From Kindergarten Teacher to Knesset Member

The Fellowship  |  July 26, 2019

Sarah Kafrit

July 26, 1900 – June 1, 1983

Born to a Jewish family in Minsk, Belarus, Sarah Kafrit joined a Zionist group after high school, then made aliyah (immigrated) to her biblical and historic homeland at the age of 20. After studying to be a kindergarten teacher in Tel Aviv, Kafrit worked as a nursery school teacher in the Holy Land. She also helped found Moshav Kfar Yehoshua, served as secretary of the Moshavim Movement, and as an emissary to the U.S. in 1946 and South Africa in 1958.

Between those years, however, she also served as a politician for the nascent Jewish state. Kafrit was elected as a member of the 2nd Knesset (Israel’s parliament), in which she served for eight years, including on Israel’s Committee for Public Services and the Education and Culture Committee. Women like Sarah helped not only to establish the Jewish state, but to raise and teach its citizens as the nation grew and learned along with them.