The Rebellion of the Daughters: Jewish Women Runaways in Habsburg Galicia by Rachel Manekin (review)

Between 1873 and 1914, over 300 Jewish adolescent girls from Orthodox or Hasidic families in Habsburg Galicia disappeared from their homes on the eve of arranged marriages, seeking refuge in Kraków's Felician Sisters' Convent. Most converted to Roman Catholicism and married gentiles. Rachel Manekin's monograph explains this phenomenon as a response to late nineteenth-century Austrian legal reforms mandating four years of schooling for girls, which exposed them to secular knowledge while their male counterparts received primarily religious training. This 'Daughters’ Question' created tension between traditional Jewish norms and modernizing influences. The study also highlights the role of Habsburg legal loopholes allowing minors aged 14+ to convert independently, a framework that ended with the collapse of the monarchy and the advent of Beis Yaakov schools in Kraków, which offered religious training for girls while discouraging higher education.

(Ed.). (2021). The Rebellion of the Daughters: Jewish Women Runaways in Habsburg Galicia by Rachel Manekin (review). AJS Review: The Journal of the Association for Jewish Studies, 45(2), 507–509. https://doi.org/10.1353/ajs.2021.0082