Browse by Category | Jewish Women's Archive

Entrepreneurs: From Antiquity Through the Early Modern Period

Jewish women have been recorded in entrepreneurial roles as early as the fifth century BCE, and many women held vital roles in their communities’ economies. Around the world, Jewish women took part in moneylending, trading, and property ownership, both with their husbands and independently.

Nora Ephron

As a journalist, writer, and filmmaker, Nora Ephron used her provocative wit, biting sarcasm, and ability to make the mundane entertaining to write her way into the lives of millions. Heeding her mother’s advice that “everything is copy,” Ephron drew upon her own experiences – childhood dreams, observations about aging, and her two divorces – in her articles, books, and screenplays.

Phoebe Ephron

Phoebe Ephron was not only a successful playwright and Hollywood screenwriter but also the mother of four daughters, three of whom achieved success in the film industry as well, thereby proving that women could have both a career and a family. Ephron's family life influenced her writing, and the lessons she learned at her job were also taught to her children.

Charlotte Epstein

Charlotte “Eppy” Epstein helped popularize women’s swimming and coached Olympic athletes who broke more than fifty world records. Epstein also started the renowned Women’s Swimming Association of New York, which launched the national and international fame of American women swimmers in the early twentieth century.

Claire Epstein

Claire Epstein is an outstanding example of a spirited woman archaeologist who worked untiringly and out of true love in search of the past in the Land of Israel. She received two important awards for her work: the Israel Museum’s Percia Shimmel Award in Archaeology and the Israel Prize for archaeology.

Ilene Epstein

In 1979, Ilene Epstein brought a new style to the streets of Boston when she and her identical twin sister opened The Studio, a women’s clothing store that offered stylish clothing in a welcoming atmosphere.

Judith G. Epstein

Judith Epstein led Hadassah through the tumultuous years of World War II, shifting its mission from building infrastructure in Palestine to establishing an internationally recognized Jewish state. During her tenure, Hadassah became the largest Zionist organization in the world.

Equality, Religion and Gender in Israel

Although the principles of equality for women under the Declaration of Independence and the Women’s Equal Rights Law were not endowed with constitutional force, and the 1992 Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty does not expressly include the principle of equality, these laws have been interpreted by the courts as securing the principle of gender equality as a basic principle of the legal system.

Sara Riwka B’raz Erlich

An exemplar of the amalgamation of cultures in the Diaspora, Sara Riwka Erlich was a Brazilian-Jewish woman author and scientist whose writings drew from her work in psychiatry, her Jewish heritage, and her experiences in Brazil and Israel. The daughter of Polish immigrants, Erlich was born in Recife, Brazil, in 1935 and published memoirs, stories, poems, and essays in Portuguese until the early twenty-first century.

Lotte Errell

Photojournalist Lotte Errell worked tirelessly to make her adventurous travels in Africa, China, and the Middle East accessible to her readers at home in Germany and beyond. Her success illustrates how photography and travel journalism provided women with new possibilities for independence and careers. Errell traveled the world throughout the 1930s taking photos and writing essays, but she was interrupted in the 1940s by the war.

Rachel Ertel

Born in 1939, Rachel Ertel is a translator and an essayist. She remains one of the most prolific translators from Yiddish to French and dedicated her life to the survival of Yiddish culture in France and America.

Esau, Wives of: Midrash and Aggadah

Esau’s three wives are given more context and background by the rabbis than in the Torah. Esau’s first two wives, Adah and Judith, are described as adulterous and idolatrous, while his third wife, Mahalat, is interpreted as either Esau’s repentance or his fall further into evil.

Ruth Eshel

Dancer, choreographer, and dance researcher Ruth Eshel has been a major contributor to the development of theatrical dance in Israel. She played an important role in the experimental dance scene of the 1970s and 1980s. She also formed the Eskesta Dance Theater and Beta Dance Troupe, focused on Ethiopian Jewish dance, and has written extensively about the history of dance in Israel.

Tamar Eshel

A lifelong diplomat with a strong record of defending women’s rights and human rights, Tamar Eshel capped her career with two terms as a member of the Knesset from 1977 to 1984. In 1990 she was made an honorary citizen of Jerusalem in recognition of her service to Israel.

Rosa Eskenazi

Roza Eskenazi was a renowned Greek singer who had a long and influential career. She recorded hundreds of songs throughout her life, and her powerful range and unique voice continue to inspire generations of listeners.

Tamara Cohn Eskenazi

As editor of The Torah: A Women’s Commentary, scholar and rabbi Tamara Cohn Eskenazi recovered the stories of women mentioned throughout the Bible and treated them with the academic rigor usually reserved for the patriarchs and other biblical men.

Esther Barsel

Esther Barsel was a lifelong activist, committed to the Liberation struggle in South Africa from her high school days. She sold anti-apartheid newspapers, participated in a hunger strike, and endured three years of imprisonment and hard labor followed by a 20-year banning order, all in the name of ending apartheid in South Africa.

Esther kneels before King Ahasuerus as he crowns her, with the caption in Hebrew: "He placed the queen's crown on her head."

Esther: Apocrypha

The Greek Additions to the Hebrew Bible’s Book of Esther were probably written over several centuries and contradict several of the details from the Hebrew text. Generally, the Additions are more dramatic and ultimately portray Esther as stereotypically weak and helpless, even though parts of her weakness and femininity ultimately help save her people.

Esther: Bible

Esther, the main character in the book named after her, is a young Jewish woman who becomes queen of the Persian empire and risks her life by interceding for the Jewish people to save them from a pogrom. Set in the Persian diaspora, the Book of Esther depicts the struggle for Jews to survive in the face of hostility in a foreign land.

Esther: Midrash and Aggadah

Queen Esther, the central character in the Biblical book named after her, is extensively and sympathetically portrayed in the Rabbinic sources. In their commentary on the Book of Esther, the Rabbis expand upon and add details to the Biblical narrative, relating to her lineage and history and to her relations with the other characters: Ahasuerus, Mordecai, and Haman.

Ethiopian Jewish Women

Jewish women in Ethiopian villages were traditionally inactive in public and were in charge of the domestic sphere. After immigration to Israel, their lives changed dramatically, with some young women acquiring higher education and becoming high-profile career women.

Blanche Goldman Etra

Blanche Goldman Etra opened doors to independence and education for other women by founding women’s divisions of medical schools and women’s seminars on financial planning. A woman of high intelligence and great energy, characterized by a strong sense of integrity and morality, Etra set out to use her considerable talents for the betterment of the Jewish and general communities.

A brick building with a tower, situated on a street corner in New York City

Sylvia Ettenberg

Sylvia Ettenberg dedicated her life to the advancement of Jewish education. Her concern for building strong leaders to represent the Conservative Movement prompted her to develop ways to search for and inspire promising teenagers and young adults to further their studies at the Jewish Theological Seminary.

Jane Evans

Although she never became a rabbi, Jane Evans, Executive Director of the National Federation of Temple Sisterhoods, became a powerful voice for women’s ordination within the Reform Movement.

Sara N. Evans

Sara Nachamson Evans served as the “first lady” of Durham, North Carolina, from 1951 to 1963. Known affectionately as “Miz Evans” by her friends and family, she was a prominent local, regional, and national leader of Hadassah.

Sharing Stories
Inspiring Change

The Shalvi/Hyman Encyclopedia of Jewish Women