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.
In her most famous book, Black, Jewish and Interracial: It’s Not the Color of Your Skin but the Race of Your Kin and Other Myths of Identity, anthropologist Katya Gibel Mevorach (nee Azoulay) explored identity politics, “passing” as white, and other social constructs of race.
Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky has earned a reputation as a liberal progressive for her stances on issues ranging from health care to marijuana legalization.
As co-editor of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee’s newsletter, the Student Voice, Dorothy Miller Zellner helped craft the organization’s message and report on stories suppressed by the mainstream media.
Elaine DeLott Baker’s experiences with civil rights activism led to a career helping workers learn reading and computer skills to qualify for better jobs.
Wanting to somehow contribute to the defeat of the Nazis persecuting her fellow Jews, Bebe Koch enlisted at age nineteen and rose through the ranks to become a platoon commander.
While 150,000 women eventually served in the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps in World War II, Matilda Blaustein was remarkable both as one of the first to volunteer and because she was joined in the service by her daughter, Bernice.
Lori Lefkovitz founded the first-ever women’s studies department at a rabbinical school and helped create Ritualwell.org, a communal source for inclusive, innovative Jewish ritual and prayer.
Tamara Cohen’s work with the Jewish Women’s Archive and Ma’yan: the Jewish Women’s Project helped popularize lesser-known heroines of Jewish history and new feminist rituals such as making Miriam’s Cup part of the Passover Seder.
Using both field research and her own experiences posing as a pregnant woman, Joyce Antler not only helped repeal New York’s laws against abortion, but ensured that women had real access to medical services after the law was repealed.
Janet Yassen helped build the first rape crisis center in Massachusetts and went on to become an international consultant on preventing rape and sexual violence.
As a counselor for students at Louisiana State University’s Medical School, Mollie Wallick became an advocate for gay and lesbian students both at the university and in the larger community.
A career serving the Jewish Federation brought Jill Weinberg to her life’s work as the first director of the Midwest Regional Office of the US Holocaust Memorial Museum.
Pamela Sussman Paternoster’s work with the Algebra Project helped teach thousands of disadvantaged students math skills that could open up the possibility of a college education.
Betsy Shure Gross’s love of nature and open spaces led her to restore a local treasure: the last surviving linear park designed by Frederick Law Olmstead.
Marla Oros offered health care directly to poor and underserved populations in Baltimore through innovative programs that brought nurse practitioners out of hospitals and into the communities.
