Anita Diamant publishes "The Red Tent"

October 1, 1997

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Author Anita Diamant at a booksigning at Nightingale House, London, March 2010.

Photo by Brian Minkoff, London Pixels.

Anita Diamant's powerful first work of fiction, The Red Tent, was published on October 1, 1997. The novel offers a striking reimagining of the minimal Biblical narratives describing the lives of the Jewish matriarchs, Rebecca, Leah, and Rachel. It focuses on the life of Leah's daughter Dina who appears in the Bible only as a rape victim.

After a small initial printing, readers across the nation began to discover and embrace The Red Tent. It became a popular pick by book clubs and individuals alike, and a long-lived best seller on amazon.com. The Red Tent has been reprinted multiple times in paperback, and foreign editions are available in 20 countries worldwide. A tenth-anniversary edition was published in August 2007.

Prior to publishing The Red Tent, Diamant worked as a journalist in Boston and New England. She is the author of many critically acclaimed books about contemporary Jewish life, practice, and the community. Such books include Choosing a Jewish Life: A Handbook for People Converting to Judaism and for Their Family and Friends (1997), as well as Saying Kaddish, How to Comfort the Dying, Bury the Dead and Mourn as a Jew (1998).

Diamant lives in Boston where she helped to found and is President of Mayyim Hayyim: Living Waters Community Mikveh & Education Center, an organization that opened the first non-Orthodox mikveh (ritual bath) in the Boston area in May 2004. Diamant's most recent books include novels, Day After Night (2009), The Last Days of Dogtown (2005), and Pitching My Tent (2003), a spiritual autobiography.

See also: This Week in History for May 14, 2004, "Mayyim Hayyim, a progressive community mikveh, opens"; Jewesses with Attitude, "Story Time," "A Look at 'How Jews Look' and 'The Colors of Water'"; Anglo-Jewish Writers: Twentieth Century.

Sources: www.mayyimhayyim.org; www.anitadiamant.com.

Birth of photographer Annie Leibovitz

October 2, 1949

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Annie Leibovitz is one of the most famous and renowned photographers alive today.

Photo by Marc Silber of www.silberstudios.com.

Annie Leibovitz, one of the country's most gifted photographers, was born on October 2, 1949. Leibovitz is known for her stylized portraits of musicians and other celebrities, ranging from John Lennon and Yoko Ono, to Bette Midler, to Arnold Schwarzenegger. The photographs that gained her entry as a professional, however, were not focused on pop culture but on the land of Israel. Leibovitz spent time there while in college, and her pictures from that 1969 visit garnered enough attention to get a job at the music magazine, Rolling Stone.

By 1973, Leibovitz was Rolling Stone's chief photographer. She put together her first exhibit of photographs in 1983, which led to a book, Annie Leibovitz: Photographs (1983). That same year, Leibovitz left Rolling Stone for Vanity Fair, where she was able to shoot a broader range of subjects than she had at the music magazine. The American Society of Magazine Photographers named Leibovitz "Photographer of the Year" in 1984, and she is one of only two living photographers to have had an exhibit at the National Portrait Gallery.

In 1999, Leibovitz and Susan Sontag collaborated on Women, a collection of over 200 photographs of women living in America at the end of the twentieth century. Although Leibovitz has spent much of her life photographing celebrities, Women presents portraits of a broad cross section of American womanhood. In addition to prominent actresses, artists, musicians, and first ladies, the book includes portraits of teachers, soldiers, coal miners, farmers, and activists.

In 2006, the Brooklyn Museum mounted an exhibition of Leibovitz's work entitled Annie Leibovitz: A Photographer's Life, 1990-2005. Leibovitz's book A Photographer's Life, 1990-2005, gathers the work in this show depicting both stunning stylized celebrity portraits and searing images of vibrancy, illness, and death drawn from her personal life with her family and with Susan Sontag. On March 5, 2010, Annie Leibovitz was presented with the 2010 Women of Distinction award from the Georgia O'Keefe Museum in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

To learn more about Annie Leibovitz, visit Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia.

See also: Photographers in the United States and This Week in History January 21, 1971, "Annie Leibovitz's first "Rolling Stone" cover features John Lennon"; Jewesses with Attitude, "Don’t call her Anna-Lou, or a lesbian"; Jewish Women on the Map - Lensic Performing Arts Center.

Sources: Jewish Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia pp. 817-818; web.archive.org/web/20080201064207/http://www.temple.edu/photo/photographers/leibovitz/index.html; www.brooklynmuseum.org/exhibitions/annie_leibovitz.

Barbara Walters becomes highest-paid journalist

October 4, 1976

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Barbara Walters has probably interviewed more statesmen and stars than any other journalist in history. Her numerous and timely TV interviews, both on the weekly newsmagazine 20/20 and on The Barbara Walters Specials, read like a "Who's Who" of newsmakers.

Institution: Private collection

On October 4, 1976, Barbara Walters became the first woman co-anchor of a major network evening news program. Joining Harry Reasoner, on the ABC evening news, she became the highest paid journalist, male or female, up to that time. Reasoner, however, made it clear that he did not want to work with a co-anchor, and Walters only stayed with the show for a year and a half.

Before joining ABC, Walters worked on NBC’s Today Show for fifteen years. Beginning as a writer, she became the program’s first female co-host in 1974. After leaving the nightly news, Walters worked in numerous capacities for ABC, including as host of the Barbara Walters Specials featuring interviews with prominent show business figures. In 1984, Walters became co-host of 20/20 news magazine where she remained until September 2004.

Walters is renowned for her interviewing skills, and has interviewed every American President and First Lady since Richard and Pat Nixon. In November 1977 she arranged the first joint interview with Egypt’s President Anwar Sadat and Israel’s Prime Minister Menachem Begin. Another “first” was her hour-long prime time interview with Fidel Castro, which has since been printed in half a dozen languages and shown all over the world. Today Walters is co-owner, co-executive producer, and co-host of The View on ABC. She published her best-selling memoir, Audition, in 2008 and hosts a weekly radio program on Sirius Radio. On September 21, 2009, Walters was honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 30th Annual News and Documentary Emmy Awards at New York City's Lincoln Center.

