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Elsie Miller Legum

After the devastating loss of her husband, Elsie created a new life for herself, becoming the chief buyer for Miller Brothers, her family's women's clothing business. A unique family trust established by her parents ensures extended family presence at Passover seders, Hanukkah celebrations and an annual vacation/reunion.

Bess Fishman

Bess worked with Al in their sewing thread business, originally located on the first floor of their East Baltimore Street home. The business expanded and prospered through the years, adapting to the needs of the consumer and the times. After Al's death, Bess married Sam Savitz in 1983. On the board of Beth Tfiloh Congregation for over 50 years, Bess has served in a variety of leadership positions and acted as volunteer historian and archivist for its 60th anniversary celebration.

Fiola Blum

A pioneer in residential real estate, Fiola Blum founded a thriving company that bears her name in an era when few women were successful real estate entrepreneurs.

Frieda Piepsch Sondland

A designer of haute couture, Frieda Sondland used her creative skills to survive the Holocaust. Born in Berlin, Germany in 1921, she married Gunther Sondland when she was sixteen and a half years old. When she was seventeen, and pregnant with her first child, Frieda and her parents were forced to leave Germany for South America. Frieda supported herself and her daughter by working as a clothing designer in Montevideo, Uruguay. Eight years later, Gunther joined them. Frieda and Gunther moved to Seattle in 1953 to reunite with Gunther’s family who had emigrated there after the war. In Seattle, Frieda worked in the alterations department for both John Doyle Bishop, and Frederick and Nelson until she and Gunther opened their dry cleaning and alterations business in West Seattle. In 1957, their son, Gordon, was born. Since arriving in the United States, Frieda has become a beloved and active member of Seattle’s Jewish community.

Carolyn Blumenthal Danz

A Seattle native of Ashkenazic-German descent, Carolyn Danz grew up in the Capitol Hill neighborhood. She was a lifelong member of Temple De Hirsch Sinai, the oldest Reform Congregation in the Pacific Northwest. Carolyn graduated in 1939 from the University of Washington with a BA in Fine Arts, married Jerry Taylor in 1940, and had two children. Jerry, diagnosed with MS early in their marriage, died in 1959. Carolyn supported her family by opening and running a dressmaking business. A skilled seamstress, she and her talented African American assistant, Maude, made beautiful clothing.

Carmel Myers dies: movie vamp and Hollywood A-List hostess

November 9, 1980

Movie vamp Carmel Myers thought "Nice ladies are just like wallpaper."

Death of pioneer Fanny Brooks

August 21, 1901

Death of Pioneer Fanny Brooks

Sheryl Sandberg

I’m Hitting “Like” on Leaning In

Evelyn Becker

The spotlight is on Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook, and her mission to change the balance of power in the United States.  Sandberg’s book Lean In hit the proverbial shelves this week and the media is buzzing.  Is Sandberg the new Gloria Steinem?  Will her message on women and leadership motivate real change? 

Leaning In With Sheryl Sandberg

Jane Eisner

Editorial in the Forward published online March 6, 2013

It’s so tempting to deride Sheryl Sandberg for her new, self-appointed role as the leader of a social movement to bring more gender equality to the workplace.

She must be one of the richest, most successful working mothers on the planet, and in her new book “Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead” her attempts to identify with ordinary working moms seem comical at times.

To illustrate that she, too, has found herself in unexpected situations as a parent, she describes a time when she discovered her children had head lice. What parent can’t relate? Except that Sandberg was on her way to a Silicon Valley business conference. On a corporate jet. Owned by the CEO of eBay.

Nah.

The New York Times remembers Madeleine Stern, “Faithful Friend”

December 30, 2007

The end of the year is a time for reflection and remembrance.  We celebrate our successes, rue our shortcomings, and search for what lasts. 

Freelancers Union Logo

Building a new social safety net: Sara Horowitz and the Freelancers Union

Judith Rosenbaum

In 1909, Jewish women revolutionized the American labor movement. Before the huge garment industry strike known as the “Uprising of the 20,000,” union leaders saw women workers as irrelevant to the labor movement because they did not fit into the model of the traditional male union member. But these garment workers, many of them young Jewish women, proved that women could, in fact, organize effectively and challenge working conditions, and in doing so, they expanded the definition of worker and union member.

