.

[19] In her novel Peleh Laylah, Israeli author Esther Ettinger, who studied at a Bais Yaakov school as a girl, weaves in passages from Sarah Schenirer's writings.