To learn more about Barbara Walters, visit Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia.

See also: Television in the United States.

Sources: Jewish Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia, pp. 1451-1453; abc.go.com/daytime/theview/cohosts.

Opening of Barnard College

October 7, 1889

Driven by the effective and fervent lobbying efforts of activist Annie Nathan Meyer (1867-1951), Barnard College opened its doors on October 7, 1889.

Although a number of northern women's colleges had opened during the 1870s, numerous cities, including New York, had little to offer young women of scholarly inclinations. In 1885, when she was 18, Annie Nathan, who was largely self-educated, sought educational alternatives by organizing a reading circle and enrolling in the newly established extension program for women at Columbia College.

Meyer married shortly before her 20th birthday in 1887 and soon began working to establish an affiliate women's college to Columbia. Meyer published a powerful letter in the Nation magazine and circulated a petition throughout the city to enlist the college's trustees in her effort. Meyer succeeded in securing funding and support from the trustees on April 1, 1889, leased quarters for the school, and began accepting applicants. Barnard became the first women's college in New York to offer the rigorous course work equivalent to that of male liberal arts colleges.

Annie Nathan Meyer continued her work with Barnard throughout her life, becoming a member of the first board of trustees where she remained active for the ensuing six decades.

To learn more about Annie Nathan Meyer, visit Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia.

See also: Annie Nathan Meyer in the Virtual Archive.

Sources: Jewish Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia, pp. 918-920; beatl.barnard.columbia.edu/barnard.

Torah Scribe Julie Seltzer Started Work on a Sefer Torah

October 8, 2009

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As It Is Written: Project 304, 805. Scribe Julie Seltzer. Photo by Bruce Damonte; Courtesy of the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco.

In the fall of 2009, the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco launched the project “As It Is Written,” which allowed visitors to watch the painstaking process of writing the 304,805 Hebrew letters of the Torah, the first time a Torah has been created in a public space. To boot, the project was undertaken by one of a handful of soferot -- female Torah scribes.

The scribe who undertook this labor of love is Julie Seltzer, one of about 10 women in the world who write the Torah and the other restricted documents containing quotations from Hebrew Scriptures, including those for the tefillin (small leather boxes housing Scriptural passages) and mezuzot, which are affixed to door frames. According to a New York Times article: “Age-old Jewish law declares that only men be trained for such work, and that a Torah that has been created by a woman is unsuitable for use in worship, strictures that are still upheld in Orthodox communities and congregations. But Ms. Seltzer, who is 34, and a few others are widening an ancient tradition in a modern age.”

In her bio for the Women’s Torah Project, Seltzer describes her decision to become a soferot: “I was walking down the streets of Baka in late 2007 when I literally stopped in my tracks as the revelation struck: I was going to learn sofrut. As much as I had engaged in Torah study, leyned on shabbes, and argued esoterica from the Talmud, I’d never given a second thought to who wrote Torah scrolls – or any other scrolls for that matter.” Seltzer has previously worked in theater, Jewish education, and as a baker notable for her specially-shaped challot inspired by the weekly parsha.

Seltzer was trained by Jen Taylor Friedman, who in 2007 became the first woman to scribe a Torah. The project began on October 8, 2009 and concluded on March 29, 2011. The finished Torah will be loaned to struggling Jewish communities to use for up to five years at a time.

See also: Jewish Women On the Map, Contemporary Jewish Museum; This Week in History for October 16, 2010.

Sources: A Torah Scribe Pushes the Parchment Ceiling, New York Times; Hasoferet.com; Womenstorah.com/JulieSeltzer

Construction begins on Denver hospital inspired by Frances Wisebart Jacobs

October 9, 1892

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Frances Wisebart Jacobs. Image courtesy of Beck Archives, Special Collections, Penrose Library and CJS, University of Denver. This image is in the public domain.

Construction on a building that was to be called the Frances Wisebart Jacobs Hospital and is now known as the National Jewish Medical and Research Center, began in Denver on October 9, 1892. Frances Jacobs, known as Colorado's "Mother of Charity," devoted her life to community service. She is the only woman included among the sixteen Colorado pioneers depicted through stained glass portraits in the state's Capital Rotunda.

Born in Kentucky and raised in Cincinnati, Jacobs moved with her husband to Colorado in 1863; they settled in Denver in 1870. Jacobs quickly became involved in Denver’s Jewish and non-Jewish communities. By 1872, Jacobs had helped to organize and was serving as president of the Hebrew Ladies’ Benevolent Society. In 1874, she helped found the nonsectarian Denver Ladies’ Relief Society. She worked for the creation of Denver’s first kindergartens and, together with leading Christian clergymen, helped organize Denver’s Charity Organization Society, a forerunner to the United Way, in 1877.

Jacobs also pushed the Denver Jewish community to attend to the care of the many Jewish tuberculosis sufferers who came to Denver. At that time, the only known treatment for tuberculosis was clean air and sunshine; since Denver had both of these resources in abundance, it became a popular destination for infected immigrants from the industrial Northeast. When these immigrants arrived in Denver, they found no facilities available to treat or even shelter them, and the community ignored their plight.

Jacobs did her best to help those who were ill on an individual basis, but worked to convince the Jewish community to help, leading to the construction of the hospital, whose motto became “None may enter who can pay, and none can pay who enter.”

Jacobs died at the age of 49, just a few weeks after construction on the hospital had commenced, from pneumonia she contracted during a visit to an impoverished family. Her death was mourned by a broad spectrum of the Denver community and the Rocky Mountain News which noted "She knew no creed or denomination when a cry of distress was heard." In her memory, the hospital trustees voted to name the hospital after her.

The hospital did not actually open, however, until 1899 after an extensive fund-raising campaign conducted by the B'nai B'rith. In recognition of its national scope it opened under the name of National Jewish Hospital. Today the institution is the leading medical and research center in the United States devoted entirely to respiratory, allergic, and immune system diseases, appearing in the news whenever there is a prominent case of T.B..

