This is the lost legacy of Bais Yaakov of Lithuania

Photos: Martynas Mažvydas National Library of Lithuania; Central State Archive of Lithuania; Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People

While the heroism of hundreds of Lithuanian women trapped and ultimately murdered in the early days of the Holocaust is now part of the historical record, where were these brave heroines during the interwar period? Many of them harnessed their holy strengths and talents to promote the eternal values of Torah within the surrounding towns and villages. This is the lost legacy of Bais Yaakov of Lithuania

In the summer of 1941, weeks after the German invasion of Lithuania, the Nazis massacred the Jewish population of Telz and the surrounding hamlets. They then incarcerated the 500 remaining Jews — all of them women — in a ghetto in Telz for a period of five months, beginning in Elul. But instead of succumbing to despair after witnessing the brutal murder of their entire community, the women of the Telz ghetto came together to say Selichos, to pack the barren shul in order to daven together on Rosh Hashanah, to fast and do teshuvah on Yom Kippur, to live their final moments joined together in acts of kedushah and taharah.

The story of these forgotten voices was first recorded in these pages two years ago, soon after I first found the testimony of the women of Telz in the Koniuchowsky archives at the Center for Jewish History in New York in 2019. With tears in my eyes, I shared what I had read with Professor Estraikh of New York University, who happened to be right there at the time, and asked: “Where has this story been hiding? Why have I never heard of these women? Why has no one ever heard of them?”

The reply came with certainty: “They were waiting for you to find them and tell their story.”

Thus began what I view as a tremendous privilege and also a sacred obligation.

Just as readily as the heroism of our “Litvishe Ladies” (as I began to think of them) was discovered, enthusiasts emerged to facilitate their passage to the forefront of the historical record. I received a fellowship from the Center for Jewish History to continue researching and writing about these special women in the interwar period. I titled my project, “Still Small Voices: Religious Thought and Practice among ‘Lithuanian’ Jewish Women Between the World Wars,” because I felt that this terminology, of quiet and holy strength, reflected the spirit of these women in their efforts to promote eternal values. They steadfastly radiated their message in the midst of the fire and tumult of their time.

Perhaps, as the professor intuited, these women really were waiting all this time. At the beginning of August, to my complete surprise, I was notified that I was the recipient of the Raizi Chechik Endowment for Lithuanian Studies in Vilnius. Within weeks I was whisked away to Vilna in the company of Lara Lempertiene, director of the Judaica Research Center at the National Library of Lithuania, and researcher Audra Cepkauskaite.

At the Martynas Mažvydas National Library, I held the first printed statement of the founder of Bais Yaakov of Lita, Mina Henkin. Rebbetzin Henkin outlined the mission of Bais Yaakov and concluded her impassioned entreaty with words that continue to reverberate even over a 90-year divide: “The kol dmama daka (still small voice) of our private and holy efforts will find, with the help of Hashem, its opposite echo in the hearts of the Jewish daughters who are still far from us. And then all of us together from that ‘still small voice’ will be zocheh to hear the voice of Hashem with the Geulah Sheleimah.”

That statement encapsulated the lost legacy of Bais Yaakov of Lithuania, an independent society that aimed to bring together the talents and energies of Litvishe women and girls in service of rededication to Torah and Yiddishkeit, cultivating a society of spiritually energized women who would take pride in their heritage and continue to fiercely protect and joyfully sustain it.