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Ida Ginsburg

1865–1901

by JWA Staff
Our work to expand the Encyclopedia is ongoing. We are providing this brief biography for Ida Ginsburg until we are able to commission a full entry.

Despite her short life, suffragist Ida Ginsburg made an impact on her community as founding president of the Jewish Women’s Club of Temple Beth El, which became the Detroit chapter of the National Council of Jewish Women. Ginsburg’s life marked a time when women were shifting to more active roles in volunteering and community organizing. At the founding meeting of the Jewish Women’s Club in 1891, at which 300 women joined the fledgling organization, the 26-year-old President Ginsburg commented that “Fifty years ago such a gathering of women representing so many callings and vocations of life would have been looked upon as a strange body of feminine creatures, hardly women, for to be employed in labor usually performed by men was not considered womanly.” The group quickly organized visits to the sick as well as classes in English and German, literature, exercise, and dress-making. After Ginsburg’s sudden death in 1901, the group organized a scholarship in her name for young women, and named a free nursery after her in Detroit’s Jewish community center.

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How to cite this page

Jewish Women's Archive. "Ida Ginsburg." (Viewed on December 13, 2024) <https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/ginsburg-ida>.