To learn more about Frances Wisebart Jacobs, visit Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia.

See also: Jewish Women On the Map - Colorado state capitol building and National Jewish Health.

Sources:Jewish Women In America: An Historical Encyclopedia, pp. 684-685; www.njc.org; Jeanne E. Abrams, Jewish Women Pioneering the Frontier Trail: A History in the American West (New York, 2006).

Opening of Goldie Hawn's "Private Benjamin"

October 10, 1980

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"Women have to be very, very tough," says actor-producer Goldie Hawn, who practices what she preaches. Despite the difficulties of working in a male-dominated industry, she has become a force to be reckoned with both in front of and behind the camera.

Institution: Private collection

Goldie Hawn produced and starred in the highly popular film, Private Benjamin, which was released in theaters on October 10, 1980. The movie focuses on Judy Benjamin, a pampered bride-to-be whose husband suddenly dies on their wedding night. In her grief, Benjamin enlists in the Women’s Army Corps, and once she joins the army, Benjamin undergoes a transformation from stereotypical Jewish American Princess to self-aware, empowered woman in charge.

Hawn, one of the most successful women in Hollywood, has acted in over thirty films. Her film credits include Death Becomes Her (1992), The First Wives Club (1996), The Out-of-Towners (1999) and most recently The Banger Sisters (2002). Cactus Flower (1969) started Hawn’s film career, and netted her an Oscar® for Best Supporting Actress and a Golden Globe Award for her performance. She has also produced a number of theatrical and television movies, including 1997’s TV movie, Hope, (which Hawn also directed), and The Matthew Shepard Story (2002). Hawn's memoir, A Lotus Grows in the Mud, was published in 2006.

To learn more about Goldie Hawn, visit Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia.

See also: Film Industry in the United States, Jewish Women in Comedy.

Source: Jewish Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia, pp. 603-604.

Founding of Women's American ORT

October 12, 1927

In a Brooklyn kitchen on October 12, 1927, Anna Boudin, Mrs. Jacob Panken and Florence Dolowitz organized the first meeting of the Women’s American ORT (WAO). Originally founded in Tsarist Russia in the 1880s, ORT (the Russian acronym stands for Organization for the Distribution of Artisanal and Agricultural Skills) was intended to provide vocational training to help impoverished Russian Jews become more economically self-sufficient.

The American arm of ORT, founded in 1922, was only open to men. Dolowitz and Boudin, who were married to ORT officers, founded WAO to assist in funding ORT programs intended to help Eastern European Jews devastated by World War I. Starting with fundraising concerts and bazaars, WAO grew in response to the rise of Nazism and the plight of Jewish refugees.

Women’s American ORT became an independent organization in 1940, helping to fund International ORT’s growing number of vocational high schools in Europe, India, Israel, and North Africa. Today WAO focuses primarily on fundraising for ORT schools and programs around the world, including schools in New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago. These programs help disadvantaged individuals and communities become self-sufficient by providing education and training in employment skills. The organization also maintains a public policy platform advocating quality public education, increased literacy, women’s rights, the separation of church and state, the elimination of anti-Semitism, and the fostering of Jewish communities worldwide.

To learn more about the founders of WAO, visit Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia: Anna Boudin; Florence Dolowitz.

Sources: www.ortamerica.org/site/PageServer?pagename=about_hist_becom_wao; Jewish Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia pp. 1490-1493.

Birth of Judge Jennie Loitman Barron

October 13, 1891

Judge, lawyer, and suffragist, Jennie Loitman Barron, was born on October 13, 1891 in Boston’s West End. Barron attended Boston University where she earned her BA, LL.B, and LL.M. degrees and was active in Boston University’s League for Equal Suffrage. Barron started her own law firm after graduation and created a new firm with her husband Samuel Barron, Jr. when they married four years later.

Barron was elected president of the Massachusetts Association of Women Lawyers and campaigned for uniform marriage and divorce laws, as well as for women’s right to serve on juries. She also worked to mobilize women to exercise their newly established right to vote.

Barron began her thirty-five year career as a judge in 1934 when she was appointed by the governor as a special justice of the Western Norfolk District Court. In 1937, she was named to be an associate justice of the Boston Municipal Court. She left this position when she became an associate justice of the Massachusetts Superior Court in 1957—the first woman to hold this position.

Throughout her career, Barron remained active in the Jewish community serving as the first president of the Women’s Auxiliary of Boston’s Beth Israel Hospital, on the first board of Brandeis University National Women’s Committee, and as the first president of the New England Women’s Division of the American Jewish Congress. Barron died in March 1969, one year after her husband’s death.

To learn more about Jennie Loitman Barron, visit Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia.

See also: Jennie Loitman Barron in the Virtual Archive.

Source: Jewish Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia, pp. 122-123.

Rita Levi-Montalcini wins the Nobel Prize

October 13, 1986

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Rita Levi-Montalcini, at age 100. Photo by Presidenza della Repubblica Italiana, 2009.

Rita Levi-Montalcini’s pioneering work on nerve growth earned her the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine on October 13, 1986. Born in Turin, in northwestern Italy, on April 22, 1909, Levi-Montalcini had begun her research on nerve cells at the University of Turin. Banned from the university in a purge of Jews in 1938, and then forced to hide during the Nazi occupation of Italy, she immigrated to the United States and joined the faculty of Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri in 1946.

Levi-Montalcini went to St. Louis at the invitation of embryologist Viktor Hamburger; his support helped her to continue her work at a time when very few women worked in basic science research. It was at Washington University, in 1951, that Levi-Montalcini first hypothesized the existence of the nerve growth factor. Between 1953 and 1959, she worked with collaborator Stanley Cohen to identify nerve growth factor as a protein. For this work, Levi-Montalcini and Cohen shared the 1986 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Their work had significant effects on cancer research, and has also been important in work on Parkinson’s disease.

