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Social Work

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National Federation of Temple Sisterhoods

Founded in 1913 as the National Federation of Temple Sisterhoods and officially renamed Women of Reform Judaism (WRJ) in 1993, the WRJ has for more than a century galvanized hundreds of thousands of Jewish women to support and advance Reform Judaism, the Jewish people, and Jewish values in their home communities, around the country, and around the world.

National Council of Jewish Women

In its early years, the National Council of Jewish Women concentrated on combating assimilation by educating Jewish women about Judaism. In contemporary times, the Council continues to play an important role as a bridge between traditional motherhood and political activity, between the Jewish community and other women’s organizations, between Judaism and politics, and between diverse segments of the Jewish community itself.

Ruth Messinger

Following successive careers as a New York City politician president and director of a major Jewish organization, Ruth Messinger has become nothing less than an icon of American Jewish progressive leadership. She became Manhattan borough president in 1990. After losing the 1997 mayor’s election to Rudolph Giuliani, she became the president and CEO of the American Jewish World Service, a position she held from 1998 to 2017.

Alice Davis Menken

Alice Davis Menken was an influential social reformer whose many published works had a notable impact on the field of penology. She became interested in delinquency among young female Jewish immigrants while working at a settlement house on the Lower East Side. Menken proceeded to pioneer the argument that therapy, not punishment, is the most effective treatment for young delinquents.

Florence Zacks Melton

A philanthropist and visionary innovator and a lay leader for over fifty years, Florence Zacks Melton helped build institutions that improved the quality and broadened the scope of Jewish education throughout North America.

Minnie Low

Known as the “Jane Addams of the Jews,” Minnie Low was a leader in the Jewish social service community. At a time when social work usually meant wealthy people donating to the poor, Low pushed for new kinds of aid such as vocational training and loans that made the needy self–sufficient.

Holocaust Survivors: Rescue and Resettlement in the United States

Immediately after the Holocaust, the American Jewish community assisted in the postwar rehabilitation and resettlement of survivors who arrived in the United States. Families sponsored European relatives and communal agencies organized to help survivors’ adjustment. While the contemporary media described a warm welcome by American communities and survivors’ rapid acclimation, this triumphant narrative belied the fraught reality of survivors’ early years in the United States.

Sidonie Wronsky

Sidonie Wronsky was among the pioneers of professional social work and one of the early social work educators. She was a member of social work organizations, taught at German schools, and wrote prolifically on issues pertaining to social work, Judaism, and women. She continued her career in social work and education after her emigration to Palestine in 1933.

Pearl Willen

Pearl Willen was a twentieth-century social and human welfare activist and communal leader with a love for Jewish heritage. She had a lifelong record of service for such causes as civil rights, women’s rights, and the rights of workers.

Bessie Bloom Wessel

Bessie Bloom Wessel was unique in her contributions to life in New England, both as an active citizen and as a scholar. She worked with immigrants, served on several committees, and produced significant ethnic studies.

Shoshana Werner

After years of service in the Haganah and the Auxiliary Territorial Service, Shoshana Werner was appointed as the second commanding officer of the Women’s Corps of the Israel Defense Forces in 1949.

Helen Weil

Helen Weil was a devoted gerontologist in and around Cleveland, Ohio. A German-Jewish refugee herself, in addition to teaching at Western Reserve University, Weil developed thorough social services and programs for elderly Jewish residents at Montefiore Home before going on to found and direct the Schnurmann House.

Miriam Dworkin Waddington

Miriam Dworkin Waddington was a distinguished and pioneering Canadian poet and literary critic. Her original poetry included many explicit references to her Jewish secular outlook, and other poems were infused with a commitment to social justice that drew on that same source. Impatient with the Canadian “canon” of her time, she introduced to wider audiences the works of A.M. Klein and poets writing in Yiddish with her literary criticism and her translations.

Hannah Thon

Hannah (Helena) Thon was a social worker, journalist and editor, a student of Israel’s ethnic communities, and one of the leading figures in the women’s voluntary social-welfare organizations during the Yishuv (pre-State) period in Israel.

Sarah Lavanburg Straus

With the support of philanthropist Baroness Clara de Hirsch, Sarah Lavanburg Straus helped to establish two homes for immigrant girls in New York City early in the twentieth century.

Hilda Weil Stroock

Hilda Weil Stroock was a sponsor of the first Women’s Conference on Jewish Affairs held in 1938 at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America. This pioneering event reflected her lifelong interest in the welfare of women and children and the condition of the Jewish community.

Rahel Straus

Rahel Goitein Straus, a pioneering woman medical doctor trained in Germany, was a model “New Jewish Woman” of the early-20th century. Successfully combining a career as a physician with marriage and motherhood, she committed herself to Jewish and feminist causes and organizations throughout her life, while also embracing Zionist ideals.

Celia Strakosch

Celia Strakosch spent her career in social work in New York City and was involved in several organizations, including the Emanu-El Employment Bureau for Jewish Girls and the National Council of Jewish Women; in both institutions, she held leadership positions. During her decades of service, Strakosch focused especially on alleviating poverty among Jewish girls.

Eva Michaelis Stern

Eva Michaelis Stern was co-founder and director of the fundraising arm of the Youth Aliyah in Germany, and later the director of the Youth Aliyah office in London. Over the course of WWII, she helped more than 1000 children from countries all over Europe immigrate to Palestine.

Elizabeth Stern

Elizabeth Stern was an American-Jewish writer, essayist, and journalist. She achieved success within a number of realms and balanced a number of competing roles: fiction writer, journalist, social worker, wife, mother, and an American woman leading a secular life who examined the importance of cultural heritage.

Bessie Cleveland Stern

Bessie Cleveland Stern is most recognized for her work as statistician for the Maryland Board of Education. She collected and interpreted data about the Maryland school system from 1921 through 1948, and school officials turned to her for information to support appropriations measures and proposed changes in state laws relating to the schools.

Hannah Stein

Hannah Stein’s life was devoted to advocating for the rights of disadvantaged women and their children. She served for 14 years as the executive director of the National Council of Jewish Women and worked in cooperation with other advocacy groups such as the National Council of Negro Women and the United Church Women to establish the Women in Community Service (WICS) coalition.

Constance Amberg Sporborg

Constance Amberg Sporborg was a career clubwoman who dedicated her life to the advancement of women’s rights, immigrant settlement, international organizations, and world peace. Working in New York City in the early twentieth century, Sporborg aided both Jews and gentiles.

Alice Hildegard Shalvi

Israel Prize Laureate Professor Alice Shalvi was a leading Israeli feminist activist and scholar. Founder of the Israel Women’s Network and the Ben Gurion University English Department and longtime principal of the iconic religious feminist high school Pelech, Professor Shalvi was instrumental in advancing gender issues in Israeli education, society and politics.

Eugenie Schwarzwald

Eugenie Schwarzwald was progressive educator who imprinted her charismatic personality on the education, social work, and literary heritage of Vienna during the first half of the twentieth century. She directed the Schwarzwald schools and raised the flag for equal education for girls.

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