Founding of Labor Zionist group Pioneer Women

February 1, 1925

Sophie Udin and six other women who had been active in the labor Zionist organization Poale Zion, created the Pioneer Women’s Organization of America on February 1, 1925. The organization was renamed Pioneer Women in 1947 and Na'amat (a Hebrew acronym for "Movement of Working Women and Volunteers") USA in 1981.

Udin and her colleagues had previously attempted to raise money from American women in support of the creation of agricultural schools in Palestine. The male leaders of Poale Zion argued that their organization offered women full equality and that there was no need for a separate women’s organization. The creators of Pioneer Women, however, pointed to Poale Zion’s small number of female members and its domination by male leaders. Moreover, the middle-class orientation of the rapidly expanding Hadassah, founded in 1912, made that organization seem less than welcoming to many immigrant, working-class, and Yiddish-speaking women Zionists. The creators of Pioneer Women believed that a women’s labor Zionist organization would engage immigrant and working women who might otherwise be unable to find a home for their Zionist energies.

Post 1948, the organization focused on helping female pioneers and working women in Israel, largely by raising money for necessities ranging from laundry equipment to wells for irrigating fruit trees. Feminism and class consciousness were also crucial components of the Pioneer Women philosophy. Its leaders stressed the importance of women's contributions to the Zionist enterprise and encouraged each member to become a "coworker in the establishment of a better and more just society in America and throughout the world."

Today, Na'amat works on a wide range of issues relevant to women in Israel, the U.S.A., and internationally, from seeking an end to domestic violence to improving workplace conditions, and from child well-being to peace in the Middle East.

To learn more about Sophie Udin, visit Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia.

See also: Librarians in the United States; Zionism in the United States; Sara Feder-Keyfitz; Mexico.

Sources:Jewish Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia, pp. 1071-1077; www.naamat.org; Shulamit Reinharz and Mark A. Raider, eds. American Jewish Women and the Zionist Enterprise (2005), pp. 114-132; www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm/bay/search.summary/orgid/6033.htm.

Rae D. Landy Arrives in Jerusalem

February 2, 1913

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Hadassah nurses Rachel Landy and Rose Kaplan with Eva Leon, Jerusalem, 1913

Rae D. Landy was an early recruit to Hadassah’s district nursing service in Jerusalem, Mandate Palestine and later rose through the ranks of the American Army Nurse Corps to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. Born in Lithuania, Rachel D. Landy (1885-1952), nick-named “Rae,” was one of seven children born to Rabbi Jacob and Eva Landy. In 1888, the family immigrated to Cleveland, OH.

In 1904, Rae graduated with the first class of nursing students sponsored by the Jewish Women’s Hospital Association (precursor to Mount Sinai Hospital) in Cleveland. She became an assistant superintendent at Harlem Hospital in New York in 1911, where she was recruited by Henrietta Szold, the intrepid Hadassah founder. The 28-year-old arrived in Mandate Palestine on February 2, 1913.

In Palestine, Landy and fellow nurse Rose Kaplan started a district visiting nurse program for immigrants suffering from malaria, typhoid, and dysentery. From two rooms they rented on the outskirts of the Old City of Jerusalem, Landy and Kaplan launched a clinic and nurse’s settlement house where young Jerusalem girls received training in nursing, first aid, and hygiene. When Hadassah suspended its activities during the First World War, Landy returned home to the United States.

Upon her return in 1918, Landy entered the United States Army Nurse Corps. She served in Germany, Belgium, France, and the Phillipines. She continued an illustrious career with the Army Nurse Corps, and in 1944 was named Chief of Nurses at Crile General Hospital in Cleveland. Until her death on March 5, 1952, Landy worked with the Cleveland Red Cross and recruited nurses for Mount Sinai Hospital. She is buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

To learn more about Rae D. Landy, visit Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia.

See also: Hadassah in the United States; Jewish Women "On the Map" - Mount Sinai Hospital.

Sources: http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/landy-rae-d

Judge Justine Wise Polier retires

February 3, 1973

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Building on the legacy of her parents, labor activist and rabbi Stephen Wise and social reformer Louise Waterman Wise, Justine Wise Polier spent four decades on the New York City Family Court working for the rights of children before retiring on February 3, 1973.

Born on April 12, 1903, Polier studied at Bryn Mawr College and Radcliffe College before graduating from Barnard College. After graduation, she sought work in the textile mills of Passaic, NJ, wanting to be involved in the lives of workers struggling for union recognition. To avoid association with the pro-labor views of her famous father, she used her mother's maiden name. When her identity was discovered, she was fired and blacklisted, because mill owners feared she would put her father's pro-union sentiments into action.

Heeding her father's advice to seek social justice through the law, Polier entered Yale University Law School in 1925. At Yale, she was elected to an honorary society and became an editor of the Yale Law Journal. She also became deeply involved in a strike in Passaic, earning the epithet "Joan of Arc of the mills."

Beginning in 1929, Polier held a series of positions with the Workman's Compensation Division of the New York State Department of Labor. In 1935, New York City Mayor Fiorello La Guardia appointed her to a judgeship in the city's domestic relations court (which later became the family court). She thus became the first woman judge above the level of magistrate in the state and the youngest municipal judge in the country. Fearing she was being "kicked upstairs" in order to silence her outspoken criticism of municipal services, Polier originally told La Guardia that she would sit on the court for one year. That one year stretched into 38.

Polier was known for her judicial activism. Always concerned with social justice, she worked with others on the family court to fight racial and religious discrimination, and sought to turn the juvenile justice system into a tool of treatment rather than punishment. Attentive to the findings of social and behavioral sciences, Polier turned her court into the center of a web of cooperation between the legal system, families, and a network of social service organizations. Notably, she helped to develop the concept of the "best interests" of the child as a foundation for legal decision-making. Also notable was her ruling in the Skipwith case (1958-61), which determined that the state was responsible for de facto segregation in the Harlem public schools.

Polier was as active in social justice off the bench as on it. As vice president of the American Jewish Congress, she helped steer that organization towards activism on behalf of racial minorities. She helped to found the Citizens Committee for Children, an advocacy group, and collaborated with Eleanor Roosevelt to create the Wiltwyck School for emotionally disturbed children.

Polier was originally scheduled to retire in 1974, but stepped down a year early in order to become the director of the Juvenile Justice Division of the Children's Defense Fund, monitoring juvenile detention policies across the United States. She told reporters at the time that her decision was fueled by changes in federal welfare laws and by President Nixon's 1972 veto of the Comprehensive Child Development bill, which would have provided a comprehensive range of services for children regardless of their parents' economic status. She also wanted to combat institutional racism in the agencies that served troubled children.

When Polier died in 1987, she left a legacy of profound commitment to the welfare of all children, an expanded tradition of judicial activism, and a host of organizations and individuals transformed by her work.

To learn more about Justine Wise Polier, visit Women of Valor or Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia.

See also: Justine Wise Polier poster ; “Jeanne D’Arc of the Mills,” New York Journal, March 1926, Primary Sources & Lesson Plans; Justine Wise Polier in the Virtual Archive.

Sources:jwa.org/exhibits/wov/wise; Jewish Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia, pp. 1089-1091; New York Times, 3 February 1973, 2 August 1987.

Secretary of State Madeleine Albright reveals her Jewish origins

February 3, 1997

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Madeleine Albright was the first female U.S. Secretary of State.

Less than two weeks after Madeleine Albright was sworn in as the first female U.S. Secretary of State, investigations by the Washington Post revealed that Albright's parents were born Jewish. Albright made the story public in an Associated Press interview on February 3, 1997.

Although three of Madeleine Albright's grandparents had been murdered as Jews during the Holocaust, she had been raised by her parents as a Catholic. Albright joined the Episcopal Church at her marriage.