Levi-Montalcini retired from Washington University in 1977. Beginning in the 1960s, she also held an appointment at the National Laboratory for Cell Biology in Rome. After the Nobel Prize, Levi-Montalcini won many other honors. In 1986, she and Cohen were awarded the Albert Lasker Medical Research Award. The following year, she received the National Medal of Science, America’s highest scientific award. She also became the first woman ever named to membership in the Pontifical Academy of Sciences in Rome.

In 2009, Levi-Montalcini celebrated her 100th birthday. She said, "At 100, I have a mind that is superior, thanks to experience, than when I was 20." Read more at: The Huffington Post.

To learn more about Rita Levi-Montalcini, visit Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia .

See also: Jewish Women and the Nobel Prize, Jewesses with Attitude; Paola Levi-Montalcini.

Sources: http://nobelprize.org/medicine/laureates/1986/; http://nobelprize.org/medicine/laureates/1986/levi-montalcini-autobio.html; Jewish Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia, pp. 832-833; Rita Levi-Montalcini, In Praise of Imperfection, My Life and Work (New York, 1988); New York Times, October 14, 1986; Huffington Post, April 18, 2009,.

Tovah Feldshuh stars in "Golda's Balcony"

October 15, 2003

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Golda’s Balcony, starring Tovah Feldshuh, opened at Broadway’s Helen Hayes Theatre on October 15, 2003. In this one-woman show, Feldshuh plays the role of former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir. Golda’s Balcony is set during the Yom Kippur War in 1973. In the midst of those events, the play’s Golda looks back upon her life from her childhood in Milwaukee to her role in founding the Jewish state.

Golda Meir is not the only dramatic Jewish woman that Feldshuh has played during her illustrious career. Feldshuh has earned three Tony nominations for best actress, including the title role in Yentl (1975). She has also won four Drama Desk Awards, including one for Golda’s Balcony. Her roles on television have included a Czech freedom fighter in Holocaust (1978), a role for which Feldshuh was nominated for an Emmy. She has appeared in a number of movies, including Lady in the Water (2006), Kissing Jessica Stein (2001), and A Walk on the Moon (1999). Feldshuh is also a supporter of Seeds of Peace, a non-profit organization that helps teenagers from regions of conflict. She is a recipient of the Eleanor Roosevelt Humanitas Award, the Israel Peace Medal, and the National Foundation for Jewish Culture’s Jewish Image Award.

A film version of Golda's Balcony starring Valerie Harper premiered in New York City, on October 10, 2007.

To learn more about Golda Meir, visit Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia.

Sources: www.tovahfeldshuh.com.

Esther Lederer becomes Ann Landers

October 16, 1955

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Esther Lederer, known as Ann Landers, in Chicago, 1983. Photo by Alan Light.

Esther Pauline Friedman Lederer, writing as Ann Landers, had her first advice column published in the Chicago Sun Times on October 16, 1955. By the end of Lederer’s life, Ann Landers had become the world’s most widely syndicated column, published in more than 1,200 publications and with more than 90 million readers around the world.

When Esther Lederer and her husband moved to Chicago in the 1950s, she contacted a family friend at the Chicago Sun Times to see whether the columnist Ann Landers needed any help in writing her column. The Sun Times was in the process of finding a replacement writer for the column, and Lederer took over as the new Landers, a name that would remain with her for the rest of her life. Because Lederer had been involved in politics and had volunteered extensively, she was very well connected, and her column reflected these connections. Lederer was able to solicit advice from experts in many different fields. From her column, Landers openly opposed racism and anti-Semitism, and devoted much space to fighting injustice. Lederer's identical twin sister, Pauline Esther Friedman Phillips gained equivalent renown as a sage advice-giver as author of the column "Dear Abby."

Lederer continued to write as Ann Landers for 46 years, until her death in 2002.

To learn more about Esther Lederer, visit Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia.

See also: This Week in History July 4, 1918, The Birth of Advice-Givers Ann Landers and Abigail Van Buren; "On Being a Jewish Mother, Professionally", Jewesses with Attitude; Jewish Women On the Map - Sioux City, Iowa; Queen Esther: a Purim Heroine.

Source: Jewish Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia, pp. 789-790.

The first Torah commissioned to be scribed entirely by women is read in Seattle.

October 16, 2010

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Shoshana Gugenheim is a soferet with the Women's Torah Project. Image courtesy of the Women's Torah Project.

On October 16, 2010, the Kadima Reconstructionist Jewish Community in Seattle read from the first Torah ever commissioned to be written by a group of women. In 2000, members of Kadima, who had used borrowed Torahs for 25 years, set out to purchase one of their own. A rabbi in the congregation suggested that Kadima take a bold step: commission women — and only women — to create a scroll for the community. Thus began what came to be called the Women’s Torah Project.

The Talmud (Gittin 45b) explicitly states that a Torah, mezuzah, or teffilin written by a woman (or anyone else who does not lay teffilin) are illegitimate. However, the Arba'ah Turim (often simply called the Tur), another halakhic source, does not include women among those unqualified to serve as soferim (scribes). The Women’s Torah Project paid close attention to halakha and capitalized on Tur as a legal source.

As more money was raised, more women were trained as soferot. Jewish women artists were also recruited to create the other ornamental pieces integral to a Torah—the yad, mantle, breastplate, crowns, and wimple clasp.

Wendy Graff, director of the Women’s Torah Project, got involved during her daughter’s bat mitzvah. “I thought to myself, if my daughter could read and study the Torah and yet not be allowed to create the scroll that is the basis of our faith, then we still have a long way to go.” The efforts of the Women’s Torah Project have helped build momentum for the change.

Since it began, other congregations and Jewish organizations have taken a more positive view of soferot. In 2007, Jen Taylor Friedman of Great Britain became the first woman to complete the scribing of a Torah, which now has a home in the United Hebrew Congregation of St. Louis. Currently, Julie Seltzer, who also worked on the Women’s Torah Project, is scribing a Torah for the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco.

