Women strike for peace

November 1, 1961

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On November 1, 1961, Women Strike For Peace (WSP) was inaugurated with a day-long strike by an estimated 50,000 women in 60 cities, all pressing for nuclear disarmament. The organization was composed primarily of mothers who feared the effects of nuclear proliferation on the short- and long-term health of their children. They were particularly concerned with levels of irradiation in milk and the increase in nuclear testing. WSP had the slogan “End the Arms Race – Not the Human Race,” as well as “Pure Milk, Not Poison.”

Bella Abzug joined the group in its early organizational stages as an active participant in the New York contingent and as creator and chairperson of WSP’s legislative committee. By pushing the organization to incorporate legislative lobbying into its efforts, she helped it to become an effective political force. By 1964, the emphasis of Women Strike for Peace had shifted to focus as much on the Vietnam War as on disarmament, protesting against the draft and the war’s effects on Vietnamese children. Abzug remained active in WSP until she was elected to Congress in 1970.

See also: Women Strike for Peace, and more, Jewesses with Attitude; Teach: Primary Sources & Lesson Plans - Women Protesting Nuclear Weapons Testing: Bella Abzug with Women Strike for Peace, 1961; Women of Valor - Bella Abzug.

Sources: Amy Swerdlow, Women Strike for Peace: Traditional Motherhood and Radical Politics in the 1960s (Chicago, 1993); http://www.san.beck.org/GPJ28-WomenforPeace.html.

"Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape" conquers the "Washington Post"

November 2, 1975

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Susan Brownmiller's Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape brought rape to the national agenda and into American consciousness in 1975.

The October 1975 publication of journalist and activist Susan Brownmiller’s treatise Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape recast public understandings and debate on rape and helped to influence both American and international legal definitions of the crime.

This impact was reflected in four different articles published in the Washington Post on November 2, 1975. The Post on that day offered a (critical) review of the book in its book review section and three related articles on the front page of its Style section. One of the articles described the complexity of a specific rape case, one took on the question of “Rape: A New Definition” and one considered “... the Lives and Concerns of Susan Brownmiller.” As these articles suggest, both Brownmiller and her book received extensive coverage including front-page reviews, an interview with the author on The Today Show, and her inclusion as one of the 12 women recognized by Time magazine as its 1975 “Man of the Year.”

Brownmiller’s powerful analysis of rape grew from her involvement in the feminist movement as a journalist (she chronicled the movement in an influential March 15, 1970 article in the New York Times Magazine) and as an activist. Growing attention to rape and violence within women’s movement speak-outs, conferences, and publications, sparked Brownmiller’s interest in devoting systematic study to the subject. At the same time, publishers, following the growth of women’s liberation within the media, were actively seeking books on feminism to meet a growing public demand. One result was Simon and Schuster's heavy promotion of Brownmiller's provocative book and its inclusion as a Book-of-the-Month Club main selection.

The publication of Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape brought rape to the national agenda and into American consciousness. Brownmiller’s stark claim – that all men benefited from rape because its pervasive threat kept all women subordinated – proved revolutionary to many. There was nothing comforting in an historical analysis that indicted society for protecting rapists and contributing to the further humiliation of rape victims. Yet, Brownmiller’s book, which briefly appeared on the bestseller lists, appeared at a moment when new questions raised by the women’s movement were able to find their way into the mainstream.

In subsequent decades, prosecutors, activists, and academics concerned with rape have all credited Brownmiller’s work with leading to profound transformations in legal and social understandings of rape. Acquaintance rape has been recognized; women have been more likely to report rape; rape crisis centers have become more common; laws that made it difficult to prosecute rape or that refused to recognize marital rape have been overturned.

The transformation in public understanding of rape from an expression of sexuality to an expression of power, that grew from Brownmiller’s work, continues to echo in American and international public policy. Brownmiller described rape in wartime as a “weapon of terror,” but showed how it had long been understood as part of the “regrettable” but “inevitable” disorder that accompanied battle. One clear measure of Brownmiller’s continuing impact is reflected in the 2002 ruling by the International Criminal Court that rape in the context of war constitutes a war crime and a crime against humanity.

Learn more about Susan Brownmiller in Jewish Women and the Feminist Revolution.

See also: Susan Brownmiller in the Virtual Archive; 50 Most Influential Progressives of the 20th Century - Who else?, Jewesses with Attitude.

Sources: Susan Brownmiller, Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape (New York, 1975); In Our Time: Memoir of a Revolution (New York, 1999); Washington Post, November 2, 1975; “Sisterhood is Powerful,” New York Times Magazine, March 15, 1970; New York Times, March 19, 1970, August 17, 1970, October 16, 1975, February 25, 1990, April 21, 1991, December 12, 1991, December 21, 1975; Jewish Women and the Feminist Revolution, jwa.org/feminism/index.html?id=JWA008.

Bella Abzug elected to Congress

November 3, 1970

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Idealist and activist, champion of progressive causes, Bella Abzug ran for Congress in 1970 on a women’s rights/peace platform, and New York agreed that "this woman's place is in the House."

Institution: U.S. Library of Congress

On November 3, 1970, Bella Abzug was elected to the United States House of Representatives on a proudly feminist, anti-war, environmentalist platform, becoming the second Jewish woman ever elected to the U.S. Congress. Abzug went on to represent her Manhattan district for three terms in the House, quickly becoming a nationally known legislator with a reputation for fighting for social and economic justice. Famous for big hats, hard work, and strong positions, Abzug didn’t mind being called “impatient, impetuous, uppity, rude, profane, brash and overbearing,” as long as people understood that “whatever I am...I am a very serious woman.”

Her congressional tenure was as productive as it was controversial. She was the chair of the Subcommittee on Government Information and Individual Rights, where she co-authored the Freedom of Information Act and the Right to Privacy Act. She was a vigilant sponsor of the Equal Rights Amendment and continually struggled to pass legislation on issues like childcare and abortion. Abzug was also a committed environmentalist and co-authored the Water Pollution Act of 1972. In 1974, she introduced the first Federal bill to support gay and lesbian civil rights; she was also one of the first members of Congress to call for the impeachment of President Nixon. Abzug claimed that she spent her days "figuring out how to beat the machine and knock the crap out of the political power structure."

Before being elected to Congress, Abzug spent 25 years as a lawyer, specializing in labor and tenants’ rights, and in civil rights and liberties cases. During the McCarthy era she was one of the few attorneys willing to fight against the House Un-American Activities Committee. In the 1960s, Abzug helped start the nationwide Women Strike for Peace in response to U.S. and Soviet nuclear testing, and she soon became an important voice against the Vietnam war. After her terms in the House, President Carter appointed her co-chair of the National Advisory Commission for Women. In her later years, Abzug became an important leader in the international women’s rights movement, and was vocal in her support of Israel. Abzug was co-creator and president of WEDO, the Women’s Environmental and Development Organization.

To learn more about Bella Abzug, visit Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia and Women of Valor exhibit.

See also: This Week in History for November 18, 1977 and September 12, 1995; Bella Abzug poster; The Lessons of Women's Equality Day, What Would Bella Do?, A victory in the fight to make hate crimes history!, Jewesses with Attitude; Bella Abzug in "Cool Jewish Women," mybatmitzvahstory.org.

For educators: Go & Learn Primary Documents and Lesson Plans: Queen Esther and Bella Abzug: Costumes, leadership, and identity; Teach: Primary Sources and Lesson Plans: Women Protesting Nuclear Weapons Testing: Bella Abzug with Women Strike for Peace, 1961.

Sources: http://jwa.org/exhibits/wov/abzug/; Ellen Goodman, “They Don’t Make Them Like Bella Anymore,” Boston Globe, April 2, 1998.

Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer Elected to Senate

November 3, 1992

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Senators Barbara Boxer and Diane Feinstein.

On November 3, 1992, Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer were elected to the U.S. Senate, becoming the first Jewish women senators, the first female senators from California, and the first two women to ever represent any state at the same time.

An advocate and advisor on prison reform to California Governor Edmund (Pat) Brown, Feinstein became the first woman president of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1969. In 1979, she won election as the first female mayor of San Francisco after the brutal assassination of Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk. In 1992, she won a special Senate election to replace Pete Wilson who had left his seat to become governor of California. She was re-elected in the 1994, 2000, and 2006 elections. Feinstein was the first female member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, the first woman to chair the Senate Rules and Administration Committee, and the first woman to preside over a presidential inauguration.