Albright's parents had fled Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia for Britain during the Second World War. Returning home, Albright's father became a Czech ambassador, but the family fled again when the Czech government fell to a Communist coup. Like some other Holocaust refugees, Albright's parents felt it safer to remain Christians even after they were granted asylum in the U.S. in 1949. According to Albright, they never told their daughter their full story.

The uncovering of Albright's origins initiated an extended public debate. Albright had indicated that her inbred knowledge of the true threat of totalitarian regimes was an important element of her understanding of the contemporary world. Many commentators questioned how someone as sensitive to history as Albright could have been as incurious as she had seemed to be about evidence pointing to her family's origins.

Madeleine Albright's installation as President Bill Clinton's Secretary of State on January 23, 1997 followed a four-year stint as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

While serving as Secretary of State, Albright kept the U.S. actively engaged in the international arena. During her term, she brokered peace in Kosovo, presided over the expansion of NATO, secured U.S. ratification of the Chemical Weapons Convention, and traveled to 91 countries over four years. As Secretary of State, she displayed a toughness of character and bluntness of speech that supporters applauded even as critics charged that these qualities alienated allies.

Albright served as Secretary of State until the end of Clinton's Presidency in January, 2001. Albright is currently the Mortara Distinguished Professor of Diplomacy at Georgetown University. The author of many books, Albright's most recent works include Memo to the President Elect: How We Can Restore America's Reputation and Leadership (2008) and Read My Pins: Stories from a Diplomat's Jewel Box (2009).

Sources:Washington Post, February 5, 1997, February 9, 1997; New York Times, September 22, 1996, January 23, 1997, February 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 12, 13, 19, 26, 1997; Los Angeles Times, December 24, 2000; National Women's Hall of Fame, www.greatwomen.org/women.php?action=viewone&id=7.

Rebecca Gratz founds first Jewish Sunday School

February 4, 1838

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Born into privilege in Philadelphia shortly after American independence, Rebecca Gratz was responsible for establishing and running a number of Jewish organizations in her native city, including the Female Hebrew Benevolent Society (1819) and the Hebrew Sunday School (1838). A strong believer in American religious freedom, she nonetheless felt that Jews had a responsibility to be knowledgeable about their own faith.

Institution: American Jewish Historical Society

Drawing upon an established network of Jewish women communal workers in Philadelphia, Rebecca Gratz presided over the establishment of the first Jewish Sunday School on February 4, 1838.

Taking its cue from the Christian Sunday School movement, the Philadelphia Hebrew Sunday School Society offered a new and long-lived model of Jewish education. While Gratz prized the religious freedom available to Jews in the United States, she also believed that American Jews could best earn the respect of the Christian majority by being knowledgeable and observant. To that end, the Hebrew Sunday School offered weekly classes free of charge to both boys and girls from early childhood to the early teens.

In addition to educating Philadelphia's Jewish youth, the Hebrew Sunday School provided Jewish women with an unprecedented role in the public education of Jewish children. Staffed by local women, the school offered its own teacher training program and selected its faculty from among its own female graduates. Gratz herself served as the School's superintendent for more than a quarter-century. Philadelphia's most prominent male Jewish leader, Isaac Leeser, publicized the program in his national Jewish periodical and compiled educational textbooks for use in its classes.

Gratz's school was a success almost from the beginning. Over time, it opened branches across Philadelphia; by the end of the nineteenth century, the Hebrew Sunday School had served over 4,000 students. Even more importantly, the Philadelphia school offered a model to women in other cities. Similar schools were soon created in New York; Augusta, Georgia; Savannah; Richmond; Charleston; Baltimore and elsewhere. All of these schools sought guidance from Gratz and her co-workers. Moreover, Sunday School education, as introduced in Philadelphia in 1838, has continued, to this day, to provide the basic structure of supplemental Jewish education in the United States.

To learn more about Rebecca Gratz, visit Women of Valor or Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia.

See Also: Jewish Women "On the Map" - Rosenbach Museum and Library; Rebecca Gratz poster; Letter: Rebecca Gratz to Maria Fenno, 1805, Primary Sources & Lesson Plans; Rebecca Gratz in the Virtual Archive.

Sources:Jewish Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia, pp. 547-550; jwa.org/exhibits/wov/gratz/rg13.html; Dianne Ashton, Rebecca Gratz: Women and Judaism in Antebellum America (1997); Karla Goldman, Beyond the Synagogue Gallery: Finding a Place for Women in American Judaism (2000), pp. 61-63.

Ann F. Lewis appointed National Chair of the Democratic Party's Women's Vote Center

February 4, 2002

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Ann F. Lewis speaking at St Anselms College, NH. Photo copyright Bob Jean, all rights reserved. Used with permission.

Ann F. Lewis was appointed National Chair of the Democratic National Committee's Women's Vote Center on February 4, 2002. The Women's Vote Center is dedicated to educating and mobilizing women voters to help elect more Democrats to office at all levels of government.

Lewis has enjoyed a rich political career both before and after being appointed to this position. She had worked for or advised Boston Mayor Kevin White, Senators Barbara Mikulski and Birch Bayh, and presidential candidate Jesse Jackson. She had also worked as political director of the Democratic National Committee and as director of Americans for Democratic Action. Lewis served in the White House as Director of Communications from 1997-1999 and then as Counselor to President Bill Clinton. She was Director of Communications and Deputy Campaign Manager for the Clinton-Gore Re-Election Campaign in 1995-1996. She also served as Senior Advisor to Hillary Rodham Clinton's U.S. Senate campaign in 2000. Lewis served as Director of Communications for Friends of Hillary, Senator Hillary Clinton's political action committee, and was active as a senior advisor to Hillary Clinton's 2008 campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination. In June 2009, Lewis was honored with the inaugural National Jewish Democratic Council's Belle Moskowitz Award in Washington, D.C.

While at the White House, Lewis co-chaired the President's Commission on the Celebration of Women in American History. She has also served as a member of the Jewish Women's Archive's Board of Directors and as Chair of JWA's Honorary Committee for the Celebration of 350 Years of Jewish Women in North America.

To learn more about Ann F. Lewis, visit Jewish Women and the Feminist Revolution.

See also: "The Belle of the Political Ball" and "Jewish Women and the Democratic National Committee," Jewsses with Attitude.

Sources: Jewish Women and the Feminist Revolution, jwa.org/feminism/index.html?id=JWA049; query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res= 9B0DE3D8123BF93BA1575AC0A961948260.

Founding of Young Women's Hebrew Association in NY

February 6, 1902

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On February 6, 1902, Bella Epstein Unterberg held a meeting in her New York City home to discuss the founding of the first Young Women's Hebrew Association. At the meeting, at which she was unanimously elected president of the new association, a decision was made to establish a sister organization to the YMHA, a community center dedicated to the uplift—both social and spiritual—of young Jewish women.

Institution: 92nd Street Y, New York City

Although an earlier organization of the same name had existed beginning in 1888, the Young Women's Hebrew Association (YWHA) founded in New York City on February 6, 1902 was the first independent YWHA. Earlier organizations of similar focus and name had existed only as auxiliaries to Young Men's Hebrew Associations (YMHAs), which had been founded as early as the 1850s. The new organization, founded at the home and under the leadership of Bella Unterberg, combined religious, social, and cultural recreational activities in a way that redefined the possibilities of Jewish communal life.

Meant to serve the needs of young women, especially working girls, the New York YWHA's synthesis of social and religious aims distinguished it from the YMHA, which sought to bring Jewish men together within a secular Americanized setting. The new YWHA was a great success, recording an attendance of over 21,000 during its first year.

Emphasizing Judaism to a much greater degree than did the YMHA, New York's YWHA included a synagogue on its premises from an early date. The synagogue drew men and women from the neighborhood as well as the Jewish working girls who were the Y's prime constituency. The YWHA also sponsored dancing, athletics, music, and summer camping programs, and inspired a national network of similar institutions, particularly in the Northeast.