Many of the new Torah’s scribes and artists — all Jewish women — were in attendance when Kadima celebrated its completion on October 13-16, 2010, at the University of Washington Hillel House.

Read more: “As New Year Dawns, Jewish Women Mark Milestones,” the Jewish Daily Forward.

See also: This Week in History for October 8, 2009; "Who Scribed Your Torah?" and "Simchat Torah with a Soferet’s Torah," on Jewesses with Attitude.

Sources: Kadima Reconstructionist Jewish Community; Women’s Torah Project.

Gertrude Elion wins Nobel Prize

October 17, 1988

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The October 17, 1988 announcement that chemist Gertrude Elion had won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine represented the culmination of an unlikely career. The young Elion had known what she wanted to do—but nobody seemed ready to let her do it. New York’s Hunter College provided her with a free education during the Depression, but when she graduated at age 19, summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, not one graduate school would provide her with needed financial aid.

Unable to find a laboratory job, she started secretarial school. Supporting herself as a doctor’s receptionist and a substitute high school science teacher, Elion earned a master’s degree in chemistry from New York University in 1941 (she was the only woman in her classes). With more lab opportunities open to women during World War II, Elion found a job at Burroughs Wellcome, a pharmaceutical company, in 1944.

Elion’s research with her mentor and partner George Hitchings led to the first effective treatment for childhood leukemia and to immunosuppressants that made organ transplants possible. Her anti-viral research led to treatments for many ailments including AIDS. Elion, whose doctorates were all honorary, received the 1988 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, together with Hitchings and British scientist James Black.

Elion thus joined an impressive list of American Jewish female Nobel Prize winners in science that also includes American-born Rosalyn Yalow (1977) and Gerty Theresa Radnitz Cori (1947), as well as Rita Levi-Montalcini (1986), and Ada Yonath (2009), who were born and educated abroad.

Learn more about Gertrude Elion in Women of Valor and Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia.

See also: Jewish Women on the Map - Gertrude Elion interviews at Burroughs Wellcome, June 1944; Gertrude Elion inducted into Jewish-American Hall of Fame; Gertrude Elion, in a Class of Her Own and Jewish Women and the Nobel Prize, Jewesses with Attitude; Gertrude Elion poster; Primary Sources & Lesson Plans - Gertrude Elion’s Junior High Report Card, 1930; Gertrude Elion in the Virtual Archive.

Source: jwa.org/exhibits/wov/elion/over.html.

Molly Goldberg makes her television debut

October 18, 1948

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The quintessential Jewish mother to millions of television viewers, "Molly Goldberg" (Gertrude Berg) is shown here in a scene from the film Molly, presumably giving out a taste of chicken soup.

Institution: Private collection

Gertrude Berg made her television debut as Bronx housewife Molly Goldberg on NBC's Chevrolet on Broadway in 1948. The Goldbergs began running as a comedy series on NBC radio in 1929 and became one of television's earliest and most popular situation comedies beginning in 1949. Berg produced and scripted the shows and portrayed Molly Goldberg, the family matriarch.

Each show offered audiences a pleasant, often comical portrayal of the life of a second-generation Jewish American family. Assimilation into American culture was a prominent theme throughout the series with the last season incorporating the family's move from their Bronx apartment to a fictitious suburb. After the series' cancellation in 1955, Berg went on to win a Tony Award in 1959 for her work in the Broadway comedy A Majority of One by Leonard Spigelgass. Gertrude Berg died in New York City on September 14, 1966.

To learn more about Gertrude Berg, visit Jewish Women: An Online Historical Encyclopedia.

See also: This Week in History January 10, 1949, Gertrude Berg's "The Goldbergs" premieres on television; November 20, 1929, Gertrude Berg debuts in "The Goldbergs"; Television in the United States; In Focus: Jewish Women in Comedy; Gertrude Berg in the Virtual Archive.

Sources: Jewish Women In America: An Historical Encyclopedia, pp. 139-141; J. Hoberman and Jeffrey Shandler, ed., Entertaining America: Jews, Movies, and Broadcasting (Princeton, NJ: 2003), pp. 113-127.

Celebrating 350 years of Jewish women in America

October 18, 2004

The Jewish Women's Archive joined with National Women's Philanthropy of the United Jewish Communities for an historic celebration of 350 years of American Jewish community on October 18, 2004. The evening showcased Jewish women, of the past and the present, whose boldness, vision, and hard work have shaped America and American Jewish life. Part of the International Lion of Judah conference in Washington, D.C., the event was attended by nearly 1,400 women from across the United States.

An extraordinary group of contemporary women of achievement were brought together for this evening to reflect upon their own work and careers within the historical context of 350 years of Jewish women creating community in North America.

Honorees included Associate Justice of the Supreme Court Ruth Bader Ginsburg; Representative Shelley Berkley; communal leaders Shoshana Cardin, Amy Friedkin, Carole Solomon, and Linda Rae Sher; artist Judy Chicago; actress Tovah Feldshuh; composers Debbie Friedman and Elizabeth Swados; cookbook author Joan Nathan; authors and activists Blu Greenberg, Ruth Gruber, and Letty Cottin Pogrebin; Rabbi Sally J. Priesand; and Barnard College President Judith Shapiro.

Keynote speaker Justice Ginsburg drew the audience's attention to the inspiring “humanity and bravery” of “New Colossus” poet Emma Lazarus and Hadassah founder Henrietta Szold. Ginsburg also referred to the experience of her own mother as she posed a question that illuminates the promise that American experience has offered to many of its immigrants and citizens: “What is the difference between a New York City garment district bookkepper and a Supreme Court Justice?” Her answer: “One generation.”

See also: JWA Press Release October 25, 2004; Discover 350 Years.

Source: jwa.org/press/2004/20041025-lion.html.

Ernestine Rose presides over national women's rights convention

October 19, 1854

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Ernestine Rose was a pro-suffrage, anti-slavery orator in the United States whose activism was recognized by contemporaries as a key contribution to the suffrage movement.

This photo is in the public domain.

