Vichna Kaplan

Vichna Kaplan (1913 – August 20, 1986) was a Russian-born American Orthodox Jewish teacher and school dean who, together with her husband Rabbi Boruch Kaplan, brought the Bais Yaakov movement to America. A prize pupil of Sarah Schenirer, the founder of Bais Yaakov in Poland, Kaplan opened the first Bais Yaakov High School in Williamsburg, New York, in 1938. She later opened the first Bais Yaakov Teachers Seminary, which provided teachers for all Bais Yaakov schools that subsequently opened in America and Israel.

Biography

Early life Vichna Eisen was born in Slonim, Russian Empire, around 1913. Her parents, Ephraim Yehoshua Eisen and Merreh Gittel Lubchansky, daughter of Rabbi Chaim Leib Lubchansky, the Rav of Baronovitch, both died before her eleventh birthday. She and her brother Dovid were raised by their aunt and uncle, Rabbi Yisroel Yaakov Lubchansky, mashgiach ruchani of the Baranovitch yeshiva, who were childless. and became Schenirer's closest disciple and confidante.

Marriage and move to America In 1936 she was introduced to Rabbi Boruch Kaplan, an American student who, through the efforts of Rabbi Yaakov Yosef Herman, had studied at the Chevron Yeshiva, Mir, Kaminetz, and Brisk yeshivas. The couple was engaged by mail in 1936 and married on August 8, 1937, eleven days after Vichna arrived in New York City.

The Kaplans had nine sons and four daughters. Two of her first students were the daughters of Rabbi Shraga Feivel Mendlowitz of Mesivta Torah Vodaas, who told her, "Take my daughters and build a seminary around them". The Mendlowitz girls brought five friends, and classes began.

The school outgrew Kaplan's South 9th Street apartment, as did the Kaplkan's growing family. The Kaplans and the school first moved to 240 Keap Street, the first of a series of moves to additional rented locations, until settling into its own building at 143 South 8th Street in Williamsburg. A dormitory was opened for out-of-town American students, students from Canada, and European refugees. At that point, Rabbi Boruch Kaplan, a successful maggid shiur at Yeshiva Torah Vodaas, left his position to become school administrator.

Unlike most of today's Bais Yaakov students, Kaplan's early high-school students were often not from religious homes. Concepts like tzeniut (modesty) had to be taught with warmth and sensitivity. Besides general and Torah studies, the girls were encouraged to take their education to the next level and become teachers in the Bais Yaakov movement. Bais Yaakov also inspired Jewish girls with the willingness to marry young men dedicated to full-time kollel study, which would necessitate a lower standard of living than that commonly accepted in America. These teachers forged a connection between their American students and the founder of Bais Yaakov, Sarah Schenirer, by speaking often about their mentor and her lessons. Kaplan herself recalled Schenirer at every Rosh Chodesh assembly. Before she made any decision for her school, Kaplan asked herself, "What would Sarah Schenirer say to this?" The school continued to expand into elementary, high school and seminary programs. The fiftieth yahrtzeit gathering for Schenirer in Madison Square Garden in 1985, which Kaplan organized, was attended by thousands of students of Bais Yaakov schools established in Hasidic, yeshivish, and Modern Orthodox communities with staff members drawn from the Bais Yaakov Teachers Seminary.

Other activities During World War II, when the Bais Yaakov movement in Poland was decimated by the murder of teachers and students in the Holocaust, the Kaplans applied for thousands of student visas for war refugees. Despite the skepticism of United States immigration officials, who could not believe that one institution could support so many refugees, the Kaplans rescued more European Jewish girls than any other American institution. Her daughter, Rebbetzin Frumie Kirzner, succeeded her as dean of the Bais Yaakov Teachers Seminary. Rabbi Boruch Kaplan died on April 7, 1996 (18 Nisan 5756).

Similarly, Rabbi Yoel Teitelbaum, the Satmar Rebbe, said that his school, Bais Ruchel, would not have succeeded without the graduates of Bais Yaakov, who served as its first teachers. The Rebbe also sent a message to Rabbi Boruch Kaplan "thanking him for making it easier for his boys to find suitable shidduchim (marriage partners)".