Jewish women in the Habsburg Monarchy experienced the stresses and strains of nineteenth- and twentieth-century Jewish life as Jews, as women of their particular social classes, and as inhabitants of the different regions of the Monarchy. In some regions, they modernized and acculturated, but the overwhelming majority remained deeply pious, traditional Jews.

Helene Deutsch was mentored by Sigmund Freud and was the first psychoanalyst to write a book on female psychology. In the 1920s she emerged as one of the most successful teachers in the history of psychoanalysis and in 1924 she became the first woman to head a psychoanalytic clinic.

Though she began her career in publishing at liberal Jewish journals, Midge Decter became a prominent neoconservative in the 1970s, famous for her attacks on the women’s liberation movement. By the 1980s, Decter turned to foreign policy and became a vocal Cold Warrior opposed to the Soviet Union because of the threat it posed to the United States and Israel.