Ernestine Rose was born in Poland in 1810. Fleeing an arranged marriage at the age of 16, Rose traveled around Europe, arriving in England in 1830. There, she became a follower of the noted social reformer Robert Owen and honed her skills as a popular public orator.

Rose arrived in America with her husband, a jeweler, in 1836, ready, apparently, for a fight. She learned, soon after her arrival, that a bill proposed to the New York legislature would grant married women the right to control their own property and earnings. Rose drew up a petition, worked for five months to gain supporters, and submitted the first petition (bearing five signatures) on this topic to the state legislature. Passage of New York's Married Women's Property Act was secured in 1848.

Rose became a central figure among woman's rights advocates and a close colleague of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony. Anthony celebrated Rose’s inspiration to the movement, describing her as the “most eloquent speaker on our platform,” keeping Rose’s portrait over her desk, and adopting her slogan, “Agitate, agitate.”

Rose attended every national woman's rights convention between 1850 and 1869, serving as president of the fifth national convention in Philadelphia from October 17-19, 1854. In Philadelphia, Rose declared, "[I]s woman not included in that phrase, 'all men are created...equal'? ...Tell us, ye men of the nation...whether woman is not included in that great Declaration of Independence?"

Rose worked tirelessly traveling to twenty-three states to speak out for women's rights, against slavery and, eventually, for the rights of freed slaves, until she and her husband returned to England in 1869. Rose was not active as a Jew, but she did engage in a published debate in which she attacked anti-Semitism and praised the contributions of Jews throughout history.

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

See also: This Week in History for January 29, 1848 Ernestine Rose presides over national women's rights convention; Jewish Women On the Map - Ernestine Rose's first U.S. Home; Emma Lazarus Federation of Jewish Women's Clubs; Women's Equality Day and the Legacy of Jewish Women Fighting for Suffrage on Jewesses with Attitude; Timeline: 1654 to 2004 Marking Jewish women's experience in North America; Ernestine Rose in the Virtual Archive.

Sources: www.nps.gov/wori/nwrc1854.htm; www.brandeis.edu/centers/wsrc/Ernestine_Rose_Website/Shortbio.html; Jewish Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia, pp. 1163-1165.

Army nurse Frances Y. Slanger killed by German artillery

October 21, 1944

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The U.S. Army Hospital Ship Frances Y. Slanger, New York Port of Embarkation, Brooklyn, N.Y., 1945

On October 21, 1944, Frances Y. Slanger, R.N. died in Elsenborn, Belgium, a victim of a German artillery attack. She was the first American nurse to die in Europe after the June 1944 D-Day landings in Normandy. She was 31 years old.

On the night before she died, Slanger had written a letter to the Stars and Stripes military newspaper, on behalf of military nurses, praising American G.I.'s and thanking the wounded for the privilege of easing their pain and sharing some of their hardships.

Featured on the newspaper's editorial page by editors who did not know of her death, Slanger's letter evoked a deep response. When the news of her death was published, Stars and Stripes received an unparalleled outpouring of letters from its moved readership. Charles Sawyer, the U.S. ambassador to Belgium speaking of Slanger, said, "if there is in heaven and in our hearts a special shrine for those who have given the most and the best, it is held sacred for the American nurse."

Born in Poland, Slanger came to Boston, Massachusetts when she was seven years old with her family. She helped her father, a fruit peddler, while she attended high school. She graduated from the Boston City Hospital School of Nursing in 1937 and entered hospital work. In 1943, she enlisted in the U.S. Army Nurse Corps and attended the first nursing basic training program at Fort Devens. In Europe, she worked as part of a surgical team on the front lines.

In June 1945, a cruise ship, refurbished as a hospital ship to return wounded American soldiers from Europe, was commissioned as the Frances Y. Slanger. In November 1947, her body was returned to Boston for reburial. More than a thousand people, including the mayor of Boston, paid their respects.

See also: Jewish Women in the Military: Frances Y. Slanger; Jewish Women On the Map - Lt. Frances Y. Slanger's grave.

Source: Bob Welch, American Nightingale: The Story of Frances Slanger, Forgotten Heroine of Normandy (New York, 2004).

Rabbi Sally J. Priesand blesses U.S. Congress

October 23, 1973

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Sally Priesand.

On October 23, 1973, Rabbi Sally J. Priesand offered the opening prayer in the United States House of Representatives, at the invitation of Congresswoman Bella Abzug. According to Abzug, Priesand was not only the first Jewish woman, but the first woman to be accorded this honor. October 23, 1973 also turned out to be the day on which the first resolution to impeach President Richard Nixon was offered.

Priesand became the first woman to be ordained by a rabbinical seminary in June 1972. Although she was the first American woman rabbi, Priesand was not the first woman to study toward that goal. She was preceded as a student at Hebrew Union College and the Jewish Institute of Religion by other women including Martha Neumark, Helen Levinthal Lyons, Toby Fink, and Norma Kirschner.

In 1973, Priesand was serving as assistant rabbi at the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue in New York City. Priesand became rabbi of the Monmouth Reform Temple in Tinton Falls, New Jersey in 1981, serving that congregation for twenty-five years until her retirement in 2006.

To learn more about Sally Priesand, visit Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia and Jewish Women and the Feminist Revolution.

See also: This Week in History for June 3, 1972 "First American woman rabbi"; Rabbis in the United States; A Reluctant Pioneer, Celebrating the first lights of woman rabbis, and Top 10 moments for Jewish women in 2010 on Jewesses with Attitude.

Sources: Sally Priesand, letter to JWA (2004). Bella Abzug, "Bella on Bella," Moment Magazine, February 1976; Pamela S. Nadell, Women Who Would Be Rabbis: A History of Women's Ordination 1889-1985 (Boston, 1998), pp. 118-169; Jewish Women and the Feminist Revolution, jwa.org/feminism/index.html?id=JWA059; "Preserve the Shards of the Shattered Glass Ceiling," Forward, July 7, 2006, www.forward.com/articles/418/.