Inspired to run for Senate by the Anita Hill-Clarence Thomas hearings, Barbara Boxer became a Senator after 10 years of service in the House of Representatives. She was re-elected in 1998 and 2004. The Senate’s leading defender of a woman’s right to choose, Senator Boxer authored the Family Planning and Choice Protection Act and helped lead the floor fight for passage of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act. On November 3, 2010 Boxer defeated Republican candidate Carly Fiorina and will began her fourth term in the U.S. Senate.

To learn more about these women, visit Dianne Feinstein's and Barbara Boxer's articles in Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia.

See also:This Week in History for November 22, 1978, Dianne Feinstein's career changed by violence and Jewish Women in Politics; Milestones for Jewesses in Politics, The Risk-Takers. The Doers. The Makers of Things., Barbara Boxer takes on the Nelson-Hatch Amendment, Jewesses with Attitude; Jewish Women On the Map: Dianne Feinstein Elementary School.

Sources: feinstein.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=AboutDianne.Biography; boxer.senate.gov; Feinstein plays key role.

Women’s basketball pioneer Nancy Lieberman becomes the first woman to coach a NBA D-League men’s basketball team

November 4, 2009

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Pioneering athlete and coach, Nancy Lieberman was inducted into the National Basketball Hall of Fame in 1996 and into the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame in 1999. She now coaches the Dallas Mavericks’ D-League affiliate team and is the first woman to coach a men's team. Photo courtesy of Staci Kramer.

On November 4, 2009, Nancy Lieberman broke yet another barrier when she became the first woman head coach of the Dallas Mavericks’ D-League affiliate team.

Lieberman told ESPN, “In 1986, my goal was not to be a girl playing in a men's league, it was to be a player in a men's league. In 2010, I don't want to be a woman who is coaching men; I want to be a coach who is coaching.”

Born in Brooklyn, New York on July 1, 1958, Lieberman is a pioneering athlete. She won a Gold Medal at the Pan American Games in 1975 while still in high school. At age 18, she made the U.S. team at the 1976 Montreal games, the first time women's basketball was played at the Olympics. As a student at Old Dominion University in Virginia, Lieberman led her team to national basketball championships in 1979 and 1980 with a 72–2 record. During those years she won the Wade Trophy twice — a first in basketball history.

Lieberman briefly played for the Dallas Diamonds as part of a fledgling professional Women’s Basketball League. After the League folded, Lieberman made history by becoming the first woman to play for a men’s professional team as a member of the Springfield Flame in 1986. She also did a stint on the Washington Generals – the traditionally male team that opposes the Harlem Globetrotters.

She played on the U.S. Women’s National Team in 1989 and with the Phoenix Mercury when the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) was launched. From 1998–2000 she was the head coach and general manager of the WNBA Detroit Shock. She was inducted into the National Basketball Hall of Fame in 1996, and three years later into the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame.

Lieberman currently lives in Dallas, Texas, near to where she coaches the Mavericks’ D-League team and runs a summer basketball camp for boys and girls.

To learn more about Nancy Lieberman, visit Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia.

See also: Jewish Women On the Map - Home of Nancy Lieberman; Sports in the United States; The Decade's Best Jewish Athlete, Jewesses with Attitude.

Sources: Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia; www.nancylieberman.com; "Lieberman introduced by D-League," ESPN; Women's Basketball Hall of Fame; Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.

Linda Lingle Elected Gov. of Hawaii

November 5, 2002

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Linda Lingle, first woman Governor of Hawaii. This photo is in the public domain.

After over 20 years in elected public life, Linda Lingle was elected as Hawaii's first female and first Jewish governor on November 5, 2002. Lingle and former Vermont Governor Madeleine Kunin are the only Jewish women governors in U.S. history.

Lingle, a St. Louis native, moved to Hawaii after graduating from California State University at Northridge. She began working as the public information officer for the Hawaii Teamsters and Hotel Workers Union in Honolulu. In 1976, she founded and became publisher of the Molokai Free Press, intended to serve Molokai's 6,000 residents.

In 1980 Lingle was elected to the Maui County Council where she served for ten years. In 1990 she was elected Maui County Mayor, the youngest person and first woman to ever hold that role.

Lingle first ran for governor in 1998 but lost by less than one percent of the vote. In 2002 Lingle, a Republican, won the election by more than four percent. She was reelected in 2006. As governor, Lingle has worked to balance the state budget and promote tourism, while improving the quality of life by fighting crime and drug abuse and increasing accessibility to quality health care and education. She has made strengthening relationships with Hawaii's Asia-Pacific neighbors one of the central efforts of her administration.

In May 2004, Lingle signed a Memorandum of Understanding between the state of Hawaii and the government of Israel to encourage cooperation concerning agriculture and aquaculture research and development. “[Being Jewish has] helped my political career in Hawaii,” says Lingle, “because it has given me a better understanding of diversity, which in turn helps me to connect with citizens of varying religious and ethnic backgrounds.” Linda Lingle served as Governor until December 6, 2010.

To learn more about Linda Lingle, visit Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia.

See also: Jewish Women in Politics; Jewish Women On the Map - Hawaii State House; Outraged: Linda Lingle vetoes Civil Unions bill and compares gay marriage to incest and Milestones for Jewesses in politics, Jewesses with Attitude.

Source: Hilary L. Krieger, "Island Tales," Jerusalem Post Magazine, Dec. 27, 2002; Lifestyles, June 2003; hawaii.gov/gov/governor/biography.

Madeleine Kunin Elected Governor of Vermont

November 7, 1984

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Former Governor of Vermont, Madeleine Kunin was the first Jewish woman governor of an American state. Photo by WonkGuy.

In her autobiography, Madeleine Kunin acknowledges that her background may not have predestined her to become governor of Vermont. “As a feminist, an immigrant, and a Jew,” she wrote, “I was perhaps too different from the average Vermont voter, yet it was this identity that inspired me to enter public life and shaped my values.” Kunin was elected as the first Jewish and first female governor of Vermont on November 7, 1984. She also became the first Jewish woman governor of any American state.

Born in Switzerland, she was brought to the United States as a child in 1940 as her mother sought to escape the growing Nazi threat. After graduating from the University of Massachusetts and Columbia University, Kunin moved to Vermont to work for the Burlington Free Press. After marriage and four children, Kunin devoted herself both to her domestic responsibilities and involvement as a community organizer, educating neighbors and community leaders on pending health care legislation and a number of communal safety concerns.

Elected to the state legislature in 1972, Kunin sought to mobilize support for the ERA, the environment, education, and the welfare of families and children. Kunin was elected the lieutenant governor of Vermont in 1978 and governor in 1984. She was also the first woman elected to three terms as governor in any state. As governor, Kunin focused on education, environmental concerns, the development of a family court, and the implementation of new land use planning laws. She provided a strong feminist voice in state government.

Kunin left the governor’s office in 1991. In 1993, she published Living a Political Life: One of America’s First Woman Governors Tells Her Story and became the U.S. deputy secretary of education. In 1996, she was appointed the US ambassador to her native country of Switzerland where she played a role in pushing Switzerland to deal with the question of Jewish World War II assets which had been deposited in Swiss banks for safekeeping. Kunin currently leads the Institute for Sustainable Communities and, as Distinguished Visiting Professor, teaches political science at the University of Vermont and St. Michael's College in Vermont. In 2008, she published Pearls, Politics and Power: How Women Can Win and Lead.

Read more about Madeleine Kunin in Jewish Women and the Feminist Revolution.

See also: Milestones for Jewesses in Politics and Jewish Women Politicians: Progressively Passionate?, Jewesses with Attitude; Jewish Women in Politics; Jewish women On the Map - Vermont Statehouse, workplace of former VT Governor Madeleine Kunin.

Sources: Jewish Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia, pp. 766-767; www.ed.gov/offices/ODS/kunin.html; Jewish Women and the Feminist Revolution, jwa.org/feminism/index.html?id=JWA046; www.uvm.edu/~polisci/faculty/kunin_bio.html.

Nita M. Lowey Elected to House of Representatives

November 8, 1988

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New York Congresswoman Nita M. Lowey was the first woman and the first New Yorker to chair the Democratic Congressional Committee.

