Desks, blackboards, and lockers were gone at Baltimore’s Bais Yaakov Eva Winer High School. In their place — a dazzling celebration of the greatest women in Tanach,
Since May 2016 when 24 11th- and 12th-graders were elected to co-chair the triennial exhibit at Bais Yaakov Eva Winer High School of Baltimore the student body worked feverishly to convert an entire floor of their school into a museum. Under the tutelage of principal Rabbi Yechezkel Zweig and the direction of exhibit coordinator Mrs. Elise Wolf and student heads Daniella Attar and Elka Schwartz thousands upon thousands of hours of hard work finally paid off in January 2017 when visitors from Baltimore and beyond — including busloads of out-of-town students — enjoyed their guided tours.
From the moment they left the second-floor school stairway and stepped into the Aishes Chayil Hallway — the entrance to the “Guardians of Glory: A Celebration of Women in Tanach” exhibit — visitors were mesmerized by an ingenious multimedia celebration of our great forebearers.
The exhibit begins in the Eishes Chayil vestibule the perfect frame for the journey on which we are about to embark. The Midrash Shocher Tov explains that each pasuk of Eishes Chayil parallels a different woman in Tanach who helped her husband family and Klal Yisrael as she served Hashem. Elaborately decorated this vestibule — introduced by a dioramic Shabbos dining room — is an inspiration for the hundreds of women and girls who walk through admiring the exquisite handiwork.
“Eishes Chayil is also compared to Shabbos and Torah” notes co-hallway head Yehudis Markowitz referring to the diorama. “The seforim shelves represent Torah and the Shabbos table is lit by a chandelier made out of pearls because an eishes chayil is compared to pearls. Just like a pearl is rare and takes a long time to grow and develop an eishes chayil doesn’t develop overnight.”
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