Although the YWHAs were pioneers in creating institutions that were true community centers, their success was soon imitated or taken over by other institutions. Numerous synagogues in the 1910s and 1920s remade themselves as “synagogue centers,” incorporating the religious and secular activities first combined by YWHAs. Moreover, most of the existing independent YWHAs lost their autonomy during this same period. In the early 1920s, many YWHAs merged with their local YMHAs, while others were taken over by the Jewish Welfare Board and its local affiliates. Most of these mergers meant the loss of female leadership within these organizations.

Bella Unterberg remained the president of the New York YWHA until 1929 and served as the only woman on the national organizations—the Council of Young Men’s Hebrew and Kindred Associations and the Jewish Welfare Board—that fostered the creation of a Jewish Community Center movement. The New York YWHA resisted the merging trend until 1942 when its activities were transferred to the 92nd Street YMHA. The two organizations formally merged in 1945, as the Young Men’s And Young Women’s Hebrew Association.

Few realize that the vibrant 92nd Street Y, which describes itself as “offer[ing] something for everyone,” as well as Jewish Community Centers around North America, owe much of their vision to the model of the Young Women’s Hebrew Association.

To learn more about the Young Women's Hebrew Association, visit Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia.

See also: Frieda Schiff Warburg.

Source: Jewish Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia, pp. 1536-1540; David Kaufman, Shul with a Pool: The "Synagogue-Center" in American Jewish History (Hanover, NH: 1999); www.92y.org/content/frequently_asked_questions.asp.

Creation of the Women's Rabbinical Alliance

February 8, 1976

On February 8, 1976, 15 female rabbis and rabbinical students from Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion (HUC-JIR) and from the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College gathered "to investigate topics of general concern."

By the end of the meeting, the Women's Rabbinical Alliance (WRA) was born. Though centered in New York and Philadelphia, the early WRA reached out to female rabbinical students on HUC-JIR's Cincinnati and Los Angeles campuses as well. In 1980, the WRA dissolved and was replaced by the Women's Rabbinic Network (WRN). Unlike the original group, the WRN was—and remains—specifically tied to the Reform movement.

Initially, the WRN remained so small that members joked that meetings "could be held in the women's restroom during conventions of the Central Conference of American Rabbis [CCAR, the North American Reform movement's organization for North American rabbis]." In fact, at the 1981 CCAR conference in Jerusalem, the WRN meeting took place at a Turkish bath. Four women were present.

Not surprisingly, many women rabbis faced hostility in filling a historically exclusively male position. The WRN offered an important forum for addressing shared issues and was a critical force in opening formerly all male Reform hierarchies to female participation. It also played a critical role in challenging a professional model for the rabbinate that made little room for the personal realities of women’s lives. WRN helped, for example, to develop standards for maternity leaves within the rabbinate.

Women's growing numbers within the rabbinate (with more than 500 Reform women rabbis since 1972) have meant a greater diversity of age, experience, opinion, and personality in the WRN. Yet the goals of the Network remained essentially the same: to address the particular challenges faced by women in the rabbinate, especially the issue of gaining acceptance in mainstream congregations, and to provide opportunities for discussion among women rabbis. Still firmly tied to the CCAR, WRN has been central in raising issues—such as the role of part-time rabbis or the question of whether Reform rabbis should officiate at same-sex weddings—that are of concern to male as well as female rabbis.

Sources: Balin, Carole B. "From Periphery to Center: A History of the Women's Rabbinic Network," CCAR Journal, Summer 1997, data.ccarnet.org/journal/997db.html; www.religioustolerance.org/hom_jref.htm.

Claudia Dreifus speaks on art of the political interview

February 9, 1999

On February 9, 1999, the National Archives and Records Administration featured a talk at the National Archives by Claudia Dreifus on the art of the political interview. Few journalists could be more qualified to speak on this subject than Dreifus, who has built her career by conducting intriguing interviews.

Born in New York City in 1944, she earned a degree in Dramatic Arts at New York University, and almost immediately went to work as a journalist. Following a ten-year stint as an interviewer for Newsday's Sunday magazine, Dreifus moved in the late 1970s to Playboy, where her interviewees included author Gabriel Garcia Marquez, columnist William Safire, and then-Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega. A move to the New York Times allowed her to continue her work interviewing and writing about cultural and political luminaries.

During her many decades of political reporting, she wrote about conversations with such figures as Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, U.S. General Colin Powell, the Dalai Lama, Burmese democracy activist and political prisoner Aung San Suu Kyi, writers Isaac Bashevis Singer and Toni Morrison, and fellow journalist Dan Rather. Rather once said that Dreifus's interviews were "like playing tennis with Steffi Graf: do your best, and you'll learn a lot; anything less, and she'll pave the court with you."

A new era for Dreifus began in the late 1990s, when she joined the staff of the Times science department as an editor. In this position, Dreifus became well-known as the author of the popular "A Conversation With…" column. Her interviewees for the "Science" section have included Jane Goodall, the biologist who revolutionized animal research by applying anthropology to the study of chimpanzees, and Marie Philbin, an Irish scientist studying the regeneration of nerve cells. Her interviews have been collected and published as Scientific Conversations: Interviews on Science from the New York Times (2001).

Dreifus continues to write regularly for the New York Times. She is also a contributing writer to the New York Times Magazine, and writes for a variety of other publications, including Ms. Magazine, Town and Country, Playboy, and TV Guide. In addition, she is a senior fellow of the World Policy Institute at The New School University, and an adjunct professor at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs.

Sources:www.archives.gov/press/press-releases/1999/nr99-35.html; http://www.worldpolicy.org/wpi/claudia_dreifus.html; cuny.tv/series/jewish350/educational.lasso.

Eve Ensler's "The Vagina Monologues" performed at Madison Square Garden

February 10, 2001

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This image is from a 2006 performance of The Vagina Monologues at Tufts University's Cohen Auditorium. Image by Presta.

The February 10, 2001, performance of Eve Ensler's The Vagina Monologues was cheered by 18,000 men and women at New York City's Madison Square Garden. The event raised $1 million for Ensler's V-Day movement, which works to end violence against women and girls.

The Vagina Monologues, first performed in 1996, won an Obie Award in 1997, and has been translated into over 35 languages and run in theaters all over the world. The play consists of a series of monologues drawn from interviews in which Ensler asked hundreds of women to share their thoughts and feelings about their vaginas. Funny, painful, angry: the monologues run the gamut of emotion, and are told in diverse voices, ranging from a sex worker to a victim of mass rape, a 65-year-old to a young lesbian.

In performing Monologues around the world, Ensler says, she was inspired to create V-Day as a way of working to stop violence against women and girls. In order to draw attention to rape, battery, incest, female genital mutilation, and sexual slavery, annual V-Day events — including performances of Monologues — raise money for the organization, which then distributes it to anti-violence groups around the world. Since its inception in 1998, V-Day has raised more than $50 million. In 2008, V-Day's tenth anniversary was celebrated at the New Orleans Superdome on April 11 and 12. It included an international and star-studded cast performance of The Vagina Monologues and was preceded by two weeks of local activities meant to bring attention and assistance to efforts to help women and girls of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast in rebuilding their lives after Katrina.

To learn more about Eve Ensler, visit Jewish Women and the Feminist Revolution.

See also: "Well-behaved vaginas rarely make history", Jewesses with Attitude.

Sources: www.vday.org; Jewish Women and the Feminist Revolution, jwa.org/feminism/index.html?id=JWA022.

