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Sports

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Basketball player Sue Bird Breaks All-Time WNBA Career Assists Record

September 1, 2017

On September 1, 2017, Sue Bird broke the all-time WNBA career assists record, passing Ticha Penicheiro with 2,600 assists. By September 7, 2022, the final game of her illustrious WNBA career, she had accumulated a whopping 3,234 assists. 

Marcia Greenberger

Project
Washington D.C. Stories

Deborah Ross interviewed Marcia Greenberger on June 27, 2011, in Washington, DC, as part of the Washington D.C. Stories Oral History Project. Greenberger reflects on her experiences of encountering discrimination against women and Jews, her commitment to social change during the turbulent '60s, and her admiration for her mentor, Justice Arthur Goldberg, as she pursued a legal career.

Yael Averbuch

Interview with Soccer Star and Players' Rights Activist, Yael Averbuch

Alyx Bernstein

JWA talks to soccer player and NWSLPA founder, Yael Averbuch.

Topics: Sports
Stock Image of Girl Wearing Athletic Jersey and Visor

Fifth Grade Feminist Football Fight

Aliza Abusch-Magder

I didn’t want to play football, I just wasn’t accustomed to being told no, especially without being given a logical reason. So the right for girls to play football, which I could’ve cared less about personally, became a cause for which I fought with persistence.

Topics: Feminism, Schools, Sports

Sally Fox

Driven to document the real lives of women often ignored by male writers and historians, Sally Fox used photographs, paintings, and political cartoons to reveal the history of women at work and at play.
Woman Jogging

Jiggling Toward Inclusivity

Maya Sinclair

This Girl Can is a nonprofit based in the UK that “is here to inspire women to wiggle, jiggle, move and prove that judgment is a barrier that can be overcome.” In their main video campaign, women of all races, shapes, and ability levels are featured exercising and enjoying themselves. They are proud of who they are and are proud of their active lifestyles.

Dana Jacobson

Dana Jacobson has showed resilience in her career as a sportscaster, transitioning from television to radio while remaining a trusted female anchor in a male-dominated field.

Feminist-Fandom

Emilia Diamant

As the Red Sox went along, up and up the ladder to win the World Series, I noticed some posts from my leftist friends living in Boston. They were commenting on the perceived chauvinism of sports fans, mostly drunk men on the Green Line, who had rubbed them the wrong way.

It got me to thinking about my firm feminism ideals and my Sox fandom—are the two things directly contradictory? Is there something about being a sports fan that makes me less of an activist for justice?

Editor's Note: Feminist-Fandom was originally published on Always a Squeaky Wheel on November 27th.

Topics: Feminism, Sports
Row Boat

Taking Things Into Her Own Hands: Disabled Israeli Athlete Belts Out Hatikvah

Deborah Fineblum Raub

In 1878, Naphtali Herz Imber, an English poet originally from current-day Ukraine, paid tribute to the dream of a Jewish homeland.

Topics: Sports, Athletes
Barbells

The Future Shomer Shabbos Weightlifting Olympian

Deborah Fineblum Raub

Last January, a 4-foot, 9-inch bundle of power named Naomi Kutin squatted and focused her considerable energies on the task at hand: hoisting a whopping 214.9 pounds (more than double her own 97 pounds). At the moment of that seemingly impossible lift, beating out her much older competitors, Naomi set a new powerlifting world record for women in her weight class.

Topics: Sports, Olympics

Kayla, Rusty, and the "best sport in the world"

Ellen K. Rothman

When I opened The Boston Globe on Friday morning, I was greeted by a large photo above the fold of a jubilant Kayla Harrison, who had just become the first US judo athlete to win an Olympic gold medal.

Beauty Exercises, 1897

We've Come A Long Way, Rosa: Title IX and The American Jewess

Gabrielle Orcha

You didn’t think Title IX would reach its 40th birthday and go unrecognized here at JWA, did you?

Marcia Greenberger

Marcia Greenberger is founder and Co-President of the National Women’s Law Center, established in 1972 to advocate for gender equality in education, jobs, economic security, and health. Under her leadership, the NWLC has worked to improve the lives of women, girls and families by backing laws to prohibit pregnancy discrimination in employment and to provide compensation for victims of sexual harassment. It helped pass state and federal tax laws to help millions of families pay for child and dependent care and secured new federal remedies for women seeking child support.

Myra Kraft's Funeral Program

The Patriots to honor memory of their "Jewish mother," Myra Kraft, at the Super Bowl

Leah Berkenwald

It's a tradition for players in the Super Bowl to wear a patch with the Roman numerals of the game's year on the left side of their chests (46, or XLVI, this year). On Sunday in Indianapolis, the Patriots will be wearing it on the right side; the left is already occupied by a patch honoring Myra Hiatt Kraft, the wife of team owner Robert Kraft who died in July of 2011.

Topics: Philanthropy, Sports
Annie Londonderry

Annie Londonderry and the bicycle as a vehicle of social liberation

Leah Berkenwald

Over the past couple years, we have witnessed the rise of an eco-friendly, politically progressive bike culture in the US.

Topics: Sports
Cheerleading

Does cheerleading matter to Jewish women?

Leah Berkenwald

The National Collegiate Athletic Association is considering a proposal to recognize competitive cheerleading as an emerging sport, a step towards legitimacy as a championship sport. Anyone who has seen competitive cheerleading (and the injuries cheerleaders often sustain) can understand why; it’s a physically demanding and dangerous version of gymnastics where people perform flips and handstands not on a balance beam, but on top of a human pyramid.

Navah Paskowitz-Walther: The Jewish Mother of Surfing’s First Family

Renee Ghert-Zand

Knowing Navah Paskowitz-Walther today as a San Fernando Valley stay-at-home mom who is active in her synagogue and children’s Jewish day school, it is hard to believe that, as a child, she lived a peripatetic existence in a 24-foot camper.

Topics: Motherhood, Sports

Sport in Israel: Yishuv to the Early 21st Century

Women have been involved in sports in Israel since the Yishuv period, participating as teams, as individuals, and as coaches. Though more women are now participating in competitive sports, the field still reflects a masculine culture of power struggle and a desire to defeat the enemy. More recent political efforts in Israel have attempted to achieve women's equality in athletics.

Dore Jacobs

Dore Jacobs developed her own pedagogy, which viewed physical education as a holistic project, out of which came her own unique method of gymnastics. In 1923 she founded her School for Physical Education and Rhythmic Development; she was also a founding member of the German socialist organization called the Bund-Gemeinschaft für Sozialistisches Leben.

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