Hailed by local newspapers as “the battling belle of Detroit,” Myra Wolfgang went from staging sit-ins to becoming International Vice President of the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Union.
Despite her short life, suffragist Ida Ginsburg made an impact on her community as founding president of the Jewish Women’s Club of Temple Beth El, which became the Detroit chapter of the National Council of Jewish Women.
The first woman to argue a case before the Michigan Supreme Court, Henrietta Elizabeth Rosenthal later found her niche as a brilliant researcher, able to quickly lay hands on obscure law precedents.
A dedicated lawyer who fought sexism and anti-Semitism, Regine Freund Cohane also had the unique distinction of being half of the first married couple to try a case before the US Supreme Court.
As a police officer and a lawyer, Ida Lippman influenced criminal justice both in America and in Korea, where she helped organize the women’s division of the Seoul police force.
As an early proponent of the Lamaze method, Flora Suhd Hommel helped normalize natural childbirth through the Childbirth Without Pain Education Association (CWPEA).
Opera singer Emma Lazaroff Schaver was profoundly affected by giving concerts to Holocaust survivors in displaced persons camps, an experience that shaped the rest of her life.
Computer scientist Kira Radinsky earned a reputation for predicting the future when she developed technology that could anticipate cholera outbreaks and student riots based on data in old newspapers.
Through her YouTube channel and reality TV show, Jazz Jennings is working to increase public understanding and acceptance of transgender teens like herself.
After her impassioned plea that black lives matter ignited the internet, Alicia Garza helped lead the movement that has transformed the modern struggle for civil rights.
As the first woman rabbi to be ordained in Germany since the Holocaust, Alina Treiger has cultivated the kind of progressive Judaism that had been the pride of German Jews before World War II.
The first woman rabbi in France, Pauline Bebe has worked to reach out to addicts, HIV-positive people, and others who often struggle to find an inclusive community.
The first female congregational rabbi to serve in Israel, Kinneret Shiryon went on to establish Kehillat Yozma, the first non-Orthodox congregation to receive funding from the state.
In 2015, Denise Eger became the first openly gay president of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, the professional organization for Reform rabbis.
Jill Jacobs, the executive director of T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights, has pushed for Jews to take an active role in social justice, from supporting health care and environmental reform to condemning torture and human rights violations.
Jill Hammer co-founded the Kohenet Hebrew Priestess Institute to offer women alternative ways of connecting with Jewish tradition by focusing on the sacredness of the body and the earth.
Emma Nuschi Plank’s multidisciplinary approach to child development helped doctors, teachers, psychologists, and social workers find a common language to work together.
Two years after psychologist Betty Berzon came out as a lesbian in 1971, she won the fight to have the American Psychiatric Association declassify homosexuality as a mental illness.
The bestselling author of multiple books on Neopaganism, feminism, and peaceful political advocacy, Starhawk helped shape the resurgence of Goddess worship in the West.
By curating stock photos of women in settings from construction sites to the boardroom, Pam Grossman has helped Getty Images change the perception of women in the media.