Adlene Harrison becomes first Jewish female big-city mayor

February 11, 1976

On February 11, 1976, Adlene Harrison became the acting mayor of Dallas after the presiding mayor's resignation. She was the first Jewish woman to become mayor of a major American city, as well as the first woman mayor of Dallas. Harrison, who had been a Democratic city councilwoman since 1973 and mayor pro tem, succeeded Wes Wise, who resigned to run for Congress. Harrison served only until the election of a new mayor at the end of the year.

Always an activist for environmental causes, Harrison, while on the city council, had co-sponsored an ordinance to establish a city environmental committee and supported a strict air pollution ordinance. In addition, she was a member of the National League of Cities' Steering Committee for Environmental Quality. As mayor, she continued her work for the environment, as well as encouraging legislation for historic preservation in the city.

Following her tenure as mayor, Harrison was appointed an Environmental Protection Agency regional administrator in 1977, responsible for directing the EPA's anti-pollution efforts in five states. She held this position until 1981, when she became chair of the Dallas Area Rapid Transit Authority Board.

Harrison's other civic involvements have included work on the boards of the Women's Museum, the Women's Center of Dallas, the Dallas Jewish Coalition, the Metropolitan YWCA and the Dallas Arboretum. Harrison has been awarded the Women's Council of Dallas Distinguished Service Award, and Southern Methodist University's Profiles in Leadership Award. In addition, she was awarded a Special Honor Award for furthering the EPA's affirmative action program.

See also: This Week in History for April 18, 1987, "Annette Greenfield Strauss becomes first elected female mayor of Dallas."

Sources:www.dallashistory.org/history/dallas/1970s.htm; www.epa.gov/history/admin/reg06/harrison.htm; www.epa.gov/history/topics/perspect/women.htm; www.smu.edu/newsinfo/releases/00229.html; www.texaslegacy.org/bb/transcripts/harrisonadlenetxt.html.

Los Angeles Council of Jewish Women opens day nursery

February 13, 1913

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On February 13, 1913, the Los Angeles chapter of the National Council of Jewish Women (NCJW) opened a day nursery for the children of working mothers. The nursery was expected to "lighten the burden of mothers who are compelled to labor in the factories, laundries and shops." The children were to be provided with milk, paid for by the ten-cent nursery fee, and any children deemed "unkept" would be bathed and given clean clothes.

Like many such projects, the Los Angeles nursery served two purposes: it aided working women by providing low-cost child care, but it also sought to teach them how to care for their children. To that end, the provision of baths and clothes was seen as an "object lesson" to mothers. These mothers, many probably immigrants, were to be taught American norms of cleanliness and dress.

The nursery project thus reflected broader trends in women's reform work of this period. The National Council of Jewish Women, which had initially focused on preserving Judaism among Americanized women, shifted its focus to social work after debates over proper religious observance split the group at its 1913 convention. In focusing on immigrant aid—including Americanization classes, practical job training, and settlement houses—the women of the NCJW and its Los Angeles chapter joined thousands of others in transferring women's traditional caretaking roles from the home into the broader world.

To learn more about the National Council of Jewish Women, visit Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia.

See also: This Week in History for February 28, 1935, May 9, 1894, September 4, 1893, and November 15, 1896.

Sources:Jewish Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia, pp. 968-979; Los Angeles Times, February 14, 1913; Faith Rogow, Gone to Another Meeting: The National Council of Jewish Women, 1893-1993 (Tuscaloosa, Ala, 1993).

Death of Henrietta Szold

February 13, 1945

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Henrietta Szold, "dressed to explore the countryside of Palestine."
Photo courtesy of Hadassah Archives

Failing health had brought Henrietta Szold, in July 1943, to the Henrietta Szold Nursing School on the grounds of the Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem. Even as she received care, she sustained her interest and involvement in her public activities, and American Hadassah members were kept informed of her condition. She died there on February 13, 1945. Thousands attended her funeral, and a boy from one of the last groups of children rescued from the Nazis by Youth Aliyah, an effort that she had directed, read kaddish, the Jewish mourners' prayer.

Szold is best known as the creator of Hadassah: The Women's Zionist Organization of America (founded February 24, 1912); she also worked strenuously for decades as secretary (meaning translator, indexer, fact checker, proofreader, statistician, administrator, and editor) of the Philadelphia-based Jewish Publication Society. But Szold spent most of the last 25 years of her life in Palestine where she made crucial contributions to the Jewish settlement that would become the state of Israel.

Szold moved to Palestine in 1920, at the age of 59, to take charge of the Hadassah-funded American Zionist Medical Unit, which was attempting to bring modern medical care to the region. She oversaw the transformation of this World War I-era emergency effort into the Hadassah Medical Organization. Emphasizing the health needs of women and children and serving people of all origins and religions, the organization expanded into the creation of milk clinics, food programs, a nursing school, and Hadassah Hospital.

Although always supported by Hadassah, Szold found new roles beyond the organization's continued focus on medical care. Chosen in 1927, as a member of the three-person international Zionist executive committee overseeing Jewish life in Palestine, Szold worked to create systematic frameworks for the provision of medical and educational services. In 1931, elected to the Jewish settlement's National Council, she created, from scratch, the basis for a national system of social welfare.

The last major effort of Szold's career, beginning in 1933, was her leadership of Youth Aliyah. In this role, she oversaw a massive effort to secure the departure of 11,000 Jewish youth from Germany and other nations threatened by the Nazis, and to arrange for their education and care within Jewish agricultural settlements in Palestine. Szold tried to meet every arriving transport and took a personal interest in the placement and situation of each child. This work absorbed her into her 84th year.

Szold remains revered for her impact, as the founder of Hadassah, in reshaping American Zionism and in radically expanding public identities for American Jewish women. It is remarkable that in addition, we can point to Henrietta Szold as largely responsible for the healthcare, educational, and social welfare infrastructure that defined Israel at its founding in 1948.

To learn more about Henrietta Szold, visit Women of Valor and Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia.

See also: This Week in History for February 24, 1912, July 28, 1893, December 21, 1935; Henrietta Szold poster; Jewish Women On the Road; Go & Learn: Primary Documents and Lesson Plans, "Henrietta Szold on Saying Kaddish"; "Henrietta Szold: Travel and Transformation", Jewesses with Attitude.

Sources: jwa.org/exhibits/wov/szold/; Joan Dash, Summoned to Jerusalem: The Life of Henrietta Szold (NY, 1979); Marian Greenberg, There is Hope for Your Children: Youth Aliyah, Henrietta Szold, and Hadassah (Hadassah, www.hadassah.org; Jewish Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia, pp. 1368-1373.

Hannah Arendt's "Eichmann in Jerusalem" appears in "The New Yorker"

February 16, 1963

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Original, controversial and daring, the philosophical works of Hannah Arendt divided Jewish thinkers but left an indelible mark on sociopolitical theory in the twentieth century. She is pictured here at a Hillel symposium at the University of Maryland in 1965.

Institution: American Jewish Historical Society

When Hannah Arendt published her first article about Adolf Eichmann's war crimes trial in The New Yorker in its February 16, 1963 issue, she was already a well-known political philosopher with a successful career and several books to her name. Born in Germany in 1906, Arendt studied theology and philosophy at the University of Marburg, where Martin Heidegger was on the faculty, and at the University of Heidelberg, where she completed a dissertation on St. Augustine.

Living amidst the political turmoil of Europe greatly shaped Arendt's studies and interests. Arendt shifted her focus away from theology to the rising anti-Semitism permeating the German polity in the 1930s. She began a study of the Enlightenment-era Jewish salon hostess Rachel Varnhagen, eventually published in 1958, in an attempt to understand the position of Jews within German culture and society. Arendt also became involved in the German Zionist Organization in 1933 and worked to bring Nazi atrocities to global attention. Arrested for investigating anti-Semitic propaganda, she befriended a Berlin jailer who enabled her escape.

