The articles assembled here represent stories about Bais Yaakov in various publications.
The newspapers and journals in which these stories appeared represent the wide range of the interwar press, from serious journalism to lowbrow sensationalism, and spanning from the Orthodox to secular (or anti-religious) segments of Polish Jewish society.
While the Orthodox press ordinarily spoke of Bais Yaakov with enormous enthusiasm and respect, that is less true for the popular daily press, where Bais Yaakov was often taken as an object of curiosity and amusement.
In at least one case, the 1933 Heyntige nayes story of Sarah Schenirer writing a movie script for Bais Yaakov production, the “report” seems to have been either a fabrication or a transparent joke.
For a brief description of each newspaper mentioned, see the JPRESS website. We thank JPRESS for permission to present material from their searchable digitization of the historical Jewish press.
Accused of Theft, Questioned About Yosele: A fourteen-year-old Bais Yaakov student accosted on a bus, arrested and accused of harboring a missing child, Yosele Shumacher (he was taken by his Orthodox grandfather from the secular parents who were attempting to reclaim the five-year-old boy, and hidden in the frum world) ...
Internal Agudah Investigation of the Drowning of 9 Bais Yaakov Girls: Report on an internal Agudah investigation of the drowning death of nine girls, to determine whether teachers were negligent ...
Bomb Explodes at Bais Yaakov of São Paulo: A high-explosive bomb exploded before dawn, anti-Semitic slogans and swastikas on Jewish-owned industrial plant ...
