Josephine Stern Weiner’s lifetime of community service culminated in her creation of Women in Community Services (WICS), an umbrella organization that coordinated efforts between Jews and Christians, blacks and whites, at the height of the civil rights movement.
Hailed by Jewish News as “The First Lady of Detroit Jewish Womanhood,” Dora Buchhalter Ehrlich took on community leadership positions usually reserved for men.
Helen Lowentritt DeRoy’s business savvy in the auto industry was matched only by her generosity as a philanthropist through the worst years of the Depression.
After the narrowly averted disaster of the Cuban Missile Crisis, Lillian Mellen Genser decided to train people to think differently about conflict from early childhood onward.
Hailed by local newspapers as “the battling belle of Detroit,” Myra Wolfgang went from staging sit-ins to becoming International Vice President of the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Union.
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.
Hilda R. Gage capped a career of firsts with her appointment as the first female Chief Judge of Michigan’s Oakland County Circuit Court, one of the busiest circuit courts in the nation.
A dedicated lawyer who fought sexism and anti-Semitism, Regine Freund Cohane also had the unique distinction of being half of the first married couple to try a case before the US Supreme Court.
As an early proponent of the Lamaze method, Flora Suhd Hommel helped normalize natural childbirth through the Childbirth Without Pain Education Association (CWPEA).
Opera singer Emma Lazaroff Schaver was profoundly affected by giving concerts to Holocaust survivors in displaced persons camps, an experience that shaped the rest of her life.
Through her YouTube channel and reality TV show, Jazz Jennings is working to increase public understanding and acceptance of transgender teens like herself.
After her impassioned plea that black lives matter ignited the internet, Alicia Garza helped lead the movement that has transformed the modern struggle for civil rights.
The first female congregational rabbi to serve in Israel, Kinneret Shiryon went on to establish Kehillat Yozma, the first non-Orthodox congregation to receive funding from the state.
In 2015, Denise Eger became the first openly gay president of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, the professional organization for Reform rabbis.
Jill Jacobs, the executive director of T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights, has pushed for Jews to take an active role in social justice, from supporting health care and environmental reform to condemning torture and human rights violations.
As dean of Hebrew College, Sharon Cohen Anisfeld has struck a rare balance between overseeing the seminary as a whole and connecting with each of her students on a personal level.
Jill Hammer co-founded the Kohenet Hebrew Priestess Institute to offer women alternative ways of connecting with Jewish tradition by focusing on the sacredness of the body and the earth.