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Amy Pascal

Named one of the most powerful women in Hollywood in 2003, Amy Pascal has been president and vice president of several major production companies. As president of Columbia Pictures, she developed multiple major hits and has overseen major franchises like Spiderman and James Bond.

Lilli Palmer

After fleeing Nazi Germany, Lilli Palmer pursued her acting career in Paris, London, Hollywood, and New York. In the 1950s, she returned to Germany, becoming celebrated once again in her home country. Palmer was not only a prominent actor in numerous successful plays, films and television programs, but also a painter and an author of both fiction and non-fiction.

Carmel Myers

Born in San Francisco, California, actress and entertainer Carmel Myers acted in over seventy films, was an early television talk-show host, led a production company that packaged radio and television shows, held a patent for an electronic synchronizer that controlled studio lights, and imported and distributed French perfume.

Bette Midler

Bette Midler went from canning pineapples at a factory in Honolulu to starring in over 20 films, releasing two dozen records, and touring the world with record-breaking live concert performances. Midler got her start at a gay bathhouse in New York, where she developed the campy and confident persona “The Divine Miss M.” Her career in show business spans decades, old and new media, and musical genres.

Hanna Meron (Marron)

Hanna Meron began her long acting career as a four-year-old child prodigy, appearing in children’s theater, radio plays, and films. In 1945 she joined the recently founded Cameri Theater. She helped shape the company by becoxming active in management and as a member of the repertory committee, while also rising to prominence as one of Israel’s greatest actors.

Elaine May

Elaine May broke down barriers for women in comedy, first as half of the celebrated comic duo Nichols and May, then as one of the few women screenwriters and directors in Hollywood. Some of her notable works include The Heartbreak Kid (director), Heaven Can Wait, and Tootsie (screenwriter).

Fania Marinoff

Fania Marinoff was associated with one of the most vibrant artistic circles in the United States and Europe. She numbered among her friends writers such as Gertrude Stein, playwrights such as Eugene O’Neill, and artists such as Georgia O’Keeffe. Marinoff and her husband played prominent roles in the bohemian social and artistic life of New York, particularly of the Harlem Renaissance.

Marceline Loridan-Ivens

Marceline Loridan-Ivens, a French activist of the heart, was a writer, filmmaker, producer and actress whose experience of the Shoah, as a fourteen-year-old girl in Birkenau, marked the rest of her extraordinary life and work. As one of the most eloquent advocates for humanity and the power of memory, her reflection on identity as a Jewish woman is everywhere, from her committed documentary work with Jean Rouch and with her husband Joris Ivens, to her sensitive and moving writing of philosophical memoirs, to her writing and direction of what has become a classic of Jewish cinema, La Petite Prairie aux Bouleaux.

Sonya Levien

From the silent movie era through 1960, Sonya Levien crafted over seventy films ranging from the 1939 Hunchback of Notre Dame to the screen adaptation of Oklahoma! Levien was one of Hollywood’s highest-paid and most highly sought screenwriters, known for her ability to adapt any story quickly and to fix an ailing script.

Sherry Lansing

Sherry Lansing broke barriers as the first woman studio executive when she became head of 20th Century Fox in 1980, going on to lead Paramount Studios to create wildly successful blockbusters like Forrest GumpBraveheart, and Titanic.

Mariana Kroutoiarskaia

Mariana Kroutoiarskaia was a talented Russian composer and music producer who dedicated her entire life to music, film, and television. Kroutoiarskaia worked as a music editor for Russian television, a lecturer, and a composer for many films. She also supervised the arrangement and publication of music for children by various composers.

Beryl Korot

Beryl Korot is an internationally known video artist who has created multimonitor installations which have been shown all over the world. She is best known for her multiple channel works Dachau 1974 and Text and Commentary, 1977, and her two collaborations with her husband, composer Steve Reich, The Cave and Three Tales.

Margot Klausner

Margot Klausner was co-founder and president of Israel’s major film and television studio and co-manager of the Habima Theater. She was an author, film producer, founder of the Israeli Parapsychology Society, publisher of the monthly magazine Mysterious Worlds: A Journal of Parapsychology, and a popular public speaker on theater, film, and the occult in Israel.