Fleeing to Paris, Arendt worked with Youth Aliyah to help rescue Jewish children from the Third Reich by bringing them to Palestine. While in Paris, Arendt met her second husband and both were sent to internment camps in southern France. In 1941, both were able to reach America and reunite with Arendt's mother.

Once in America, Arendt began publishing political commentary and philosophy in journals such as Jewish Frontier and Partisan Review. After the war, Columbia historian Salo W. Baron put Arendt in charge of a program called Jewish Cultural Reconstruction, which was intended to recover and restore lost and damaged Jewish archives and cultural markers. The publication of her book, The Origins of Totalitarianism, in 1951, made Arendt an intellectual celebrity as America, searching for answers to the horrors of World War II, careened into the Cold War. The Origins of Totalitarianism sought to explain the rise and appeal of both Hitler and Stalin and the nature of the societies created under their rule. Over the following decade, she published three more books: The Human Condition (1958); Rahel Varnhagen: The Life of a Jewish Woman (1958); and Between Past and Future (1961).

In 1961, The New Yorker sent Arendt to Jerusalem to cover the trial of Adolf Eichmann, who had been captured the previous year by Israeli security forces. The articles she wrote for the magazine were later expanded and published, in 1963, as Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil. In the articles and the book, Arendt argued that Eichmann, the "father" of Hitler's "final solution," was no monster, but rather an ordinary man following orders and trying to advance his bureaucratic career. She asserted that even the evil of the Holocaust came from everyday thoughtlessness and the failure of ordinary people to take responsibility for their own actions. She called this condition "the banality of evil." In addition, Arendt suggested that, within the corrupted moral universe created by Nazi rule, local Jewish councils appointed by the Nazis bore some responsibility for the deaths of the six million, because of their partial collaboration. These assertions created a storm of commentary and criticism around the book, which remains Arendt's most controversial work.

Until her death in 1975, Arendt continued to write, often focusing on the problem of evil and the challenges of modernity. Among her later works were On Revolution and Men in Dark Times (both 1968). The Jew as Pariah: Jewish Identity and Politics in the Modern Age and The Life of the Mind were published posthumously, in 1978. She also wrote for the New York Review of Books, criticizing the U.S. intervention in Vietnam and the associated abuses of executive power. In addition, Arendt taught at Princeton University, where she was the first woman to become a full professor, at the University of Chicago, at Wesleyan University, and at the New School for Social Research. During her lifetime, she was one of the country's most well-known intellectuals; her work remains influential in the fields of political theory and philosophy.

To learn more about Hannah Arendt, visit Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia.

See also: Jewish Women "On the Map" - Hannah Arendt's Childhood Home; Hannah Arendt in the Virtual Archive.

Sources:Jewish Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia, pp. 61-64; Finding Aid, Library of Congress: memory.loc.gov/ammem/arendthtml/chron.html; Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil (New York, 1963); New Yorker, February 16, 1963.

First conference on Feminism and Orthodoxy

February 16, 1997

The first Conference on Feminism and Orthodoxy took place in New York City on February 16-17, 1997, with the theme "Exploring the Impact of Feminist Values on Traditional Jewish Women's Lives." A series of major international and regional conferences have followed, focusing on topics such as "Discovering/Uncovering/Recovering Women in Judaism" and "Women and Men in Partnership."

Struggling seriously with questions about the intersections between traditional Judaism and modern feminism, over 1,000 participants at the 1997 conference discussed topics ranging from rabbinic ordination for women to Jewish divorce law to synagogue seating patterns. Arguing that increasing women's participation in Orthodox Judaism would benefit men as well as women, conference organizers gave prominent roles to rabbis and male scholars as well as to women.

The success of the first conference prompted the growing Orthodox feminist community to realize that it needed a more permanent presence and an organization for its concerns, and the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance (JOFA) was born. Among the founders of JOFA was Blu Greenberg, a prominent Orthodox feminist scholar and author who also chaired the first conference. Greenberg's best known works include On Women and Judaism: A View From Tradition and How To Run A Traditional Jewish Household. JOFA's mission is to "expand the spiritual, ritual, intellectual and political opportunities for women within the framework of halakha." Echoing a theme from the first conference, JOFA also devotes significant resources to aiding agunot, women whose husbands have denied them a Jewish divorce document, without which they cannot remarry or even seek potential new mates.

JOFA's website offers a rich array of resources related to women within contemporary Jewish Orthodoxy and within Jewish law. The organization celebrated a decade of work on February 10, 2007, by gathering for their Tenth Anniversary Conference on Feminism and Orthodoxy, entitled "V'Chai Bahem? Passion and Possibility, Invigorating Orthodox Jewish Life."

Sources:www.jofa.org; New York Times, 22 February 1997; Jewish Women and the Feminist Revolution, jwa.org/feminism; jwa.org/discover/recollections/greenberg.html.

Florence Prag Kahn elected as first Jewish woman in U.S. Congress

February 17, 1925

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Florence Prag Kahn was the first Jewish woman and only the fifth woman to serve in Congress. She was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives (D-California).

As the wife of Julius Kahn, a U.S. Representative from San Francisco, Florence Prag Kahn had developed her own public identity by writing a column on Washington doings for her hometown newspaper. When her husband died, she ran in a special Congressional election held on February 17, 1925.

With her victory, Prag became the first Jewish woman and only the fifth woman to serve in Congress. She was reelected five times, serving until 1937. The next Jewish woman elected to Congress would be Bella Abzug in 1970.

In 1930, Kahn became the first woman to serve on the House Military Affairs Committee, where she introduced legislation that led to the creation of numerous military bases in her district and to the building of the Bay Bridge between San Francisco and Oakland.

A Republican, Kahn had excellent relationships with the leaders of her own Party. Yet, she was also the first Republican legislator to dine in Franklin Roosevelt's White House. During her years in Congress, Kahn was noted for her support of the rights of Chinese women and Native Americans and for her opposition to Prohibition and movie censorship. Alice Roosevelt Longworth, Teddy Roosevelt's daughter, called Kahn "an all-around first-rate legislator, the equal of any man in Congress and the superior of most."

Kahn argued that “there is no sex in citizenship and there should be none in politics.” She made this point in a slightly different way in the context of a newspaper interview that noted her refusal to lose weight or tend to her hair in order to please others. When asked later in the interview why it was that she received more than twice as many votes as her late husband ever got, she responded, “sex appeal!”

Kahn died in 1948.

To learn more about Florence Prag Kahn, visit Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia and "Florence Kahn: Congressional Widow to Trailblazing Lawmaker."

See also: Jewish Women in Politics: Florence Prag Kahn; Jewish Women "On the Map" - Florence Prag Kahn; "Our First Jewish Congresswoman" and "Milestones for Jewesses in Politics," Jewesses with Attitude; Florence Prag Kahn in the Virtual Archive.

Sources:Jewish Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia, pp. 712-714; www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/kahn.html; jwa.org/discover/inthepast/infocus/politics/kahn.html; New York Times, February 18, 1925; Communication from Ava Kahn, October 2004; Glenna Matthews, "'There is No Sex in Citizenship': The Career of Congresswoman Florence Prag Kahn" in We Have Come to Stay : American Women and Political Parties, 1880-1960, edited by Melanie Gustafson, Kristie Miller, and Elisabeth I. Perry. (Albuquerque, 1999), pp. 134-140.

Publication of "The Feminine Mystique" by Betty Friedan

February 17, 1963

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Born Bettye Naomi Goldstein, feminist revolutionary Betty Friedan (1921–2006) was considered by many to be the “mother” of the second wave of modern feminism. Her struggles against the "Feminine Mystique" and in favor of gender equality led to a fundamental transformation, not only in the way American society views women, but in the way American women view themselves.