Institution: Biographical Directory of the United States Congress

On November 8, 1988, Nita M. Lowey was elected to Congress. In 2008, she was re-elected for her 11^th term representing parts of Westchester and Rockland counties in New York. She is a leading proponent of educational opportunity, health care reform and biomedical research, stricter gun control and public safety laws, environmental protection, and women's issues. She is a member of the House Appropriations Committee and chairwoman of its State and Foreign Operations subcommittee. As a member of the House Homeland Security Committee, she has been a strong advocate for distributing homeland security funds on the basis of risk.

Lowey was the first woman to chair the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, leading the organization from 2001 to 2002. She has served as Chair of the Congressional Women’s Caucus and the House Pro-Choice Caucus, and has been called “the most prominent abortion rights advocate in Congress” by the Washington Post and spoke out against the Stupak-Pitts Amendment, which places limits on taxpayer-funded abortions in the context of the November 2009 Affordable Health Care for America Act. Before being elected to Congress, Lowey served as Assistant Secretary of State for the State of New York.

To learn more about Nita M. Lowey, visit Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia.

See also: Jewish Women in Politics; Milestones for Jewesses in Politics and Women honored by healthcare reform, Jewesses with Attitude; Jewish Women On the Map - New York's 18th Congressional District represented by Nita Lowey.

Source: lowey.house.gov.

A Night to Honor Hannah Block

November 8, 2010

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Hannah Block plays the piano at the Community Arts Center in the Historic USO building in Wilmington, N.C. during a program honoring veterans of World War II.
Courtesy Paul Stephen from StarNewsOnline.com.

North Carolinians came together on November 8, 1997, to honor one the state’s civic leaders and pathbreaking women. Born in 1913 in Virginia, Hannah Block (née Solomon) studied music at the prestigious Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore. After completing her studies, Block ventured to New York City where she forged her way as a jazz singer and performed in some of Manhattan’s most popular night spots. While in New York, Block met her future husband Charles Morris Block. After they married, the couple settled in Wilmington, N.C. where Charles was a partner in a manufacturing company.

Block embraced her new home with verve and spirit. During World War II, she became the first woman to serve as head lifeguard at Carolina Beach, where she taught swimming and lifesaving courses for the Red Cross. The attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941 inspired Block to become more involved with the war effort. Bringing new life and depth to her jazz career, she volunteered her time performing for troops at the local USO. Block organized and trained a group of 60 young women who visited and entertained soldiers on nearby military bases before their deployment overseas.Towards the war’s end, Block enlisted volunteers to welcome GI’s back to the U.S. and to help them readjust to life as civilians. One friend fondly dubbed Hannah Block “Mrs. World War II Wilmington.”

After the war, Hannah Block remained active in civic life. She served twice as president of the local American Legion Auxiliary and organized many pageants, turning them into, as she put it, “more than a swimsuit contest on the beach.” In her late 40s, she became the first woman to serve on the Wilmington City Council, and later, the first woman to serve as the city’s mayor pro tempore. Block also led efforts in Wilmington to preserve and restore buildings of historical significance.

One of these buildings was the USO center Block has performed in decades earlier. The building, which had served as Wilmington’s Community Arts Center since 1973, was renamed in 1997 in honor of Block. That same year on November 8th, the Community Arts Center in the “Hannah Block Historic USO” put on a jazz and cabaret review to honor Block. At the event, Block was awarded the Order of the Long Leaf Pine, one of North Carolina’s highest honors recognizing service to the state.

Hannah Block passed away in her home in Wilmington on November 13, 2009 at the age of 96. She is survived by two children, five grandchildren, seven great-grandchildren, and a legacy as one of North Carolina’s most public spirited citizens.

To learn more about Hannah Block, visit We Remember.

See also: “Jewish Women on the Map - Community Arts Center—Hannah Block USO”; We Remember Those the New York Times Won't, Jewesses with Attitude.

Sources: “Hannah Block - The jazz singer”; “Wilmington residents honored for decades of good works”; “Hannah Block, Wilmington civic leader, dies,” Star News Online.

Death of author, educator, and Zionist pioneer, Jessie Sampter

November 11, 1938

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Jessie Sampter quotation on Himank BRO sign board in the Nubra Valley, Ladakh, Northern India. Photo courtesy of Malikbek. Learn more about this road sign "On the Map."

Jessie Sampter was an influential Zionist educator, a poet, and a Zionist pioneer. She died at Kibbutz Givat Brenner on November 11, 1938.

Born into a highly assimilated home in New York City, Sampter was influenced by Henrietta Szold, Josephine Lazarus, Mary Antin, Mordecai Kaplan and others to become an ardent advocate of Judaism and Zionism.

Assuming the role of Hadassah's leading educator, she produced manuals and textbooks and organized lectures and classes. She led Hadassah's School of Zionism, training speakers and leaders for both Hadassah and other Zionist organizations. She also wrote poems and short stories throughout her life that emphasized her primary concerns: pacifism, Zionism, and social justice.

Having contracted polio at age thirteen she remained in poor health throughout her life. This did not prevent her from settling in Palestine in 1919 where she helped organize the country's first Jewish Scout camp. Sampter developed a strong commitment to assisting Yemenite Jews, founding classes and clubs especially for Yemenite girls and women who often received no formal education. At the time of her death, she had established a vegetarian convalescent home at Kibbutz Givat Brenner. Henrietta Szold presided at her funeral.

To learn more about Jessie Sampter, visit her Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia.

See also: Jewish Women on the Map - Jessie Sampter quote on Himank BRO sign board; Jessie Sampter in the Virtual Archive.

Source: Jewish Women in America, An Historical Encyclopedia. p. 1198-1100.

Birth of Caroline Klein Simon, anti-discrimination pioneer

November 12, 1900

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Though she claimed she was not a feminist, attorney and later judge Caroline Klein Simon said that for a woman to succeed she "must look like a girl, act like a lady, think like a man, and work like a dog." Her hard work was evident in her long career as a politician and public servant.

Institution: The Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives, Cincinnati, OH, www.americanjewisharchives.org

Caroline Klein Simon, a pioneering attorney, communal worker, and state official, was born on November 12, 1900. After graduating from law school in 1925, Simon was unable to find a law firm that would hire her. She turned to volunteering, working as an unpaid clerk at a law office and immersing herself in political work with many of New York City's secular and Jewish women's organizations. She involved herself particularly in issues of crime prevention and correction.

In 1935, Simon became executive director of the New York State Council of Jewish Women. Throughout her long and active life, Simon worked to change a number of discriminatory laws in her community. In the 1930s, Simon led a campaign to allow women to serve on juries in New York. In the 1940s, she helped to draft the nation's first state law on job bias based on religion, race, or nationality, and was a founding member of the State Commission Against Discrimination. In 1957, Simon became the first woman to be nominated for city-wide office in New York City. Although she lost that election for president of the New York City Council, Governor Nelson Rockefeller named her New York Secretary of State in 1959. She held that position for four years. In 1958 Simon also served as the legal advisor to the American delegation to the United Nations Human Rights Commission. In the 1960s, she sat on the New York Court of Claims. Simon remained active in legal work into her nineties.

To learn more about Caroline Klein Simon, visit Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia.

See also: This Week in History for January 1, 1959, "Caroline Klein Simon sworn in as NY Secretary of State"; Caroline Klein Simon in the Virtual Archive.

Sources: Jewish Women in America, Vol. 2, p. 1258-1260;"Caroline K. Simon is Dead at 92; Led Fight Against Discrimination," New York Times, July 30, 1993.

Radical dance pioneer Anna Sokolow debuts on Broadway

November 14, 1937

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Anna Sokolow, 1958

Institution: Sokolow Dance Foundation

Dancer and choreographer Anna Sokolow debuted on Broadway on November 14, 1937. This “debut” was unusual, in that Sokolow’s works had already been performed extensively off-Broadway. For her official debut, Sokolow chose a number of compositions with biting social and political commentary. Strange American Funeral, for example, was based on a poem about an immigrant steelworker killed by falling into a vat of boiling metal. As a reviewer commented, “The bitter satire and relentless expression of struggle was carried out with such intensity of purpose as to make one’s blood race with driving force and rouse the most lethargic observer to indignant approbation.” Excerpts from a War Poem was also based on a poem, “War is Beautiful,” but this time Sokolow treated the poem with acerbic satire. Critic Marjorie Church wrote in response that Sokolow “has taken the essence of fascism, embodied in a poem extolling the beauties of war, and has plucked this expression of an ideology mercilessly apart, line by line, exposing a ruthlessness, a savagery, and a masochistic blindness underlying this viewpoint which are appalling in their implications.”

