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Ellen Willis, 1941 - 2006

Willis brought lucidity and style to the most controversial and baffling cultural issues—her thought was a beacon of clarity. For those of us fortunate enough to have been her comrades, anticipating her insights was part of what kept us returning to meetings month after month, year after year.

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.

Savina J. Teubal, 1926 - 2005

Savina reclaimed the stories of Sarah and Hagar through her writing, and through her life. Like Sarah, Savina went forth into new lands, without maps or mentors to guide her. Like Sarah and Hagar, Savina lived in a patriarchal world, challenging that world with her choices and her clarity about the work she was called to complete….

Barbara Seaman, 1935 - 2008

Thinking about Barbara, I realize that she was a one-woman social networking site. She remembered everyone she had ever met and tried to connect them with everybody else she had ever met. She recalled where you were from, whom you dated, your health problems, and your writings or accomplishments and then she introduced to people who you should know.

Tillie Olsen, 1913 - 2007

A daughter of immigrants and a working mother starved for time to write, Tillie Olsen drew from her personal experiences to create a small but influential body of work.

Ruth Schachter Morgenthau, 1929 - 2006

Ruth deeply believed that economic empowerment was the basis for increasing human rights and gender equity for women. If women have economic power, they gain confidence and courage, and become greater participants with increased voice in their communities. Everyone benefits when women benefit.

Tikva Frymer-Kensky, 1943 - 2006

As a scholar, Dr. Frymer-Kensky challenged her students to study deeply and obtain mastery of their subjects; any less was insufficient. In her writing, she modeled both rigor and relevance…. She wrote in order to bring us the ancient and to create a more just present.

Betty Friedan, 1921 - 2006

If there was any one woman who could be called the mother of feminism, it was Betty Friedan. Though "second-wave" feminism was a collective endeavor that had many founders, Friedan was the spark plug whose furious indictment of "the problem that had no name" – the false consciousness of "happy housewifery" – set off a revolution more potent than many of the other social and cultural upheavals of the 1960s. The impact of this social movement is still being felt around the world.

Selma Jeanne Cohen, 1920 - 2005

Despite the difficulty of translating the evanescent nature of dance into words, Selma Jeanne Cohen believed that dance, as much as painting, music and literature, deserved a history of its own. She spent a lifetime creating the structures necessary to making the recording of that history possible….

Sally Cherniavsky Fox, 1929 - 2006

Sally Fox's passion was to gather and share the history of women through visual images. Sometimes this meant finding images of women doing conventional work, but often it meant seeking images of women doing the unexpected…. Her goal was to challenge conventional notions of how women lived their lives in the past.

National Humanities Medal awarded to Ruth Wisse

November 15, 2007

Ruth Wisse grew up speaking Yiddish with her family and would make a career of preserving the language’s legacy and literature.

Sages and sex therapists - Dr. Ruth's "Heavenly Sex"

Leah Berkenwald

Last Thursday I went to see pioneering sex therapist Dr. Ruth Westheimer talk about her book Heavenly Sex: Sexuality in the Jewish Tradition at Temple Israel in Boston, a program by the New Center for Arts and Culture. This was my first time seeing the legendary Dr. Ruth in person, and as predicted, I was in awe of this teeny-tiny bubbe and her stylish glasses.  I was excited to be there with my friends from the Jewish Women's Archive, community partner of the NCAC for this event.

Still Jewish: An interview with Keren McGinity

Judith Rosenbaum

Recently, JWA hosted a fascinating webinar with Dr.Keren McGinity on "Gender Matters: a New Framework for Understanding Jewish Intermarriage Over Time." Keren is the author of Still Jewish: A History of Women and Intermarriage in America, and is the Mandell L. Berman Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Contemporary American Jewish Life at the University of Michigan's Frankel Center for Judaic Studies.

Podcast: Rita Arditti on Being Invisible in Argentina

Jordan Namerow

As April comes to a close and as we kick off Jewish American Heritage Month in May, we're featuring an oral history clip of Rita Arditti as our podcast of the month. With her lilting Spanish-accented English, Arditti's voice is striking, as her journey is unique - perhaps one that many of us don't immediately associate with Jewish American heritage.

Death of pioneering nutritionist Frances Stern

December 23, 1947

Frances Stern, social worker, nutritionist, educator, and pioneering dietician, died on December 23, 1947.

American women mark death of British author Grace Aguilar

November 23, 1847

A group of Jewish women in Charleston, South Carolina deplored the death of British author Grace Aguilar as a "national calamity."

Release of "Free To Be You and Me"

November 27, 1972

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.

Birth of essayist and suffragist Nina Morais Cohen

December 6, 1855

Nina Morais Cohen; the daughter of Sabato Morais, a prominent Orthodox rabbi and a leading exponent of traditional Judaism—established he

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

November 2, 1975

The October 1975 publication of journalist and activist Susan Brownmiller’s treatise Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape recast public unde

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

October 27, 1957

Psychologist Dr. Joyce Brothers put her boxing trivia to the test and came away with $64,000 on October 27, 1957.

Birth of musician, writer, journalist, Eugenia Zukerman

September 25, 1944

The multi-talented performer and writer Eugenia Zukerman was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts on September 25, 1944.

Writer Ruth Gruber born

September 30, 1911

Writer and activist Ruth Gruber was born on September 30, 1911. Gruber earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees by age 19 and a PhD by 20.

Birth of dance scholar Selma Jeanne Cohen

September 18, 1920

Selma Jeanne Cohen, who sought to make dance scholarship a respected academic discipline, was born on September 18, 1920.

Death of early music pioneer Wanda Landowska

August 16, 1959

Born in Warsaw in 1879, Wanda Landowska studied piano at the Warsaw Conservatory, from which she graduated at age 14. In 1900, she moved to Paris, where she taught piano and performed.

Selma Jeanne Cohen's "Encyclopedia of Dance"

July 26, 1998

"The fact of its existence is the most important thing about it," the New York Times reviewer wrote of The International Encyclopedia of Dance in a review published on July 26, 19

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