JTS Faculty Senate Votes to Admit Women

October 24, 1983

Following a lengthy and intense debate within the Conservative movement, the Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS) faculty senate, on October 24, 1983, voted 34-8 to admit women to the JTS Rabbinical School. The favorable vote was facilitated by the decision of several JTS faculty members—who opposed the innovation—not to participate in the vote.

The Reform movement had ordained its first woman rabbi in 1972 and the Reconstructionist movement had done the same in 1974. Many in the Conservative movement believed that there was no way to justify ordaining women within the framework of Jewish law. For them, maintaining a male rabbinate represented the movement's commitment to law and tradition. Still, The United Synagogue, the congregational arm of the Conservative movement, passed a resolution calling for women's rabbinical ordination in 1973. Although the Rabbinical Assembly, representing the movement's rabbis, had deferred to the Seminary's authority on the matter, many of its members also pressed the school to change its stance. In 1977, the seminary's chancellor, Gerson Cohen, appointed a Committee for the Study of the Ordination of Women as Rabbis. Despite the committee's final report in 1979, recommending ordination for women by a vote of 11 to 3, tensions within JTS and the movement delayed a positive vote until October 1983.

In September 1984, 23 women entered JTS as members of the seminary's first class to include female rabbinical students. In the spring of 1985, Amy Eilberg, who was already studying at JTS when women's ordination was approved, became the first woman ordained as a rabbi by the Conservative movement.

See also: This Week in History for May 12, 1985 Amy Eilberg ordained as first female Conservative rabbi; Jewish Women and the Feminist Revolution.

Sources: Beth S. Wenger, "The Politics of Women's Ordination: Jewish Law, Institutional Power and the Debate over Women in the Rabbinate," in Jack Wertheimer, ed., Tradition Renewed: A History of the Jewish Theological Seminary (New York, 1997), pp. 485-523; Pamela S. Nadell, Women Who Would Be Rabbis: A History of Women's Ordination 1889-1985 (Boston,1998), pp. 211-214; Jewish Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia, pp. 275-278; Jewish Women and the Feminist Revolution, jwa.org/feminism/index.html?id=JWA020.

Dr. Joyce Brothers wins $64,000 for boxing expertise

October 27, 1957

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The most durable of popular psychologists, Joyce Brothers has kept her finger on the pulse of what concerns many Americans, particularly women.

Institution: U.S. Library of Congress

Psychologist Dr. Joyce Brothers put her boxing trivia to the test and came away with $64,000 on October 27, 1957. Brothers, who was appearing on the game show The $64,000 Challenge, took the top prize, competing against a team of seven boxers on boxing lore. This was her second time winning the program’s top prize—two years earlier she had claimed her first victory (when the show was called The $64,000 Question), also on the subject of boxing.

Brothers’ winning appearance not only garnered her a substantial prize, but also sparked her career as a talk-show psychologist. After her appearance on Challenge, Brothers was picked to co-host WATV’s show, Sports Showcase. In 1958, NBC offered Brothers her own talk show, The Dr. Joyce Brothers Show. The show, which counseled viewers on childrearing, marriage, and sex, was an instant success and soon became syndicated nationally. Brothers soon became a ubiquitous media presence offering her psychological expertise on numerous talk shows and often appearing as a celebrity guest on a variety of game shows.

In 1963, Brothers began writing a monthly column for Good Housekeeping. She also wrote a daily column that at its height was published in more than 350 newspapers, and has written several books, including What Every Woman Should know About Men (1982) and How to Get Whatever You Want Out of Life (1978). Her most personal and popular work was Widow (1990), which described Brothers’ emotional journey after the death of her husband in 1989 after thirty-nine years of marriage.

To learn more about Dr. Joyce Brothers, visit Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia.

See also: "On Being a Jewish Mother, Professionally", Jewesses with Attitude.

Sources: New York Times, December 7, 1955, Oct. 28, 1957; Jewish Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia, pp.190-192.

Judith R. Shapiro inaugurated president of Barnard College

October 27, 1994

Judith R. Shapiro, a widely respected cultural anthropologist who has done pioneering research on gender differences, was inaugurated as president of Barnard College on October 27, 1994.

Dr. Shapiro came to Barnard after eight years as provost of Bryn Mawr College where she had taught in the department of anthropology since 1975. Before that, she was the first woman to teach anthropology at the University of Chicago.

Shapiro became president of a school that owed its initial existence to another Jewish woman, Annie Nathan Meyer. Meyer had petitioned, lobbied and raised funds for the creation of Barnard, as a woman's college associated with Columbia College, back in 1889 (see This Week in History for October 7, 1889).

Dr. Shapiro retired in June 2008.

See also: Higher Education Administration in the United States.

Sources: Barnard College letter to JWA, March 2004; www.barnard.edu/newnews/news041007.html; www.barnard.edu/newnews/news052108d.html.

Battered Immigrant Women Protection Act becomes Law

October 28, 2000

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Jan Schakowsky is a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Illinois's 9th district. She is a Democrat and has served since 1999.

The Battered Immigrant Women Protection Act introduced by Illinois Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky became law on October 28, 2000. This act works to assist immigrants who are victims of domestic violence by providing legal protections that can aid them in escaping violent situations and securing court protection.

Immigrant women are particularly vulnerable because they often must rely on the legal residence status of their abusers. The Battered Immigrant Women Protection Act helps immigrant victims of domestic violence take control of their lives without fear of deportation.

Jan Schakowsky was elected to represent the 9th Congressional District of Illinois in 1998 after eight years of service in the Illinois State Assembly. Throughout her political career, Schakowsky has worked for economic and social justice, sought an end to violence against women, and worked for a national investment in healthcare, public education and housing needs.

See also: Jewish Women in Politics; "Jewish Women Politicians: Progressively Passionate?" Jewesses with Attitude; Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky's website.

Sources: www.house.gov/schakowsky/bio.shtml; e-mail from Representative Schakowsky's office to JWA, March 2004.