Sokolow got her professional start in “radical dance” in 1929 when she joined Martha Graham’s dance company, and for the next decade she studied and danced with Graham, but she also began to work with other groups and to choreograph pieces of her own. Sokolow felt the need to move beyond Graham’s orbit to draw upon her own ethnic background and to use dance to dramatize the economic, social, and political crises of the time.

Sokolow’s first major composition for a group, Anti-War Trilogy, was performed at the 1933 First Anti-War Congress, and the dangers of war and fascism continued to be reflected in her later work. Sokolow was a key figure in the development of modern dance in both Israel and Mexico, and worked with a variety of dance forms.

Sokolow often worked with theater productions, choreographing many Broadway performances. She was a central figure in the choreography and staging of the musical Hair in 1967.

In the later part of her career, Sokolow incorporated Jewish themes more heavily in her work. Her first piece with clear Jewish content was The Exile (1939), and many of her compositions returned to the themes of exile and suffering. Her 1945 Kaddish, which was choreographed just as the war was ending, drew upon traditional Jewish elements to convey pain and suffering within the piece. Sokolow’s 1961 work, Dreams, was the first serious dance exploration of the Holocaust. She also based a number of her works on Jewish female figures, both Biblical and modern, ranging from Ruth and Deborah to Hannah Senesh and Golda Meir.

To learn more about Anna Sokolow, explore JWA's Women of Valor exhibit, or visit Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia.

See also: Anna Sokolow poster; Jewish Women On the Map - Anna Sokolow Way; Anna Sokolow: Using Art as Activism and 100 years: Happy Birthday Anna Sokolow! on Jewesses with Attitude.

For educators: Anna Sokolow in Cool Jewish Women on mybatmitzvahstory.org; Teach Primary Sources & Lesson Plans - Anna Sokolow's Dance, Kaddish, 1945 (photograph)

Sources: jwa.org/exhibits/wov/sokolow/over.html; Jewish Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia pp. 1278-1280; Boston Transcript, April 1, 1939; Marjorie Church, Dance Observer, December 1937, cited in Larry Warren, Anna Sokolow: The Rebellious Spirit (Amsterdam: Harwood Academic Publishers, 1998), 53.

National Council of Jewish Women holds first national convention

November 15, 1896

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The National Council of Jewish Women held its first national convention at Tuxedo Hall in New York City between November 15 and November 19, 1896. Founded at the conclusion of the Jewish Women’s Congress held at Chicago’s World Columbian Exposition in November 1893, the National Council of Jewish Women was the first national open-membership organization for American Jewish women.

Addressed by the leaders of the nation’s leading women’s organizations and numerous prominent rabbis, it was clear that the Council was helping to establish the legitimacy of Jewish women’s presence on a public stage. The convention received extensive coverage in the New York Times and other papers.

With the NCJW's creation in 1893, local sections around the country began focusing on diverse activities ranging from Bible study to education for children to active philanthropy in the interest of immigrant women and children. Representatives at the first convention summarized these achievements, established a clear institutional structure, and sought to offer guidance to local sections.

Conflict emerged during the 1896 convention in relation to the Jewish character of the Council. Hannah Solomon of Chicago presided over the meetings, but some members objected to her advocacy of Sunday as the Jewish Sabbath. Solomon memorably responded “I consecrate every day in the week.” As the New York Times reported, “Pandemonium reigned for five minutes, and then Mrs. Solomon was re-elected.”

In its first few decades, NCJW transcended religious divisions by focusing especially on aid to newly arrived Jewish immigrants. In sections across the country, NCJW provided an early training ground for Jewish women leaders and a forum for Jewish women’s concerns within and outside the Jewish community.

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

See also: This Week in History for September 4, 1893 and November 25, 1917; NCJW in the Virtual Archive.

Sources: Faith Rogow, Gone to Another Meeting: The National Council of Jewish Women, 1893-1993 (Tuscaloosa, 1993); Jewish Women in America, An Historical Encyclopedia, p. 1283; New York Times, November 20, 1896; Hannah Solomon exhibit: jwa.org/exhibits/wov/solomon.

Shoshana Cardin becomes first woman to lead a major national Jewish organization

November 15, 1984

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Shoshana Cardin is an iconoclastic political activist whose guiding principle has been to serve the Jewish people. Though a supporter of women's rights, she has locked horns with feminists, not to mention prime ministers and presidents, due to her strongly held views on the issues of the day.

Institution: United Israel Appeal

After over two decades of building a reputation as a passionate and generous member of the Jewish community through her activism and volunteer work, Baltimorean Shoshana Cardin was elected as the first woman president of the Council of Jewish Federations on November 15, 1984. Through her work with civic and Jewish groups, Cardin became one of the most respected Jewish lay leaders of the 1980s and 1990s.

As a young mother, Cardin worked as a volunteer and served on the boards of a variety of local nonprofit organizations. As president of Maryland's Federation of Jewish Women's organizations in 1960 and 1961, she used her position to call attention to issues of racial inequality. In 1967 Cardin served as a delegate to Maryland's Constitutional Convention and joined Maryland's Commission for Women in 1968. Although she turned down a nomination to the Federal Reserve Board, Cardin worked to change federal and state laws concerning women's legal access to credit. She also served on Maryland's Commission on Human Relations and as chair of Maryland's State Employment and Training Council from 1979 to 1983.

In 1984, Cardin was elected as the first woman president of the Council of Jewish Federations, a national umbrella organization for local groups raising money for social and educational services and for Israel in 189 North American Jewish communities. In this role, she became the first woman to lead a major national Jewish organization.

In subsequent years, Cardin has led the National Conference on Soviet Jewry, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, the United Israel Appeal, the Center for Learning and Leadership, and the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. She was also instrumental in creating the Shoshana S. Cardin Jewish Community High School, Baltimore's first transdenominational Jewish high school.

To learn more about Shoshana Cardin, visit Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia and the Weaving Women's Words: Baltimore Stories exhibit.

See also: Shoshana Cardin in the Virtual Archive; Remembering Pearl Harbor and A Jewess in Command in Jewesses with Attitude; This Week in History for October 18, 2004: Celebrating 350 years of Jewish women in America; Zionism in the United States.

Sources: jwa.org/exhibits/baltimore/cardin.html; Jewish Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia, pp. 205-207.

National Humanities Medal Awarded to Ruth Wisse

November 15, 2007

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President Bush presents Professor Ruth Wisse her National Humanities Medal. White House photo by Eric Draper.

Ruth Wisse grew up speaking Yiddish with her family and would make a career of preserving the language’s legacy and literature. A pioneer in the development of Yiddish scholarship in the United States, Wisse received the prestigious National Humanities Medal in 2007 in a ceremony at the White House. Her writings on Jewish literature and culture include The Modern Jewish Canon: A Journey Through Literature and Culture, The Best of Sholem Aleichem, If I Am Not for Myself…: The Liberal Betrayal of the Jews, and Jews in Power.

Born in Czernowitz, Romania, on May 13, 1936, four years later young Ruth and her family moved to Montreal where their home became a Yiddish literary salon that would influence all four of the Roskies children. Ruth received her B.A. from McGill University in 1957. After her marriage to Leonard Wisse, she went on to earn a Masters and Ph.D. from Columbia University, the only university to offer graduate studies in Yiddish at the time.

Yiddish, responsible for the entrée into American English of such commonly used words as shmuck, schlemiel and chotsky, is integral to the identity of largely English-speaking American Jews. Says Wisse:

Yiddish was an expression of the Jewish way of life, but also of the degree of separation from the rest of European society. Once Jews wanted to become more integrated into their surroundings, they sacrificed the language that kept them apart…The possibility of assimilation is the greatest gift that America gives to the Jews. One should say a blessing for this possibility at Thanksgiving. Once there was great suspicion of what the Jews brought. Now there is a tremendous level of comfort.

In 1968, Professor Wisse began teaching Yiddish and helped found the Jewish Studies Department at McGill. Her groundbreaking research earned her a stellar reputation and in 2003 an offer to become the first Professor of Yiddish at Harvard, a post she maintains to this day. In the award announcement, Wisse says of herself: “At an early age I saw the calling of literature and teaching as inseparable from civic responsibility."

