A seasoned social worker and executive director of Jewish Family Service of Greater New Orleans, Deena Gerber helped residents put their lives back together in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
When the hospital tending Lainie Breaux’s newborn son temporarily lost contact with her during Hurricane Katrina, Breaux used her fifteen minutes of fame to call attention to the plight of others devastated by the hurricane.
Pearl Willen’s term as president of the National Council of Jewish Women from 1963–1967 capped a long career of community organizing from the local to the international level.
The daughter of Hollywood magnate Louis B. Mayer, Irene Mayer Selznick went on to help her husband, David O. Selznick, run his movie production company before becoming a theater producer in her own right.
Alice Salomon was honored as one of the founding mothers of social work in Germany for both the direct service organizations she created and her role as founding president of the International Association of Schools of Social Work.
Etta Lasker Rosensohn devoted herself to social work from an early age, culminating in her work for Hadassah as one of the founders of Hebrew University-Hadassah Medical School in Jersusalem.
As the tireless head of the Department of Children’s Emigration in the Reich Association of Jews in Germany, Käte Rosenheim managed to save over seven thousand Jewish children from the Nazis.
Sociologist Sophia Moses Robison spent her career shattering stereotypes, from exposing the racial bias in labels of juvenile delinquency to debunking myths that immigrants were a drain on the economy.
Helen Harris Perlman pioneered the “Chicago School” of social work, arguing that many people in crisis needed short-term therapy and solutions rather than long-term Freudian analysis.
A descendent of prominent families whose American roots traced back before the Revolutionary War, Alice Davis Menken devoted her career to helping immigrant women and children get a fresh start.
At a time when social work usually meant wealthy people donating to the poor, Minnie Low pushed for new kinds of aid such as vocational training and loans that made the needy self–sufficient.
Congresswoman Susan Davis, the first Democrat in more than fifty years to serve more than one term for California’s 53rd district, has repeatedly fought for women’s health issues on both a state and local level.
Rhoda Kaufman helped create social welfare organizations throughout Georgia and overcame prejudice against her religion and gender to become one of the most respected social reformers in the country.
Gisela Peiper Konopka ignored conventional wisdom and focused on what troubled teens had to say, a process that led to her becoming a pioneer of group therapy, rebuilding shattered German psyches after WWII.
Esther Loeb Kohn helped bridge the gap between Chicago’s volunteer and professional social workers and spent thirty years running the Hull House settlement whenever founder Jane Addams was away on her frequent travels.
Despite being legally blind from childhood due to cataracts, C. Marian Kohn worked tirelessly to help others in need, from orphans and immigrants to people with disabilities.
Laura Margolis Jarblum’s deft management of wartime social services on three different continents for the Joint Distribution Committee saved the lives of thousands.
