RABINOWICH, SARAH

RABINOWICH, SARAH (Sonia ; married name–Margolin ; 1880–1918), publicist, daughter of S.P. *Rabbinowitz. Born in Berezin, province of Minsk, Sarah graduated in Germany in 1902 as a doctor of social sciences, her thesis dealing with the organization of the Jewish working class in Russia. In 1903 she was sent to Galicia on behalf of women's organizations against white slavery, and together with Bertha *Pappenheim she wrote a study on the situation of Galician Jewry and possible steps towards an improvement of its social conditions. During 1904–05 she organized illegal political activities by workers against the military in Odessa and was arrested. Released after a short time, she left for Germany where she continued her political and publicistic work, writing in Russian, German, and Yiddish. In her writings Rabinowich showed a special interest in the Jewish working class in Russia, the women's question within Jewry, Jewish education, and statistics. Her published works include "Zur Lage des juedischen Proletariats in Mohilew am Dnjepr," in: Die Welt (15.8.1902), no. 33:6–7 (Aug. 22,1902), no. 34, 4–6 (an extract of her Ph.D. thesis); "The Life of the Trade and Handcraft Classes in the Representation of Peretz," in: Yevreyski Mir (1909, 69–79); "On the Jewish Question within Jewry," in: Yevreyski Mir (1909); "On the Question of the Training of Jewish Female Teachers," in: Vestnik obshchestva rasprostraneniya prosveshcheniya mezhdu evreyami v Rossii (1911), no. 5, 28–46); "Die Heiraten von Juden im Europaeischen Russland vom Jahre 1867 bis 1902," in: Zeitschrift fuer Demographie und Statistik der Juden (5 (1909), nos. 10, 11, 12); "Die Heiraten von Juden in Russisch-Polen," ibid. (6 (1910), no. 4, 61–64); "Zur Statistik der juedischen Schulen in Russland," ibid. (7 (1911), nos. 9, 121–30); "Zur Bildungsstatistik der juedischen Arbeiter in Rußland," ibid. (9 (1913), no. 11, 153–60). During World War i Sarah was active in the German Independent Labor Party and was again arrested. In a seizure of depression she committed suicide in prison.

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Rabbinowitz, in: Yidishe Shriftn, 3 (1939), 345–6.