To learn more about Ruth Wisse, visit Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia.

See also: Judaic Studies in the United States; Jewish Women On the Map - The White House.

Sources: Ruth R. Wisse;David G. Roskies. 2007 National Humanities Medalists

Debut of singer Alma Gluck

November 16, 1909

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Alma Gluck (1884 - 1938) was a popular U.S. concert singer. By 1914, she was performing in all 48 states and in as many as 100 concerts a season. This is a press photograph from the George Grantham Bain collection, which was purchased by the Library of Congress in 1948.

Alma Gluck first appeared on stage with the Metropolitan Opera on November 19, 1909 in the role of Sophie in Massenet's Werther. Gluck was born in Romania but immigrated to the United States with her family in the 1890s. Gluck had an impoverished childhood and only began her vocal training as an adult, when a business associate of her husband heard her sing and arranged for her to take voice lessons. An encounter with the conductor Arturo Toscanini led to an audition for the performance in which she made her debut, which was conducted by Toscanini.

Although Gluck was successful in opera, she did not care for its theatrical nature and instead chose to become a concert performer. By 1914 she was the most popular concert singer in the United States, performing in all 48 states and in as many as 100 concerts a season. Gluck's extensive recording career earned her the most lasting fame. Between 1911 and 1919, Gluck made 124 recordings. Her recording of "Carry Me Back to Ol' Virginny" sold almost 2 million copies. Her career was quite financially successful; between 1914 and 1918 alone she earned $600,000 in royalties from her recordings.

To learn more about Alma Gluck, visit Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia.

See also: This Week in History for May 11, 1884: Birth of singer Alma Gluck; Sophie Braslau in Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia.

Source: Jewish Women in America, An Historical Encyclopedia, p.521-522.

Roberta Peters debuts at the Met

November 17, 1950

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Album cover of "Roberta Peters Sings Operatic Arias," September 18, 2007.

Roberta Peters has achieved international fame for her soprano voice and performing success. Born in 1930 and raised in New York City, Peters began voice lessons at age 13 and auditioned for the Metropolitan Opera at age 19. Though she had no performing experience, she impressed the general manager enough to earn a contract to appear in Mozart's The Magic Flute. Scheduled to debut in February, 1951, Peters in fact made her debut on November 17, 1950, when she was called upon to replace a colleague on only six hours notice. On that day, she sang the part of Zerlina in Mozart's Don Giovanni. The New York Times called her appearance "a very neat, well-sung, intelligent performance." It was the beginning of a long career at the Met, where Peters achieved the longest tenure of any soprano in the Opera's history.

During more than 35 years at the Met, Peters gave over 500 performances in more than 20 roles. Among the most well-known were performances as Gilda in Rigoletto, Rosina in The Barber of Seville, and Lucia in Lucia di Lammermoor. Success in New York soon led to performances elsewhere. In 1951, Peters debuted at London's Covent Garden in The Bohemian Girl. Tours in Chicago, San Francisco, Germany, and Austria soon followed. In 1972, she performed at the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow, where she received the Bolshoi Medal. It was the first time the Medal had been awarded to an American-born artist.

In addition to her operatic career, Peters has been an ambassador of classical music to the general public. In recitals and master classes throughout the world, and in a record 65 appearances on the Ed Sullivan Show, Peters has brought her music to the people. In her television appearances and recitals on college campuses and for Jewish groups, Peters sings American, European, and Yiddish folk songs as well as classical arias. She has performed often in Israel and also in specifically Jewish works like Abraham Kaplan's Kedushah Symphony (1982). In 2000, at age 70, she was still singing in about 25 concerts each year.

Peters has also devoted energy to social and philanthropic causes. She has served as chairman of the National Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, and on the boards of the Metropolitan Opera Guild and the Carnegie Hall Corporation. She has performed in benefit concerts for AIDS research, and established a scholarship fund at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. In 1991, President George Bush appointed her to the National Council on the Arts. She has received awards from the Federation of Women's Clubs (1964) and the Foundation for Jewish Culture (1997). In 2000, Mayor Rudolph Giuliani presented her with the Handel Medallion for enriching New York City's cultural life.

To learn more about Roberta Peters, visit Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia.

See also: This Week in History for May 4, 1930: Birth of opera singer Roberta Peters; Television in the United States; Roberta Peters in the Virtual Archive.

Sources: Jewish Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia, pp 1046-1048; web.archive.org/web/20080209233950/http://www2.jewishculture.org/awards/awards_arts_peters.html; www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=41:45646~T1; New York Times, November 18, 1950; New York Daily News, November 3, 2004; Roberta Peters, A Debut at the Met (New York, 1967).

Diana Mara Henry's Photographs of the Women's Pentagon Action Protest March

November 17, 1980

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The Women's Pentagon Action march on November 17, 1980, as photographed by Diana Mara Henry. Photograph Copyright ©1980 Diana Mara Henry / www.dianamarahenry.com.

“We women are gathering because life on the precipice is intolerable,” Women’s Pentagon Action declared in a unity statement before its march from Arlington National Cemetery to the Pentagon on November 17, 1980. The feminist coalition, which was opposed to nuclear proliferation and human rights abuses, employed innovative and experimental protest tactics during its demonstration. For example, giant, looming puppets led the march, guerilla theater was used to convey the group’s message, and a weaving demonstration was given to symbolize the reweaving of life. Two thousand women participated including Bella Abzug, the first Jewish woman to serve in Congress, and Grace Paley, the Jewish writer and activist who wrote the Women’s Pentagon Action unity statement.

Jewish photographer Diana Mara Henry was present at the march and documented the historic event. Born in 1948 in Cincinnati, Ohio, Henry first honed her photography skills working for the Harvard Crimson while a student at Radcliffe College. During that time, she took what she credits as her “first ‘feminist’ image.” The photograph depicts a butcher staring at a poster of a nude woman who has lines drawn on her skin, as if she were a cut of meat marked for the saw.

After graduation, Henry worked for NBC news and Newhouse newspapers before deciding to become a freelance photographer. In addition to the Women’s Pentagon Action in 1980, Henry photographed almost all of the important events in the American women’s movement. In 1972, she photographed Bella Abzug at a press conference to protest congressional redistricting on the West Side of Manhattan. Abzug went on to use Henry’s photographs for her campaign posters and hired her as an official photographer of the First National Women’s Conference, which was held in 1977 in Houston, Texas.

It was in Houston that Henry took one her most famous photographs, a shot of feminists Billie Jean King, Susan B. Anthony II, Bella Abzug, Sylvia Ortiz, Peggy Kokernot, Michele Cearcy, and Betty Friedan marching arm-in-arm into the conference. “I was rushing backward as fast as I could to get the shot of these proud and happy women energetically marching to the Houston convention center,” recalls Henry.

Henry has exhibited her work at the Women’s Museum, the Overseas Press Club, and the Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America, among other locations. She is the recipient of grants from the New York Foundation for the Arts and the New York State Council on the Arts, and has taught courses at the International Center of Photography in New York City. Her photographs, including those of the Women’s Pentagon Action, can be viewed online at her website, www.dianamarahenry.com.

To learn more about Diana Mara Henry, visit Jewish Women and the Feminist Revolution.

See also: This Week in History for November 18, 1977, “Bella Abzug convenes National Women’s Conference in Houston”; Diana Mara Henry in the Virtual Archive.

Sources : Women and Life on Earth ; www.dianamarahenry.com; Gerhard Bach and Blaine Hall, ed. Conversations with Grace Paley, Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi, 1997).

Jaimy Gordon wins the 2010 National Book Award for Fiction

November 17, 2010

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Photograph by Brian Widdis.

“I think I’m universally acknowledged to be the darkest, dark horse in the fiction field,” said Jaimy Gordon at the National Book Awards ceremony in New York City on November 17, 2010. With competition from better known writers including Peter Carey and Nicole Krauss, Gordon’s self-description was fitting given the subject matter of Lord of Misrule. The Baltimore-born author’s fourth novel, Lord of Misrule, introduces the reader to the fierce world of low stakes horseracing and the vibrant, gritty band of characters, including a down-and-out horseman and his gutsy but troubled girlfriend, who frequent the racetrack.

