The Rebellion of the Daughters

"In fin de siáecle Krakâow and shortly thereafter, hundreds of young orthodox Jewish women fled their homes and found refuge in the Felician Sisters convent, where many of them converted to Catholicism. The book recounts this forgotten, perhaps suppressed, episode in Eastern European Jewish history, by reconstructing the stories of three of these women. It argues that the crisis in traditional Jewish society was precipitated by the practice of sending Jewish girls to Polish public and private schools, in accordance with Habsburg law, while not providing them with any Jewish education. When it came time for them to marry, they rebelled against their orthodox parents and escaped to the convent. The book is the first study of Jewish women in Habsburg Galicia, many of them from Hasidic families. It draws on a wealth of sources: court files, police files, government correspondence, press reports, and contemporary literature, to give voice to these young women"--