Recha Freier (Hebrew: רחה פריאר) born Recha Schweitzer, (October 29, 1892 in Norden, East Frisia – April 2, 1984 in Jerusalem) founded the Youth Aliyah organization in 1933. The organization saved the lives of 7,000 Jewish children by helping them to leave Nazi Germany for Mandatory Palestine before and during the Holocaust.

Recha Freier was also a poet, musician, teacher and social activist.

Recha Schweitzer was born into a Jewish Orthodox family. Her parents were Bertha (née Levy, 1862–1945 in Theresienstadt), a French and English teacher, and Menashe Schweitzer (1856–1929), who taught several subjects at a Jewish primary school. She grew up in a music-loving family and learned to play the piano.

Already as a child Recha Schweitzer was confronted with antisemitism: a notice in Norden's city park stated that "Dogs and Jews are forbidden." In 1897 her family moved to Silesia, where she received home-schooling for a while before attending the lycée in Glogau (now Głogów), where she was mocked by her classmates because she wouldn't write on the Sabbath. Her reaction to the humiliation inflicted upon her had a lifelong impact on her and made her become a full-hearted Zionist.

Recha Schweitzer completed her gymnasial studies in Breslau, passed the exams for teachers of religion, and studied as a graduate student of philology in Breslau and Munich.

In 1919 she married Rabbi Dr. Moritz "Moshe" Freier (1889–1969), with whom she moved to Eschwege, Sofia, and finally in 1925 to Berlin, where her husband worked as a rabbi. Their sons Shalhevet, Ammud and Zerem were born in 1920, 1923 and 1926 respectively, and their daughter Ma'ayan in 1929. During this time, in addition to her family obligations, Recha Freier worked as a teacher at a German high school in Sofia, and as a writer and folklorist.

In 1932, one year before the Nazi seizure of power, Recha Freier was asked by her husband to assist five Jewish teenage boys who were denied professional training and employment due to their Jewish background. After turning first to the Jewish Employment Agency, who could only counsel patience, she conceived the idea that the boys instead could be sent to Palestine, where they could be trained as farmers in the Jewish workers' settlements. By the end of 1932, the first group of youth left Berlin with the help of funds donated by Wilfrid Israel to Freier. This proved to be the beginning of the Youth Aliyah. "The utter senselessness of Jewish life in the Diaspora stood palpably before my eyes", she wrote. After that she strove incessantly to save the Jewish youth of Germany.

The difficulties which Recha Freier faced were immense. Jewish organizations and parents were skeptical about the plan to send children alone to a distant country. In January 1933, Recha Freier founded in Berlin the Committee for the Assistance of Jewish Youth or Youth Aliyah (Hilfskomitee für Jüdische Jugend), which was recognized by the World Zionist Congress but which at that stage received no financial support. Recha Freier contacted the labor movement in Palestine, as well as Henrietta Szold, the founder of Hadassah, who had at her disposal the support, financial and otherwise, of American Jewry. Freier asked Szold to take charge of the teenagers after their arrival in Palestine. Szold initially opposed the plan, finding it unfeasible, but eventually accepted the role offered to her by Freier and thus become the director of Youth Aliyah's Jerusalem office.