Anna Rosenberg, first woman to receive Medal of Freedom

October 29, 1945

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In 1944, Anna Rosenberg served as President Franklin Roosevelt's personal representative in Europe and in 1945 President Harry Truman sent her to the European theater to study military personnel problems. This 1951 photograph with General George C. Marshall and Lyndon Johnson was taken in Washington, D.C.

Institution: Thomas Rosenberg

Acclaimed for her talents as a labor mediator, diplomat, adviser, troubleshooter, and administrator, Anna Rosenberg became the first woman to receive the Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award offered by the United States, on October 29, 1945.

Born in Budapest in 1901, Rosenberg immigrated with her family to the United States in 1912. She began her political career by managing New York City alderman and assemblyman campaigns during the 1920s. In the 1930s, Rosenberg advised and coordinated several Democratic congressional campaigns and served in the New Deal administration as a regional director for the National Recovery Administration (1935) and on the Social Security Board (1936-1943). In the process, she became a trusted advisor to both Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman.

During World War II, she served on the New York State War Council and, in 1944, served as Roosevelt’s personal representative in Europe. In 1945, she undertook a study of European military personnel problems as an advisor to Truman.

Further recognition and achievement followed the Medal of Freedom honor. In 1946, she won the Congressional Medal of Honor and in 1947, she became the first woman to be awarded the United States Medal for Merit. In 1950, she was appointed Assistant Secretary of Defense, the highest position ever held up until that time by a woman in the United States military establishment. Her main task as Assistant Secretary of Defense was to coordinate the Defense Department's manpower, which had been divided among many different agencies.

Rosenberg was also involved in many Jewish causes, including serving as the director of the Women's Division of the Joint Distribution Committee and the Federation of Jewish Philanthropies. Anna Rosenberg died of pneumonia on May 9, 1983.

To learn more about Anna Rosenberg, visit Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia.

Sources: Jewish Women in America, pp. 1171-1174; http://www.nps.gov/elro/glossary/rosenberg-hoffman-anna.htm; www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/ARosenberg.html.

Irma Lindheim became a member of Kibbutz Mishmar Haemek

October 30, 1933

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Kibbutz Mishmar Haemek Archive. Used by permission.

Irma Lindheim, a wealthy American-born Jewish woman, joined Kibbutz Mishmar Haemek on October 30, 1933. After trading New York City for Northern Israel’s Jezreel Valley, Lindheim became an ardent proponent of the kibbutz movement.

Born Irma Levy in New York on December 9, 1886, the future kibbutznik came from a prominent, assimilated German-Jewish family with anti-Zionist politics. At the age of 21, she married Norvin Lindheim, a successful lawyer. They had five children between 1908 and 1919. Her fourth child was only five weeks old when she enlisted for active service during WW I. The unconventional Lt. Lindheim drove her own Cadillac in the Motor Corps of America.

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Kibbutz Mishmar Haemek Archive. Used by permission.

The Balfour Declaration of 1917 – the official statement of Britain’s support for a Jewish homeland in Palestine – inspired Lindheim to explore her Jewish heritage. She became increasingly involved in the Zionist cause, working with Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis and Rabbi Stephen Wise, the Reform rabbi and Zionist leader.

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Kibbutz Mishmar Haemek Archive. Used by permission.

At the end of WW I, Norvin Lindheim was falsely accused (for antisemitic reasons) of collaborating with the Germans; he was convicted, disbarred, and sent to prison. While he was incarcerated, Irma Lindheim took classes at the Jewish Institute of Religion, the Reform Rabbi Stephen Wise had founded in New York. After her husband was released in the spring of 1925, Lindheim decided to travel to Palestine. Touring the country on horseback for six weeks, she fell in love with the land and with the Zionist idea.

Upon her return to the US in 1926, Lindheim was elected the third president of Hadassah, leading an organization of 30,000 members and occupying one of the highest positions open to a woman in the Jewish community. After the sudden death of her husband in 1928, she resigned from Hadassah in order to travel and figure out what to do with the rest of her life. She finally decided that the way for her to achieve self-realization was to make aliyah (i.e. immigrate to Israel) and become a pioneer herself. Accompanied by her children, Lindheim immigrated to Palestine in May 1933; on October 30, 1933, she joined Kibbutz Mishmar Haemek. Her fellow kibbutzniks assembled a pre-fab cabin that she brought with her to live in. You can visit it today.

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Kibbutz Mishmar Haemek Archive. Used by permission.

After her children grew up, Irma Lindheim changed her name first name to the hebraicized “Rama.” She devoted herself to working as a Public Relations Officer for the kibbutz movement, often traveling abroad to raise money for the Jewish National Fund and Keren Hayesod, Israel’s central fundraising organization.

On one trip to the U.S. in 1948 after the declaration of the State of Israel, Henry A. Wallace, the head of the Progressive Party who had served as Franklin D. Roosevelt’s vice president, asked Lindheim (whom he knew from her work with Hadassah) to run as a Progressive Party candidate in the 6th Congressional District of New York. She lost the race, garnering only 9,000 votes, and returned to the kibbutz. A biographer suggests that “a victory in this election would have changed her life or even the trajectory of the kibbutz movement. A headline in a newspaper might have read: ‘A member of Kibbutz Mishmar Haemek wins a seat in the U.S. Congress.’ The absurdity of this headline is evidence of her exceptional life story.”

Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Lindheim divided her time between the U.S. and Israel, working in fundraising, helping to found kibbutzim, and developing programs to strengthen Jewish identity, particularly in children.

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Kibbutz Mishmar Haemek Archive. Used by permission.

Rama Lindheim wrote two autobiographical books and many articles and letters; she also made 16 mm movies that documented her family and travels. She spent the last years of her life living near two of her sons in Berkeley, CA. She died there in 1978 and is buried on her beloved kibbutz.

To learn more about Irma Lindheim, visit Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia.

See also: "Hadassah president Irma Levy Lindheim challenges American Zionist leadership" in This Week in History; Zionism in the United States.

Entry based on research by Professor Esther Carmel Hakim, University of Haifa.