Gordon’s personal experiences and meticulous research lent the book its tangible believability. After she graduated from college in the late 1960s, Gordon took a number of "real life" jobs including working as a groom and hot-walker at Charles Town Race Track in West Virginia. Then, when she conceived the idea for Lord of Misrule, the novelist once again delved into the world of horse racing. “Doing far more textual research than I need is one of my favorite ways of avoiding writing,” noted 66-year-old Gordon. Hoping to develop one her novel’s main characters, Medicine Ed, Gordon asked a trainer she knew to find and introduce her to an older black groom who had worked most of his life at track. Thus began her friendship with Bubbles Riley, a 96-year-old groom at tracks in West Virginia and Maryland. “Bubbles had done much more than rub horses in his day,” said Gordon. “And he is far too foxy, worldly, gregarious, savvy in business, and downright postmodern to have been the model for Medicine Ed, but he told me hundreds of things I needed to know in the course of writing Lord of Misrule, and he still does.”

A professor of English at Western Michigan University since 1981, Gordon recalls that she dreaded the idea of writing another book featuring a spirited, reckless young female protagonist (see Bogeywoman, She Drove without Stopping, and The Bend, The Lip, The Kid). “I emphatically did not want to write a fourth of that kind, but as it turned out, when I had the first finished draft of Lord of Misrule in hand, another plucky 25-year old with bad judgment was grinning out at me. Then, it wasn’t so much that I couldn’t rewrite it: I had an aversion even to reading it that lasted, obviously, for years.”

But her friend, publisher Bruce McPherson, struck a deal with Gordon based on an early draft of Lord of Misrule: his small company could have the book if she didn’t eventually sell it to another publisher. “Towards the end of last summer,” recalled Jaimy, “I hadn’t even looked at the book.” So when McPherson sent her an unrevised draft of Lord of Misrule as a gentle reminder of their agreement, Jaimy was surprised by how much she liked it. It was “as if somebody else had written it. I even cried twice – that was when I thought I probably had something.”

The National Book Awards judges agreed, calling Lord of Misrule a “vivid, memorable, and linguistically rich novel.” The author Joanna Scott presented the award for best fiction book at the ceremony to an astonished Gordon and a cheering audience. “We might need some smelling salts over in the corner there,” joked Scott as Gordon got up from the table to accept the honor. “I am totally unprepared and I am totally surprised,” said a humble Gordon, trophy in hand. The author went on to thank her friends and fellow dark horse writers. “I feel as though this is as much for them as it is for me, and for everybody who was involved in this book in any way. Thank you.”

Sources: National Book Foundation Interview with Jaimy Gordon; Jaimy Gordon’s National Book Foundation author page.

See also: Top 10 Moments for Jewish Women in 2010 on Jewesses with Attitude; Jewish Women On the Map - Western Michigan University English Department.

Bella Abzug convenes National Women's Conference in Houston

November 18, 1977

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From Bella Abzug's Speech as Presiding Officer, November 19, 1977

"What we are doing here in Houston is part of an irreversible worldwide movement in which women are speaking out for our needs and trying to create a better world in which men and women do not victimize each other, but work together for a decent life for all people.

There can be no turning back to a time when women were...prevented from using their skills and abilities, barred from the places of power.

We can no longer accept a condition in which men rule the Nation and the world, excluding half the human race from effective economic and political power. Not when the world is in such bad shape."

Notes
1. Entire quote from United States National Commission on the Observance of International Women's Year, The Spirit of Houston: The First National Women's Conference: An Official Report to the President, the Congress and the People of the United States (Washington: National Commission on the Observance of International Women's Year, 1978) 218.

On November 18, 1977, 20,000 women, men and children gathered in Houston to participate in an unprecedented event, the first federally funded National Women’s Conference. Longtime feminist activist and U.S. Representative Bella Abzug presided over the conference, for which she had paved the way two years earlier by authoring a bill in Congress that provided the conference’s funding.

Preparation for the national Houston meeting included conferences organized in each state to discuss women’s needs and public policy and to consider a “National Plan of Action” to improve the lives of women. The Houston Conference subsequently approved the National Plan. While many grassroots women’s organizations used these meetings as an opportunity to mobilize and use government to achieve feminist goals, opponents approached them as an opportunity to unite in a fight against feminist causes. Phyllis Schlafly and others attacked the Houston conference and its agenda and created the basis for a new anti-feminist constituency in American public life.

Over the course of the conference’s three days, a diverse group of about 2,000 official delegates ratified a National Plan of Action dealing with everything from the Equal Rights Amendment to Civil Rights to disarmament. This set of recommendations was then presented to the White House and to Congress. The National Plan of Action called for equal opportunities for women in artistic, professional, and political fields, comprehensive childcare facilities, a national healthcare system, civil rights for lesbians, protection against rape and child abuse, and a better welfare system, among many other issues.

On November 10-11, 2007, the Bella Abzug Leadership Institute, directed by Bella's daughter, Liz Abzug, celebrated the 30^th anniversary of the Houston Conference by convening a "national women's and girls conference," entitled Freedom on Our Terms.

To learn more about Bella Abzug, visit the Women of Valor exhibit and Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia.

See also: Jewish Women "On the Map" - 1977 National Women's Conference in Houston.

Sources: jwa.org/exhibits/wov/abzug/houston.html; www.jofreeman.com/photos/IWY1977.html; womhist.alexanderstreet.com/dp59/doclist.htm; Jewish Women and the Feminist Revolution, jwa.org/feminism.

Emma Lazarus dies at age 38

November 19, 1887

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When Emma Lazarus died on November 19, 1887 at the age of 38, the obituary published in the New York Times referred to her as “an American Poet of Uncommon talent,” but did not mention her poem, “The New Colossus,” which today is indelibly associated with The Statue of Liberty.

One of the first successful Jewish American authors, Lazarus was part of the late-19^th-century New York literary elite, and was celebrated in her day as an important American poet. In her later years, she wrote bold, powerful poetry and essays protesting the rise of anti-Semitism and arguing for Russian immigrants’ rights. She called on Jews to unite and create a homeland in Palestine before the title Zionist had even been coined. She is best known today for her poem, “The New Colossus,” which was written in 1883 as part of the effort to raise money for a pedestal to the Statue of Liberty. France was donating the statue to the United States, but Americans had to raise the funds for the pedestal.

Her untimely death, probably from cancer, was mourned in both the Jewish and broader communities. It was only, however, after Lazarus’s friend Georgina Schuyler installed a bronze memorial tablet inside the entrance to the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty in 1903, inscribed with the lines from “The New Colossus,” including

“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,”

that Lazarus’s memory became forever associated with her powerful vision of America as a symbol of hope for the down-trodden.

Learn more about Emma Lazarus in Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia and the Women of Valor exhibit.

See also: Emma Lazarus poster; Emma Lazarus in the Virtual Archive; Discover: Patriotism and Dissent; Emma Lazarus's Audacity of Hope in Jewesses with Attitude; Jewish Women "On the Map" - Grave Marker for Emma Lazarus, Cypress Hill Cemetery and Statue of Liberty; Emma Lazarus in "Cool Jewish Women" on MyBatMitzvahStory.org.

Sources: jwa.org/exhibits/wov/lazarus/; www.350th.org/exhibit01/index.html; New York Times, November 20, 1887; May 6, 1903; Esther Schor, Emma Lazarus (Schocken, 2006).

Gertrude Berg debuts in "The Goldbergs"

November 20, 1929

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When she created Molly Goldberg and the Goldberg family for radio, stage, TV and film, Gertrude Berg introduced middle-class Jewish life to millions of Americans.

Institution: Private collection

Gertrude Berg's popular radio program, The Goldbergs, about an upwardly mobile American Jewish family debuted on NBC radio on November 20, 1929. Berg developed the kernel of the show as a series of live sketches to entertain guests at her family's Catskills hotel. It was produced in recurrent runs as a daily 15-minute program on NBC and other networks for nearly two decades before shifting to television in January, 1949. On both radio and TV, Berg served as the sole writer, producer, and star of one the nation's most popular programs.

Throughout its 30 years on radio and television, as well as in presentations on Broadway and on film, The Goldbergs dealt explicitly with Jewish life in the United States, joking about the cultural differences between "old world" immigrants and their American-born offspring. Berg's Molly became a cultural touchstone, a figure combining old world wisdom, new world common sense, and a mother's humanity in confronting the perplexities of American life. Over the show's three decades, the Goldberg family moved from a New York City tenement to the Bronx and later to suburban Connecticut, mirroring the upward progression of many Jews into the American mainstream.

