Creation of New York Female Hebrew Benevolent Society

March 15, 1820

On March 15, 1820, just a year after Rebecca Gratz established the country's first Female Hebrew Benevolent Society in Philadelphia, Richa Levy led a group of women that established a Female Hebrew Benevolent Society at New York's Shearith Israel congregation. At that time, Shearith Israel was the only synagogue in New York City.

Although women had long been involved in individual acts of generosity toward their neighbors in need, the Female Hebrew Benevolent Society hoped to work collectively as an organized body "for relief of indigent females and their families." As Richa Levy, the first director of the Society, wrote to synagogue trustees, the Society's primary focus was on helping impoverished women, but they hoped also to "occasionally give assistance to families whose situation may render them objects of charity."

In order to raise funds for their charity, the women of Shearith Israel gained permission to receive "offerings" at synagogue services. In addition, they augmented their funds by holding dinner-dances at which men spoke of the Society's goals between a dinner and festive dancing. One such ball, on December 2, 1847, raised $1,350 for the Society.

The Society was formally incorporated in 1854, at which time its purpose was defined as "to afford the aged and indigent female members of said congregation a comfortable residence, support, employment, medical and other necessary care." In 1870, the Society merged with the formally all-male Hebrew Relief Society, and ceased to exist as an independent organization.

See also: Rebecca Gratz in History Makers and Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia.

Source: David and Tamar de Sola Pool, An Old Faith in the New World: Portrait of Shearith Israel, 1654-1954 (New York, 1955).

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Judith Kaplan celebrates first American Bat Mitzvah ceremony

March 18, 1922

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"No thunder sounded. No lightening struck," recalled Judith Kaplan Eisenstein of her history-making 1922 Bat Mitzvah ceremony, the first in America. She is pictured here at her second Bat Mitzvah ceremony, where she was honored by a number of prominent Jewish women, including Betty Friedan and Letty Cottin Pogrebin.

Institution: The Ira and Judith Kaplan Eisenstein Reconstructionist Archives, Reconstructionist Rabbinical College

Judith Kaplan, at age 12, became the first American to celebrate a Bat Mitzvah on March 18, 1922. Judith was the oldest daughter of Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan, the founder of Reconstructionist Judaism. Believing that girls should have the same religious opportunities as their brothers, Rabbi Kaplan arranged for his daughter to read Torah on a Shabbat morning at his synagogue, the Society for the Advancement of Judaism.

The Kaplan Bat Mitzvah marked a turning point for Conservative Judaism in America. Always torn between tradition and modernity, the movement struggled for many decades with women's roles in the synagogue. Judith Kaplan herself did not read from the Torah scroll, as modern Bat Mitzvah celebrants do; instead, she read a passage in Hebrew and English from a printed Chumash (the first five books of the Bible) after the regular Torah service. Still, Rabbi Kaplan's innovation gained followers. By 1948, about a third of Conservative congregations had conducted Bat Mitzvah ceremonies. By the 1960s, Bat Mitzvah was a regular feature of Conservative congregational life; today it is a mainstay in synagogues from Reform to Modern Orthodox.

After her ground-breaking Bat Mitzvah, Kaplan Eisenstein (she married Ira Eisenstein who became Kaplan's successor in leading the Reconstructionist movement) went on to a successful career in Jewish music. After studying at the Institute of Musical Art (now the Julliard School) in New York, she attended the Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS) Teachers Institute and Columbia University's Teachers College, where she earned an M.A. in music education in 1932. She later earned a Ph.D. in the School of Sacred Music at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion (HUC-JIR).

Kaplan Eisenstein taught music pedagogy and the history of Jewish music at JTS, HUC-JIR, and the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College for many years. She also created the first Jewish songbook for children, Gateway to Jewish Song (1937). Her other published works include Festival Songs (1943) and Heritage of Music: The Music of the Jewish People (1972). In 1987, she created and broadcasted a 13-hour radio series on the history of Jewish music. In 1992, at age 82, Kaplan Eisenstein celebrated a second Bat Mitzvah, surrounded by leaders of the modern Jewish feminist movement. This time, she read from a Torah scroll. Kaplan Eisenstein died on February 14, 1996.

To learn more about Judith Kaplan Eisenstein, visit Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia.

See also: JWA's Go & Learn lesson plan "Taking Risks, Making Change: Bat Mitzvah and Other Evolving Traditions"; "Bat Mitzvah Revolutions and Evolutions", Jewesses with Attitude; Highlighted Judiths; Conservative Judaism in the United States.

Sources: Jewish Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia, pp. 126-128, 370-371; New York Times, March 19, 1992, February 15, 1996.

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Writer Grace Paley arrested at Vietnam protest

March 19, 1970

On March 19, 1970, writer and activist Grace Paley was arrested with 181 other individuals for protesting the Vietnam draft in an act of mass civil disobedience. It was neither the first nor the last time she would be arrested for social protest. Acclaimed for her short stories, Paley is also well known for her activism in a range of social causes.

