Rosa Jaffe

Born in Bristovka, near Yekaterinoslav, Russian Empire (today in Ukraine), Rosa Shoshana Jaffe (Yaffe, Yoffe) received her primary education at home and her secondary education at a Russian gymnasium. Subsequently, she studied sciences at Montpellier University in France. Upon her return to the Russian Empire, she became a teacher in a girls’ school. In 1892, she immigrated to Palestine, settling in Tiberias. The following year, she moved to Jaffa to head the new Alliance Israélite Universelle girls’ school there. Caught up in disagreements between the Alliance and members of Ḥibat Tsiyon (who helped finance the school) over whether French or Hebrew should be the primary language of instruction, Jaffe sided with the Hebraists. Under her direction, the school became among the first to provide general education in Hebrew, making it a forerunner of the modern Hebrew educational system in Palestine. Jaffe left the Alliance school in 1904 and purchased a farm in Yavne’el in the Galilee. She participated actively in the settlement’s local administrative committee until her death from anthrax poisoning.