Although Berg continued to produce The Goldbergs into the 1950s, the show's popularity declined. The demise of The Goldbergs reflects the homogenizing trend in postwar American society. As millions of ethnic Americans fled their traditional urban enclaves in search of an un-hyphenated, simply "American" identity in the suburbs, programming explicitly grounded in ethnic cultures gave way to more all-American shows like Leave it to Beaver and Father Knows Best. The Goldbergs went off the air in 1955.

To learn more about Gertrude Berg, visit Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia.

See also: This Week in History for October 18, 1948: Molly Goldberg makes her television debut and January 10, 1949: Gertrude Berg's "The Goldbergs" premieres on television; Television in the United States.

Sources:www.museum.tv/archives/etv/G/htmlG/goldbergsth/goldbergsth.htm; www.museum.tv/archives/etv/B/htmlB/berggertrude/berggertrud.htm; www.radiohof.org/comedy/goldbergs.html; You Never Call, You Never Write: A History of the Jewish Mother (Antler, 2007).

Rebekah Kohut honored for fifty years of communal activism

November 21, 1935

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The daughter and wife of rabbis, Rebecca Kohut forged her own path in the Jewish world, making her mark in education, social welfare and women's activism within the Jewish community.

Institution: The Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives, Cincinnati, OH, www.americanjewisharchives.org and Bachrach Bros. Baltimore, MD.

U.S. Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins, NYC Mayor Fiorello La Guardia, Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, Henry Morgenthau, and 800 others honored Rebekah Kohut’s 50 years of communal work at a special dinner on November 21, 1935. Chaired by the novelist Fannie Hurst, the dinner assembled a wide array of political, cultural, and philanthropic notables who spoke of Kohut’s varied contributions, her role as “a great moral teacher,” and her pioneering efforts to apply scientific principles to charitable work.

Kohut was presented with a check for $10,000 from Felix M. Warburg as the first installment of a promised fund of $50,000 that she was to be given to distribute to her own favorite charities.

Kohut was a notable activist in the Jewish and secular communities in the areas of education, social welfare, and women’s organizational life. She came to the United States from Hungary as a child, growing up in Richmond, Virginia and San Francisco where her father served as a rabbi.

In 1887, while in her early 20s, Rebekah married the traditionalist New York rabbi Alexander Kohut, a widower with eight children, six under the age of 13. Rebekah devoted herself chiefly to these children and to her husband’s scholarly work until his death in 1894.

In succeeding years, Kohut devoted herself to the expanding world of Jewish women’s organizational life and the financial support of her family. She was the first president of the New York Section of the National Council of Jewish Women, gave public lectures on Jewish subjects, and opened a private school in cooperation with her stepchildren.

During World War I, she became involved in employment work, which led to her role as an advisor on unemployment to New York governor Franklin D. Roosevelt in the early 1930s. Her efforts to bring relief to devastated European Jewish communities after World War I led to her leading role in convening the World Congress of Jewish Women in Vienna in 1923 and being elected as the organization’s first president.

To learn more about Rebekah Kohut, visit Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia.

See also: Autobiography in the United States; International Council of Jewish Women; Dora Askowith in Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia.

Sources: Jewish Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia, pp. 749-751; New York Times, November 22, 1935.

Clara Lemlich sparks Uprising of the 20,000

November 22, 1909

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Two women strikers on picket line during the "Uprising of the 20,000", garment workers strike, New York City. This is a press photograph from the George Grantham Bain collection purchased by the Library of Congress in 1948.

“I am one of those who suffers from the abuses described here, and I move that we go on a general strike.” Thus, in Yiddish, 23-year-old Clara Lemlich addressed a crowd of thousands of restless laborers at New York City’s Cooper Union on November 22, 1909. They had been listening for hours as numerous labor leaders decried current working conditions in New York’s garment industry but who nonetheless advocated caution when considering a strike.

Lemlich’s words and passion stirred the crowd. The chairman of the event came to her side and called out “Will you take the old Hebrew oath?” Although not an exclusively Jewish gathering, most in the crowd raised their right arms and pledged with him in Yiddish: “If I turn traitor to the cause I now pledge, may my hand wither from the arm I now raise.” And so began the "Uprising of the 20,000"; a critical turning point in American labor activism.

In the months that followed, thousands of garment workers, mainly young Jewish and Italian women, walked picket lines and confronted police brutality. A strong corps of Jewish women, led by figures like Lemlich, Rose Schneiderman, and Pauline Newman, worked tirelessly to organize and sustain the strike effort. They insisted that their concerns extended beyond wages and hours as they fought for dignity in working conditions and for women’s right to union recognition. While the strike was only partially successful, it set off a wave of general strikes from 1909-1915 in cities across the United States. As a result, U.S. labor leaders who had long dismissed the needs of women workers and ignored the work of female activists had to accept the centrality of women’s needs within the American labor movement.

To learn more about Clara Lemlich, visit Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Encyclopedia.

See also: The Uprising of the 20,000; This Week in History for April 22, 1912, May 27, 1935 and July 12, 1982; Emma Lazarus Federation of Jewish Women's Clubs; Jewish Women "On the Map" - Emma Goldman mural at Ahawath Yeshurun Shar'a Torah synagogue,Cooper Union, and the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union office; 10 Things You Should Know About Clara Lemlich and Remembering the Uprising of the 20,000, Jewesses with Attitude; Clara Lemlich Shavelson in the Virtual Archive.

Sources: Jewish Women in America, An Historical Encyclopedia, pp. 772-773; Annelise Orleck, Common Sense and a Little Fire: Women and Working-Class Politics in the United States, 1900-1965 (Chapel Hill, 1995), pp. 48-59; Jacob Rader Marcus, ed., The American Jewish Woman: A Documentary History (Cincinnati, 1981), pp. 568-570.

Dianne Feinstein's career changed by violence

November 22, 1978

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Political pioneer, tough leader, crime fighter, reformer: These are some of the words that describe Dianne Feinstein, former mayor of San Francisco and United States senator from California since 1992.

Institution: Senator Dianne Feinstein, California

On November 22, 1978, San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and City Supervisor Harvey Milk were assassinated in City Hall by a former city supervisor, Dan White. Dianne Feinstein, who was then the President of the San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors, was the first to discover Harvey Milk’s body.

Feinstein, who was the first female president of the Board of Supervisors, was then sworn in as the first female mayor of San Francisco in Moscone’s stead. In 1979, she was elected to the first of two full terms as mayor. In 1992, she won a special Senate election to replace Pete Wilson who had left his seat to become governor of California. Joining her in winning election to the Senate in 1992 was Barbara Boxer, another Jewish woman. Feinstein was re-elected in 1994, 2000, and 2006.

Ashlee Temple plays Dianne Feinstein in the film Milk (2008) about Harvey Milk's life and the events leading up to his assassination.

To learn more about Dianne Feinstein, visit Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia.

See also: This Week in History, November 3, 1992, Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer Elected to Senate, and Jewish Women in Politics; Jewish Women "On the Map" - Dianne Feinstein Elementary School; Jewesses in politics represent! and Milestones for Jewesses in politics, Jewesses with Attitude.

Sources: E-mail communication to JWA from Senator Feinstein’s office, March, 2004; feinstein.senate.gov/public/.

American women mark death of British author Grace Aguilar

November 23, 1847

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When she died in 1847 at the age of thirty-one, Grace Aguilar had already attained a reputation as a poet, historical romance writer, domestic novelist, Jewish emancipator, religious reformer, educator, social historian, theologian and liturgist. A Jewish woman in Victorian England, Aguilar produced books that appealed to both Jews and Christians, women and men, religious traditionalists and reformers, and which were subsequently translated into French, German and Hebrew.

Institution: Engraving by kind permission of Michael Dugdale, www.graceaguilar.info

On November 23, 1847, The Ladies of the Society for the Religious Instruction in Charleston, South Carolina passed a resolution of tribute at the passing of the British author, Grace Aguilar. Aguilar had died on September 16, 1847 at the age of 31.

Aguilar’s work had been championed by Philadelphia editor Isaac Leeser,who published Aguilar’s books in the United States and included her writings in his monthly magazine, The Occident and American Jewish Advocate. As a result, Aguilar was in many ways better known in the Jewish community of the United States than in England.