Born in New York in 1922 to Ukrainian socialist parents, Paley was raised in a family committed to social change. Both her parents had been arrested in Ukraine for participating in workers' demonstrations. However, by the time Paley was born, they were comfortably middle-class thanks to her father's successful medical practice. Paley herself became involved in politics as an extension of her work with the Parent-Teacher Associations at her children's schools.

Beginning with local activism, Paley came to make connections between local and national and, increasingly, global concerns. In the 1960s, hers was a prominent voice in the feminist movement. In that decade and the next, she was also a key figure in the antiwar movement. The New York Times described her as the "stage director" of the 1970 New York City draft board protests. In 1978, she was arrested with three other writers for unfurling a banner reading "No Nuclear Weapons—No Nuclear Power—U.S. or U.S.S.R." on the White House lawn. She also made a series of controversial trips to North Vietnam (1969), Chile (1972), and the Soviet Union (1973). Her commitment to visiting world trouble spots to call for peace continued with visits to Nicaragua and El Salvador in 1985 and to Israel in 1987.

While engaged in public activism, Paley was also writing. Her first short story collection, Little Disturbances of Man, was published in 1959. A reviewer praised the volume for its "all-too-infrequent literary virtue—the comic vision." A second collection, Enormous Changes at the Last Minute, appeared in 1974. This collection was more explicitly political, containing stories about Vietnam protests, abused runaway teens, and a subway tragedy. Later the Same Day, Paley's third story collection, appeared in 1985. She has also published three volumes of poetry and a book of essays, articles, and lectures. In all her writing, political concerns are mixed with personal ones, as her characters and narrators struggle to work out both domestic and national power struggles and find their own roads to happiness.

Paley's work has received critical acclaim from the very beginning. After the success of Little Disturbances of Man, she won a Guggenheim Fellowship (1961) and a National Endowment for the Arts Award (1966). These were followed by a National Institute of Arts and Letters award for short story writing (1970) and a PEN/Faulkner Prize for fiction (1986). She taught for 22 years (1966-1988) at Sarah Lawrence College, and has also taught at Columbia, NYU, Syracuse University, and Dartmouth. Paley died in August 2007 at the age of 84.

To learn more about Grace Paley, visit We Remember and Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia.

See also: This Week in History for December 11, 1922, "The Birth of Grace Paley"; "Thinking of Grace" and "Remembering Grace Paley", Jewesses with Attitude.

Sources: Jewish Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia, pp. 1026-1029; New York Times, 19 April 1959, 20 March 1970, 2 February 1979, 19 April 1998; The Guardian (London), 30 October 2004; Jewish Women's Archive remembrance by Annelise Orleck, jwa.org/weremember/paley.

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Elena Kagan confirmed by U.S. Senate as first woman Solicitor General of the United States

March 19, 2009

On March 19, 2009, the U.S. Senate confirmed Elena Kagan as Solicitor General of the United States. By a 61 to 31 vote, Kagan became the first woman Solicitor General in U.S. history.

Kagan studied history at Princeton University, earned a Masters of Philosophy at Oxford and her law degree Magna Cum Laude at Harvard in 1986, where she was the supervising editor of the Harvard Law Review. She began her academic career at the University of Chicago Law School in 1991, becoming a full professor in 1995. She served on the faculty appointments committee and earned the graduating students' award for teaching excellence in 1993.

From 1995 to 1999 Kagan served in the White House as Associate Counsel to President Clinton, then as Deputy Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy. She was Deputy Director of the Domestic Policy Council from 1997 to 1999, where she played an important role in the executive branch's formulation, advocacy, and implementation of law and policy in a number of areas. In 1999, Elena Kagan returned to Harvard and in 2003 she became the Charles Hamilton Houston Professor of Law and Dean of Harvard Law School. During her six-year deanship, Kagan oversaw impressive growth, including a reform of the curriculum, an expansion of the faculty, a major public service initiative, and the design and construction of a new building.

She also published a number of important books, including Presidential Administration (2001) and Private Speech, Public Purpose: The Role of Governmental Motive in First Amendment Doctrine (1996).

In July 2009, Martha Minow succeeded Elena Kagan as Dean of Harvard Law School becoming the second Jewish woman to hold that position.

See also: This Week in History for July 1, 2009, "Martha Minow appointed Dean of Harvard Law School"; Nina Totenberg’s December 2009 profile of Elena Kagan on National Public Radio, "Solicitor General Holds Views Close To Her Chest".

Sources: "Elena Kagan named next dean of Harvard Law School" Harvard University Gazette, April 3, 2003; www.law.harvard.edu/news/spotlight/public-service/elena-kagan-.html; www.law.harvard.edu/faculty/directory/index.html?id=112.

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