Institution: Online repository

The publication of Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique, on February 17, 1963, is often cited as the founding moment of second-wave feminism. The book highlighted Friedan's view of a coercive and pervasive post-World War II ideology of female domesticity that stifled middle-class women's opportunities to be anything but homemakers.

A survey she conducted of her Smith College classmates indicated that many felt depressed even though they supposedly enjoyed ideal lives with husbands, homes, and children. Enlarging her inquiry, Friedan found that what she called "the problem that has no name" was common among women far beyond the educated East Coast elite. In The Feminine Mystique, she showed how women's magazines, advertising, Freudian psychologists, and educators reflected and perpetuated a domestic ideal that left many women deeply unhappy. In suppressing women's personal growth, Friedan argued, society lost a vast reservoir of human potential.

Friedan's book is credited with sparking second-wave feminism by directing women's attention to the broad social basis of their problems, stirring many to political and social activism. Although Friedan faced some negative reactions, she also received hundreds of letters from women who said that The Feminine Mystique had changed their lives. Since 1963, the book has sold over two million copies and has been translated into a dozen languages. Thousands of copies are still sold every year.

Friedan went on to help found the National Organization for Women (NOW), the National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL), and the National Women's Political Caucus. She taught at colleges and universities from coast to coast, and published in magazines from The New Republic to Ladies' Home Journal. Her more recent work, including the 1993 book Fountain of Age, addresses what Friedan called the "age mystique." Friedan died at home in Washington, D.C. on February 4, 2006, her 85th birthday.

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

See also: "Betty Friedan, Feminism, and Jewish Identity"; This Week in History for June 30, 1966 and August 26, 1970; Happy Birthday NOW, Jewesses with Attitude; Israel Women's Network; photo: "The March into the National Women's Conference".

Source:Jewish Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia, pp. 482-485; Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique (New York, 1963); Jewish Women and the Feminist Revolution, jwa.org/feminism.

"New York Times" profile of silent film star, Theda Bara

February 20, 1916

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Theda Bara is known as the "original vamp." This photo is in the public domain.

Born Theodosia Goodman on July 22, 1890, Theda Bara had a brief but notable career as the star of dozens of silent films. Raised in Cincinnati, Bara moved to New York City at age 18 to pursue an acting career. Only marginally successful on the stage, she became an overnight sensation when director Frank Powell cast her as the star of A Fool There Was in 1915. In the film, which was based on a stage melodrama that was in turn based on a Rudyard Kipling poem, Bara played a temptress who squeezed money, dignity, and finally life out of men. As the sensuous, cruel seductress, Bara created the original "vamp."

Over the next five years, Bara starred in 40 films, almost always as a "vamp," an exotic woman luring men to ruin. Her films were considered scandalous, and at least one critic advocated censoring them. However, Bara was wildly popular with the public, who flocked to her films. A profile of Bara that appeared in the New York Times on February 20, 1916, reported that 500,000 fans followed Bara everywhere she went. She was said to have received over a thousand marriage proposals from adoring fans. Others named children after her. One critic called her "a clever actress with ... a marvelously mobile and expressive face."

Despite Bara's popularity, the Fox studio refused to renew her contract after 1919. The film industry had moved on to a cleaner image of sexuality. Seductresses would abound in later Hollywood films, but without the aura of mystery and menace that had defined Bara's roles. After 1920, Bara starred in only two more films, in 1925 and 1926. Although the 1916 profile predicted that Bara would eventually move to the stage, where she would succeed as "a skillful tragedienne," her acting career ended when film roles disappeared. She died on April 7, 1955. Today, the only surviving Bara film is A Fool There Was, her first success.

To learn more about Theda Bara, visit Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Encyclopedia.

See also: Film Industry in the United States; This Week in History for July 22, 1890; "Paying Tribute to the Original Vamp" and "Vamping with Theda Bara (Who?!)", Jewesses with Attitude.

Sources:Jewish Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia, pp. 118-120; New York Times, January 24, 1916, February 20, 1916.

Early music harpsichordist Wanda Landowska plays Bach at New York City's Town Hall

February 21, 1942

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Wanda Landowska (1879 – 1959) was a celebrated harpsichord player and author. At a time when many musicians believed that a performer should simply reproduce the notes on the page as closely as possible, Landowska wrote that the performer should, instead, add her own style, combining intuition and knowledge to produce an "ecstasy of music."

This is a press photograph from the George Grantham Bain collection, which was purchased by the Library of Congress in 1948. According to the library, there are no known restrictions on the use of these photos.

Born in Warsaw in 1879, Wanda Landowska studied piano at the Warsaw Conservatory, from which she graduated at age 14. In 1900, she moved to Paris, where she taught piano and performed. In both cities, she devoted herself to learning the harpsichord, an instrument which had all but disappeared from the active classical repertoire. Although Bach, Handel, and others had composed myriad harpsichord pieces, by 1900, virtually no one played the instrument and works written for it were generally transposed for piano. But Landowska was determined to play these works on the original instrument, despite discouragement from musicologists and fellow musicians.

In 1912, Landowska commissioned a harpsichord to be built for her own use; she later transported the instrument all over Europe for her numerous performances. She began to teach harpsichord in Paris and, after a stint in Berlin, opened her own school outside Paris in 1919. Already renowned as a teacher and performer, she made her U.S. debut in 1923, with the Philadelphia Orchestra. After her first New York recital the following year, she found a large following in the U.S. and played often to packed houses. In 1941, forced to flee Nazi-occupied Paris, Landowska and her life partner, Denise Restout, were eventually able to make their way to the United States where they settled permanently.

The following year, on February 21, 1942, Landowska made history with a performance of Bach's "Goldberg Variations" at New York's Town Hall. It was the first time in the 20^th century that the piece, originally written for the harpsichord, was performed publicly on that instrument. It is now a staple of the repertoire. A Landowska student later remembered that hearing that first performance was "like being in front of one of the greatest wonders of nature." Landowska made a similar splash in 1948 with a performance of Bach's complete "Well-Tempered Clavier." Her mastery of the harpsichord inspired not only listeners and students, but also composers, several of whom wrote new harpsichord works especially for her.

In addition to playing and teaching, Landowska also wrote about music. A 1909 book, written with her husband (Henry Lew, who died in 1919), and first published in French, addressed "music of the past." During her years in the U.S., she published frequent essays and book reviews. After her death, some of this material, along with previously unpublished essays, was published as Landowska on Music (1964). In the volume's essays, Landowska wrote about the interpretation of Bach and other music. She also made a passionate case for the role of the individual performer as an interpreter. At a time when many musicians believed that a performer should simply reproduce the notes on the page as closely as possible, Landowska wrote that the performer should, instead, add her own style, combining intuition and knowledge to produce an "ecstasy of music."

Landowska was frequently honored for her work. She received citations from the Charles Cros Academy in France and from the U.S. National Federation of Music Clubs, both recognizing her recordings. France admitted her to the Legion of Honor in 1925, and awarded her the Grand Prix of the Paris Exposition in 1937. Landowska gave her last public performance in 1954. She died in Connecticut in 1959.

See also: This Week in History for August 16, 1959 "Death of early music pioneer Wanda Landowska"; "If Wanda Landowska were alive today... " Jewesses With Attitude.

Sources:New York Times, August 17, 1959; August 23, 1959; December 20, 1964; June 19, 1983; July 10, 1999; www.glbtq.com/arts/landowska_w.html.

"New Orleans Times-Picayune" celebrates 100th birthday of Elizabeth D.A. Cohen, Louisiana's first practicing female physician

February 22, 1920

Elizabeth D. A. Cohen, who would become the first practicing female physician in Louisiana, was born in New York City on February 22, 1820, the daughter of David and Phoebe Cohen. She married a doctor named Aaron Cohen with whom she had five children. When one of her sons died of measles as a little boy, she determined that she too should become a doctor in order to help mothers care for their children.

