זה היה חלקה בבניין הארץ- שיינדל קצנלסון-פיינשטיין- הגננת העברייה הראשונה בעיר לודז

The article focuses on the life story of Scheindel Katzenelson-Feinstein, who was the first Hebrew kindergarten teacher in Lodz (Poland) and later murdered in the Holocaust. Katzenelson-Feinstein was a student in the first class of Itzhak Alterman’s Seminar for Hebrew Kindergarten Teachers in Warsaw, where her studies included, the theory of the father of European kindergartens, the German educator Friedrich Froebel. The kindergarten she founded was of a network of Hebrew educational institutions owned by the Katzenelson family, an enterprise that began before World War I and ended in 1939. The family members of this family dedicated themselves for raising a generation of Hebrew-speaking Jewish children in the Diaspora with a solid Jewish-Zionist identity, a mission that was successful until Holocaust put an end to it. Katzenelson-Feinstein’s kindergarten was not only an educational pioneer, in practice but also in writing for the young kindergarten children. She met a fertile ground ready for the creation of wide and varied Hebrew works, the first of their kind for prereading age. These works were the direct result of a unique collaboration between Katzenelson-Feinstein and her brother, the famous poet Yitzhak Katzenelson. The article portrays the nature and character of this pioneer kindergarten teacher and examines her work in the context of the historical processes and the educational and literary trends of her time. Additionally, it observes the educational activity of some of the next generation of the Katzenelson family who emigrated to Israel before the destruction of European Jewry and became leading educators in the Kibbutz Movement.