Though over one hundred private schools for Jewish girls thrived in the Russian empire between 1831 and 1881, their story has been largely overlooked. In Her Hands: The Education of Girls in Tsarist Russia restores these schools to their rightful place of prominence in training thousands of Jewish girls in secular and Judaic subjects and also paving the way for the modern schools that followed them. Through extensive archival research, author Eliyana R. Adler examines the schools’ curriculum, teachers, financing, students, and educational innovation and demonstrates how each of these aspects evolved over time. In telling the story of Russia’s private schools for Jewish girls, Adler argues that these schools were crucibles of educational experimentation that merit serious examination. Students and scholars of Jewish history, educational history, and women’s studies will enjoy this pathbreaking study.

Translated by: Aleksandra Glebovskaya