When her husband moved to New Orleans to study surgery in 1853, Elizabeth chose to move to Philadelphia where she enrolled in the nation's first medical school for women, the Philadelphia College of Medicine. Upon graduation in 1857, she joined her husband in New Orleans, in time to serve patients during a major outbreak of yellow fever.

Cohen reminisced about her career for two articles about her that appeared in the New Orleans Times-Picayune, one on her 93rd birthday and one on her 100th birthday. She recalled working through two yellow fever epidemics and described "attend[ing] to families through generations." It was hard for Cohen to gain recognition as a doctor. The city directory of 1867 listed her as a midwife. In 1869, she was included as a "doctress." Only in 1876 did the directory finally describe her as a physician. When she was admitted to an old age home, she asked the registrar to "insert M.D. after her name."

Cohen retired from her active practice in 1887 and entered the Jewish community-sponsored Touro Infirmary in 1888 as a resident of the Department of the Aged and Infirm. She took an active volunteer role at Touro, overseeing the sewing and linen room. In her 100th birthday interview in 1920, she demonstrated that she was still attuned to what was going on in the world, noting (in anticipation of the ratification of the 19th amendment that year); "things will be better when women can vote and can protect their own property and their own children. Even if I am a hundred, I'm for votes for women."

Cohen died in New Orleans on May 28, 1921 and was buried in the Gates of Prayer Cemetery on Canal Street.

To learn more about Elizabeth D.A. Cohen, visit Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia.

Source:Catherine Kahn, "Cohen, Elizabeth D.A.," Jewish Women in America: an Historical Encyclopedia, pp. 243-244.

Judith Kaye is nominated as Chief Judge of New York State Court

February 22, 1993

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Chief Judge of the State of New York Judith S. Kaye welcomes attendees to Day Two sessions of the Presidential Libraries Conference in Hyde Park sponsored by all of the Presidential Libraries and the National Archives.

Photo by William Boxer, courtesy of the National Archives.

When Governor Mario Cuomo nominated Judith Kaye for the position of Chief Judge of the New York State Court of Appeals on February 22, 1993, she became the first woman to hold that post. The appointment followed ten years on the bench for Kaye, during which time she was the only female judge on the Court of Appeals.

Born in Monticello, New York, Kaye was educated at Barnard College and New York University. She practiced law in New York City until her appointment to the Court of Appeals. As a judge, Kaye has been noted for ruling that provisions of the State Constitution can be applied when they provide more protection for individual rights than does the United States Constitution.

Kaye has published articles relating to women and law, and—responding to her nomination—publicly urged Governor Cuomo to appoint additional women to the Court. Today, Kaye serves as chair of the Permanent Judicial Commission on Justice for Children and as a member of the board of editors of the New York State Bar Journal. In 2007, Judge Kaye became the first Chief Judge ever to complete a full 14 year term, and was appointed to a second term by Governor Eliot Spitzer on February 7, 2007, confirmed by the Senate on March 6, and sworn in on March 19, 2007.

Kaye retired as Chief Judge of New York on December 31, 2008 and went on to work as counsel for Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom in New York City.

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

See also: Highlighted Judiths.

Sources:New York Times, February 23, 1993; March 18, 1993; www.courts.state.ny.us/ctapps/jkaye.htm; Skadden.com.

Founding of Hadassah: The Women's Zionist Organization of America

February 24, 1912

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Henrietta Szold (left) with the rest of the Provisional Zionist Committee, New York, c. 1915

On February 24, 1912, 38 women gathered at Temple Emanu-El in New York City to create a new organization called Daughters of Zion. Under the leadership of Henrietta Szold, they hoped to create "a large organization of women Zionists" devoted to "the promotion of Jewish institutions and enterprises in Palestine, and the fostering of Jewish ideals." In 1914, Daughters of Zion, was renamed Hadassah: The Women's Zionist Organization of America. Today, Hadassah describes itself as the largest voluntary women's organization and largest Jewish membership organization in the United States.

Dissatisfied by the limited opportunities for women's leadership in the Jewish world and inspired by a 1909 trip to Palestine, Szold was determined to create her own organization where women could lead in practical social service work. Szold organized her group according to strict scientific and business principles. Modeling Hadassah after the National Council of Jewish Women, founded in 1893, she adopted a system of local chapters headed by a national office, and insisted that the organization be focused on social service.

Avoiding religious and political controversy, Hadassah recruited women from all streams of Judaism and reached out to non-Zionists as well as Zionists. Stressing woman-to-woman contact on humanitarian and social feminist grounds, the organization grew quickly. From an initial roster of 38 women, the organization grew to 21,000 members in 34 chapters within its first five years. Today it claims more than 300,000 members.

Hadassah turned to health care for its first projects, sending two nurses in 1913 to create a visiting nurse service in Palestine. Hadassah nurses established the region's first pediatric and maternity clinics, and helped to eradicate trachoma. Today, Hadassah supports two major medical centers in Jerusalem, among other endeavors.

Active in health and education issues in the U.S. as well as in Israel, Hadassah has also turned to its roots by sponsoring study groups on Jewish and contemporary topics from stem cell research to Israeli women's fiction. Keeping Szold's example before them, Hadassah members continue to show that women can change the Jewish world.

To learn more about Hadassah in the United States, visit Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia.

See also: This Week in History entries for December 21, 1935, and February 13, 1945.

Sources: jwa.org/exhibits/wov/szold/; www.hadassah.org; Jewish Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia, pp. 571-583; Marlin Levin, It Takes a Dream: The Story of Hadassah (Hewlett, NY, 1997).

Labor activist Rose Pesotta organizes in Akron, Ohio

February 25, 1936

In 1936, in the midst of nationwide union organizing drives, the International Ladies Garment Workers Union (ILGWU) sent veteran organizer Rose Pesotta to Akron, Ohio, to aid striking workers at the Goodyear Rubber factory. She arrived on February 25, in the midst of the Goodyear strike. Although ostensibly there to rally the workers' wives and daughters to the union cause, Pesotta made a point of visiting strikers, singing union songs with them, and ultimately convincing them to approve a negotiated settlement with Goodyear.

Although successful with rubber workers and later with the United Auto Workers in Detroit, Pesotta's organizing "home" was with garment workers and the ILGWU. As a young immigrant woman working in New York shirtwaist factories, she joined the ILGWU in 1913. Just two years later, she helped to form the union's first education department, and in 1920 was elected to the executive board of her local union chapter. She left the shop floor to become a full-time organizer in the late 1920s, after helping the union through struggles with communist opponents. After spearheading a Dressmakers General Strike in Los Angeles, Pesotta was elected as a vice-president of the ILGWU in 1934, where she was one of the first women on the national executive board.

During this period, Pesotta was active in the anarchist movement, editing the anarchist paper The Road to Freedom. She was also a key member of the Sacco-Vanzetti Defense Committee, which sought to defend two Italian-immigrant anarchists who were convicted and executed for robbery and murder. Through her anarchist work, Pesotta also established a strong friendship with the radical leader Emma Goldman.

Saying that one woman vice president was insufficient to represent the women and girls who made up 85% of the ILGWU's membership, Pesotta resigned from the general executive board in 1944 and returned to work as a factory operative. In her later life, Pesotta published two volumes of memoirs and worked briefly for the Anti-Defamation League. She died of cancer on December 4, 1965.

To learn more about Rose Pesotta, visit Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Encyclopedia.

See also: Anarchists, American Jewish Women; Rose Pesotta in the Virtual Archive; "Rubber workers, anarchists, and little Jewish ladies," Jewesses with Attitude.

Sources:Jewish Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia, pp. 1044-1046; Elaine Leeder, The Gentle General: Rose Pesotta, Anarchist and Labor Organizer (Albany, NY, 1993).