Bel Kaufman

Bel Kaufman was the author of Up the Down Staircase, a novel that gently parodied the public school system in New York City. Published in 1964, the book went on to sell six million copies, spent 64 weeks on the best-seller list, and inspired a film adaptation in 1967 and a popular school play. She was also the granddaughter of Yiddish writer Sholem Aleichem, whose stories formed the musical Fiddler on the Roof.

Fay Kanin

Over a sixty-year career as a writer, actor, co-producer, and activist, Fay Kanin was awarded several Emmys and Peabodys, the ACLU Bill of Rights Award, the Crystal Award from Women in Film, the Burning Bush Award from the University of Judaism, and nominations for Oscar and Tony awards. She was the second female president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

JWRC: Eleanor Leff Jewish Women's Resource Center

The Eleanor Leff Jewish Women’s Resource Center (JWRC) of the National Council of Jewish Women, New York Section, maintains an extensive collection of materials by and about Jewish women and creates Jewish programming with a feminist focus. The JWRC was founded in 1976 to document and advance the modern Jewish women’s movement.

Anna Maria Jokl

Author, psychoanalyst, and scriptwriter Anna Maria Jokl was greatly influenced by the many places she lived: Vienna, Berlin, Prague, London, Zurich, and Jerusalem. Forced to flee countries twice because of Nazism, Jokl is best known for her German children’s books. Her prolific career includes accomplishments in radio broadcasting, psychoanalytic writing, and autobiographical prose.

Tziporah H. Jochsberger

Having escaped the Holocaust on the strength of her musical talents, Tziporah H. Jochsberger went on to use music to instill Jewish pride in her students. In the 1950s, she began teaching and studying music in New York. In addition to her teaching and administrative roles, Jochsberger found time for an active career as a composer.

Jewish Women's Archive

Founded in 1995 on the premise that the history of Jewish women must be considered systematically and creatively in order to produce a balanced and complete historical record, the Jewish Women's Archive took as its mission “to uncover, chronicle and transmit the rich legacy of Jewish women and their contributions to our families and communities, to our people and our world.”

Israeli Folk Dance Pioneers in North America

Dance has been an integral element of the Jewish community since biblical times. An intense desire to share the joy of dance, coupled with a strong identification with both Israel and their Jewish roots, spurred a group of influential women to create a flourishing movement of Israeli folk dance in North America. Today, Israeli folk dance enjoys a wider popularity than ever.

Isabelle Huppert

One of the most famous and most popular French actresses of her generation, Isabelle Huppert has achieved international stardom for her ability to play geniuses, madwomen, criminals, and other larger-than-life heroines. Huppert has won two Cannes Festival Awards, two Golden Globes, and a Venice Film Festival Award. In addition to her film work, Huppert has sustained a successful theater career.

Nurit Hirsch

Nurit Hirsch is one of the most prolific and varied writers of contemporary Israeli songs. Hirsch was the first Israeli composer to participate in the Eurovision Song Contest, winning fourth place in 1973. She composed the music for fourteen films, wrote numerous children’s songs, and won third place at the first festival of Hassidic music. Today Hirsch's repertoire contains around 1,600 songs.

Judith Herzberg

Judith Herzberg is a Dutch Jewish poet, essayist, screenwriter, and professor who has been hailed as one of the greatest living Dutch poets for her ability to imbue everyday objects with unexpected meaning. Making her debut as a poet in the early sixties, Herzberg has written poems, essays, plays, film scripts, and television dramas, with many translations and adaptations to her name.

Nechama Hendel

Nechama Hendel is considered one of the foremost singers Israel has ever produced, known for her performances of Jewish folk music, her adaptations of well-known Israeli songs, and her album dedicated entirely to lyrics by the national poet Hayyim Nahman Bialik set to folk tunes and composed melodies. Hendel had an international following and toured the world performing, but she consistently returned to live in Israel and was devoted to Jewish music. 

Anna Held

Anna Held was a performer with a flamboyant reputation for bathing in milk and champagne. As an actor in numerous farces, comedies, and musical comedies, she led a life of showmanship that prevents bibliographical certainty. Held was best known for her relationship with Florenz Ziegfeld, and some credit her with helping him create his famous Follies.

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