In addition to historical romances (e.g. The Vale of Cedars)and reflections on Judaism (The Spirit of Judaism, 1842)Aguilar’s influential book, The Women of Israel(1844), contested the claims by numerous Christian authors that Judaism denigrated women. Aguilar argued for Judaism’s ancient and contemporary regard for women by detailing the strong and admirable women who appear in Judaism’s essential defining text, the Bible.

Aguilar returned the feeling of kinship that American Jewish women bore her. She even responded to an 1843 request from Savannah to contribute to a fair that local Jewish women were holding to raise funds to hire a rabbi. Aguilar sent along two purses, six needle cases, and 12 pincushions on which she had done the needlework, along with additional needlework pieces gathered from some of her friends. In mourning Aguilar’s passing, the Charleston women truly felt they had lost one of their own.

Aguilar’s death at a young age evinced a strong response. Leeser observed that “there has not arisen a single Jewish female in modern times who has done so much for the illustration and adornment of her faith as Grace Aguilar.” The Charleston women expressed their appreciation for the “power and effect” of the “pen of this champion of our faith, against that giant Prejudice, whose shadow blackens the earth.” Citing her as the “moral governess of the Hebrew family,” the women of the Society resolved that her death“must be regarded as a national calamity; and that no demonstration of respect, however high, can convey an adequate sense of the exalted estimation in which we hold her character or of the profound regret with which we received the tidings of her dissolution.”

To learn more about Grace Aguilar, visit Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia.

See also: Writers in Victorian England.

Sources: Occident and American Jewish Advocate, 5:8 (November 1847): 419; 5:10 (January 1848): 510-511 [see www.jewish-history.com/Occident/]; Karla Goldman, Beyond the Synagogue Gallery: Finding a Place for Women in American Judaism, (Cambridge, MA, 2000), p. 65.

National Council of Jewish Women opens shelter

November 25, 1917

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The New York Section of the National Council of Jewish Women dedicated the first shelter for “homeless and friendless” Jewish women discharged or paroled from New York City and New York state jails on November 25,1917.

Speakers at the dedication included the prominent rabbi Stephen S. Wise and Deaconess Young, who directed another home for “friendless women” in the same neighborhood. Although the home was founded to serve Jewish women, the president of the New York Council section affirmed that “no unfortunate woman of any race, creed or color would be refused aid if she needed it.”

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 13, 1913 - Los Angeles Council of Jewish Women opens day nursery and November 15, 1896 - National Council of Jewish Women holds first national convention.

Source: New York Times, November 26, 1917.

Release of "Free To Be You and Me"

November 27, 1972

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Letty Cottin Pogrebin was the editorial project consultant for "Free to Be You and Me" album, released on November 27, 1972, as well as the book and television special associated with the project. Created by feminist and actress Marlo Thomas, "Free To Be You And Me" is an album of non-sexist stories and songs for that have helped shape the worldview of a generation of children.

Free To Be You and Me, the album of non-sexist stories and songs that helped shape the self-understanding and world view of a generation of children, was released on November 27, 1972. Letty Cottin Pogrebin was the editorial project consultant for the album as well as the book and television special associated with the project, all of which were created by feminist and actress Marlo Thomas. Free To Be You And Me, which features such songs as “Parents are People” and “It’s All Right to Cry,” is still enjoyed by children today.

In addition to her work on Free To Be You And Me, Pogrebin was a founding editor of Ms. Magazine. She was a co-founder of the National Women’s Political Caucus, as well as the Ms. Foundation for Women and the International Center for Peace in the Middle East.

When the United Nations International Women's Decade Conference equated Zionism with Racism in 1975, Pogrebin was provoked to combat anti-Semitism within the women's movement just as she fought sexism within Judaism. Over the last three decades, Pogrebin has been a fixture in feminist, Jewish, and Jewish-feminist causes, as well as an outspoken political activist on issues including hunger, the Israel-Palestine conflict, and Black-Jewish relations.

Her publications include the best-selling parenting guide to raising non-sexist children, Growing Up Free: Raising Your Children in the 80s (1980), as well as Deborah, Golda, and Me: Being Female and Jewish in America (1991), Family Politics: Love and Power on an Intimate Frontier (1983), and Getting Over Getting Older: An Intimate Journey (1996). Her first novel was Three Daughters (2003).

To learn more about Letty Cottin Pogrebin, visit Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia and Jewish Women and the Feminist Revolution.

See also: This Week in History for June 9, 1939, Birth of feminist Letty Cottin Pogrebin; Letty Cottin Pogrebin in the Virtual Archive; Our 10 Plagues, The Sisterhood 50, Free to be... on Jewesses with Attitude.

Sources: www.soapboxinc.com/letty-cottin-pogrebin; Jewish Women in America, An Historical Encyclopedia, pp. 1087-1088; Jewish Women and the Feminist Revolution, jwa.org/feminism/index.html?id=JWA058.

Phoebe Yates Levy Pember given charge of Confederate military hospital

November 29, 1862

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Phoebe Yates Pember was a Richmond nurse during the Civil War. She served as the matron of Richmond's Chimborazo Hospital, reportedly the largest military hospital in the world in the 1860s.

Photo source: http://www.lib.unc.edu/. This photo is in the public domain.

On November 29, 1862, Phoebe Yates Levy Pember wrote a letter to her sister indicating that she was about “to take charge of one of the hospitals at Richmond.” In December 1862, she reported for duty at Chimborazo, a hospital for the care of Confederate soldiers in Richmond, Virginia. It was reputed to be the largest military hospital in the world up to that time. Pember oversaw nursing services in one of the hospital’s five divisions. In this role, she was responsible for the medical and dietary needs of over 15,000 men.

Pember had grown up in a prosperous and acculturated family in Charleston, South Carolina. Like most Jewish southerners and along with her siblings, she was strongly identified with the Confederate cause, and she received the invitation to serve as matron of Chimborazo Hospital from the wife of the Confederate secretary of war.

In A Southern Woman’s Story: Life in Confederate Richmond, published in 1879, Pember described daily life at Chimborazo, detailing the poor state of the Confederate medical facilities. Fighting administrative disorder and unsanitary conditions, Pember was responsible for the nursing, caretaking, and feeding of over 15,000 men. At the end of the war in April 1865, Mrs. Pember stayed at her post so that her patients might be cared for during the transition from Confederate to federal control.

To learn more about Phoebe Yates Levy Pember, visit Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia.

See also: This Week in History for August 18, 1823, Birth of Confederate nurse Phoebe Yates Levy Pember; Jewish Women in the Military; Jewish Women "On the Map" - Chimborazo Hospital - Richmond National Battlefield Park; Civil War in the United States.

Sources: Phoebe Yates Pember, A Southern Woman’s Story: Life in Confederate Richmond, edited by Bell Irvin Wiley (1879, reprint 1959); Jewish Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia, pp. 1042-1043.

Death of Ilona Karmel, literary chronicler of the Holocaust

November 30, 2000

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An Estate of Memory, authored by Holocaust survivor Ilona Karmel, is considered one of the most significant novels in English that addresses the experiences of Jewish women during World War II.

When Ilona Karmel died on November 30, 2000, she was remembered as the author of the novel, An Estate of Memory. It is considered one of the most significant novels in English to address the experiences of Jewish women during World War II.

Born in Cracow in 1925, Karmel was interned along with her mother and sister in three different labor camps after the Nazi occupation of Poland. She sustained severe leg injuries during the war and required years of recuperation before immigrating to the United States in 1948.

Within four years of arriving in the United States, Karmel graduated from Radcliffe College, won a fiction-writing contest sponsored by Mademoiselle magazine, and completed her first novel, Stephania. Stephania focused on the physical and spiritual recovery of a young woman who had survived the Nazi concentration camps.

In 1969, Karmel published An Estate of Memory. Reviewed on the front page of the New York Times Book Review, it was one of the earliest significant literary treatments of Jewish experience in the Nazi camps and remains one of the most significant novels to address Jewish women’s experiences during the Holocaust. It was reissued by the Feminist Press in 1986.

Karmel taught creative writing at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for many years where an annual writing prize that she established has been renamed in her honor.

To learn more about Ilona Karmel, visit Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia.

See also: Holocaust Literature.

Source: Jewish Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia, pp. 723-724.