Itta Roth

Kosher, Gourmet, and Underground

Gabrielle Orcha

Itta Werdiger Roth, a professional chef, founded The Hester, an underground, word-of-mouth music café/speakeasy/supper club in Brooklyn that fuses local food, music, and Jewish conversat

Debbie Friedman

The Lives They Lived: Jewish women to remember in 2011

Leah Berkenwald

“[Debbie Friedman] emphasized the value of every voice and the power of song to help us express ourselves and become our best selves. As she wrote for JWA's online exhibit Jewish Women and the Feminist Revolution: 'The more our voices are heard in song, the more we become our lyrics, our prayers, and our convictions.' The woman who wrote the song that asks God to 'help us find the courage to make our lives a blessing' herself modeled for us what that looks like.”—Judith Rosenbaum.
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Bette Berman Arnold, 1921 - 2011

She always treated everyone the same regardless of race, gender, class, or age. She knew innately that these things were right. It took society a full generation or more to catch up with her.

Tillie Lewis: More than just about tomatoes

Katherine Romanow

One of the ingredients that is a staple in my kitchen cupboard is canned tomatoes. I will almost always have a can or two around in case I decide I want to make a quick tomato sauce or a pizza, and I especially rely on them throughout the majority of the year when local tomatoes are unavailable. Yet I recently realized that throughout the process of buying, using and consuming these tomatoes, I never stopped to think about their history and how they came to be the product we know today.

Sylvia Willard, 1922 - 2006

She and Howard opened a third store and managed all three, while she translated her theatrical training and love of fashion into show-stopping window displays.

Anna Palevsky Shomsky

Remembering the Triangle fire: The picnic that saved my grandmother's life

Emily Danies

My grandmother, Anna Palevsky Shomsky, was born in Kobrin, the great, great granddaughter of the Kobriner Rebbi. Her family was well educated, wealthy and religious.

Carla Furstenberg Cohen, 1936 - 2010

A world without a Carla in it just doesn’t seem possible (and certainly less interesting). But I know she will always be with us. Once you know her, you can’t forget her.

Marcia Soloski Levin, 1921 - 2010

Mother was a working girl when most women found their identity in motherhood and the home, but she was much more than that. She was a free spirit, supreme motivator for women who wanted to start their own businesses, and a generous friend to those causes she believed in and the people she cared about.

Maxine Feldman, 1945 - 2007

Never content to play only gay spaces, she would perform 'any place that would have her.' She loved being a bridge, helping others to gain confidence and find the resources they needed.

Madeleine Stern, 1912 - 2007

…an innovative and revered entrepreneur in the leather-armchair world of gentlemen antiquarian book dealers; unmarried in a world where women were wives, Stern lived in a universe in which it was not possible to live the way she wanted to. She simply ignored that impossibility, created her own universe and, in a small but exquisite way, changed the world.

Betty Lee Hahn, 1932 - 2006

Buz Hahn lived life the way she wanted, standing up for what was right, kneeling down to lend a hand and always, always getting the most out of every experience. When Buz died earlier this year at age 74, there were tears, of course. But there were no regrets for opportunities squandered. Nobody could say she lived anything less than a full and fantastic life.

Beatrice Alexander

"Madame" Beatrice Alexander knew how to dream big. Born into a world in which many women worked but few achieved prominence in business, she built her own company virtually singlehandedly. Raised amidst teeming poverty, she amassed a significant fortune. From the obscurity of an immigrant neighborhood, she became one of the foremost female entrepreneurs of the twentieth century.

Esther Kasle Jones, 1915 - 1994

She was a strong leader—head of the women's division of the UJA in Detroit, and later on the national women’s division board (she never made a fuss about that—it was her turn to do it so she did it; this was her attitude). In all these and other philanthropic enterprises she preferred to be in the background; she let others take credit for successes and worked quietly for what she thought was important. But she always went out of her way to work with the next generation, mentoring them and training them to become the leaders of tomorrow.

The New York Times profiles Kosher food matriarch Regina Margareten at age 95

December 24, 1957

Born in Hungary on December 25, 1862 [some sources say 1863], Regina Margareten came to the U.S. as a young bride in 1883.

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