Natalie Portman wins Oscar for Best Actress

February 27, 2011

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Image by Josh Jensen

Natalie Portman was named Best Actress at the 83^rd annual Academy Awards on February 27, 2011. The frontrunner since nominations were announced, Portman was honored for her performance as an obsessive, bulimic ballerina in Black Swan.

To prepare for the role, she went through nearly 14 months of rigorous dance training, working with former New York City Ballet member Mary Helen Bowers as well as the film’s choreographer Benjamin Millipied (who would soon become her fiancé and the father of her child.) “The physical discipline helped me understand the emotional side of the character because working out eight hours a day, you get the sense of the monastic element of a dancer’s life,” she said. “You don’t drink. You don’t go out with friends. You don’t have much food. You are constantly putting your body through extreme pain. I came to understand the self-flagellation of a ballet dancer.”

The hard work paid off. She earned rave reviews for the film (Manhola Dargis of the New York Times called her performance “smashing, bruising [and] wholly committed”. In addition to the Oscar, she received Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild honors for Best Actress.  

In contrast to her portrayal of a ballerina on the verge of a nervous breakdown, Portman is widely considered one of the most well-adjusted actors working in films. In naming her to the 2011 Forward 50 list of Jewish leaders making the biggest impact in American Jewish life, the paper's editors remarked: “While it would make for good copy to say that Portman’s art imitates her life, the truth is that the 30-year-old actress is possessed of such poise and aplomb that it makes her potent portrayal of the unhinged New York City ballet star Nina Sayers all the more impressive.”

Natalie Hershlag (Portman was her grandmother’s name) was born in Jerusalem on June 9, 1991. She grew up on Long Island and started modeling at age 11, after a Revlon representative discovered her in local pizza parlor. Even at a young age, she was determined to avoid being judged solely by her looks. Deciding to give acting a try, she began working with the Usdan Theatre Arts Camp, where she appeared in several local productions.

She made her film debut playing a hit man’s apprentice in Luc Besson’s 1994 film, The Professional and quickly established herself as someone who could hold her own against Hollywood heavyweights. She would later share the screen with the likes of Al Pacino (Heat) and Jack Nicholson (Mars Attacks.) As a pre-teen in the 1996 Beautiful Girls, she stood out among an all-star cast that included Matt Dillon and Uma Thurman.

Many people were surprised when, just as her film career was catching fire, she left Hollywood to spend a year on Broadway in the title role of The Diary of Anne Frank. After that, it was on to Harvard, where she studied neuroscience and earned a psychology degree. An already successful actor, she was adamant about pursuing her education. “I don’t care if [college] ruins my career,” she told the New York Post. “I’d rather be smart than be a movie star.”

She had no problem juggling Ivy League rigors with film projects. In 1999, George Lucas tapped her for the coveted role of Queen Amidala in his eagerly-awaited Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace. The film was an international box office success. Natalie reprised her role in the next two Star Wars films, Attack of the Clones (2002) and Revenge of the Sith (2005.) Gradually, she took on more serious “adult” roles. She earned her first Oscar nomination in 2005 for her performance in Mike Nichols' film Closer, where she played Alice, an American expatriate working as a stripper in London.

All the while, she had Black Swan on her mind. The film’s director, Darren Aronofsky, first approached her about doing a ballet film in 2000—before the script was even written. By the time cameras finally rolled 10 years later, she was more than ready to take on the demanding role. "The fact that I had spent so much time with the idea allowed it to marinate a little before we shot," she said.   

Just two days after winning the Oscar, Portman made headlines again. Despite her position as the face of the Miss Dior Cherie perfume, she disassociated herself from Dior’s chief designer John Galliano when a video of his vitriolic anti-Semitic tirade in Paris became public. “In light of this video, and as an individual who is proud to be Jewish, I will not be associated with Mr. Galliano in any way,” she said.

Several months later, she and Millepied welcomed their first child.  They named him Aleph, after the first letter in the Hebrew alphabet. 

See also: Can a girl have an Oscar and a Bunsen Burner too?, Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis Make the Same Movie, and Natalie’s Baby: Who cares if the father’s not Jewish? on Jewesses with Attitude.

Sources: “The Forward 50: Natalie Portman” The Forward; “Natalie Portman and the psychology behind `Black Swan’” Jewish Journal, November 29, 2010; “On Point. On Top. In Pain.” New York Times, December 2, 2010.

Death of Texan Jeanette Miriam Goldberg, organizer of Texas NJCW chapter & Jewish Chautauqua Society

February 28, 1935

Born in 1868 to Russian immigrant parents, Jeannette Miriam Goldberg grew up in Jefferson, Texas, at that time the sixth-largest town in the state. She was raised amidst a vibrant and successful Jewish merchant community. After completing her education at Vassar College and New York's Rutgers Female Institute, she returned to Texas as a teacher in both religious and secular schools.

Like many professional women of her era, Goldberg took volunteer work seriously, becoming the education chairman of the Texas Woman's Council and lecturing before the Texas Federation of Women's Clubs. In 1898, she organized Texas's first chapter of the National Council of Jewish Women (NCJW) in the East Texas town of Tyler. Though this chapter began with just seven women, she reported that it was "large in zeal and enthusiasm." Goldberg went on to organize NCJW chapters in Waco, Dallas, and Fort Worth. In 1902, she was elected a national director of the Council; in this role, she traveled around the country organizing Council chapters and bringing energy to small congregations.

Seeing Goldberg's success as an organizer, the Jewish Chautauqua Society (JCS) hired her as a field secretary in 1905. She later became the Society's executive secretary. In this role, Goldberg created study circles and correspondence classes for religious school teachers, enabling the mostly female participants to develop professionally while also building a sense of community. Under Goldberg's leadership, the JCS—the goal of which was to encourage the study of Judaism among both Jews and non-Jews—also founded religious schools in regions as varied as North and South Dakota and southern New Jersey.

Though she lived in Philadelphia, where the JCS was headquartered, for the last 30 years of her life, Goldberg always identified herself as a Texan. When she died on February 28, 1935, she was eulogized as "a modern Miriam" and a "high priestess" of Judaism.

See also: The National Council of Jewish Women.

Source:Hollace Ava Weiner, "The Jewish Junior League: The Rise and Demise of the Fort Worth Council of Jewish Women, 1901-2002," (MA thesis, University of Texas, Arlington, 2004).

Rabbi Ellen Weinberg Dreyfus installed as president of the Central Conference of American Rabbis

February 28, 2009

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Rabbi Ellen Weinberg Dreyfus.

On February 28, 2009, Rabbi Ellen Weinberg Dreyfus was installed as president of the Central Conference of American Rabbis (CCAR), the world's oldest and largest group of Jewish clergy, founded in 1889. Installed at the CCAR's 120th Annual Convention in Jerusalem, Dreyfus is only the second female rabbi to be elected president of the body, which represents nearly 2,000 Reform Rabbis. She is the first female leader of a major rabbinic organization to begin her tenure in Israel.

Since its establishment, the CCAR has provided professional and personal support to Reform Rabbis of North America, offering opportunities for study, professional development, and spiritual growth.

Dreyfus, 57, is the rabbi of B'nai Yehuda Beth Sholom in Homewood, Illinois. She succeeds Rabbi Peter Knobel as president of the CCAR.

With Dreyfus's election, three of the four main associations of American rabbis had women in top leadership positions at the time. In October 2008, the Conservative movement's Rabbinical Assembly named Rabbi Julie Schonfeld its new executive vice president. Rabbi Toba Spitzer was president of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association, a post now held by Rabbi Yael Ridberg.

See also: Rabbis in the United States; Reform Judaism in the United States.

Sources: "Reform Jewish Rabbinate Elects New Leader"; Central Conference of American Rabbis; B'nai Yehuda Beth Sholom; Reconstructionalist Rabbinical Association.