Anti-Semitism

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Sara Landau

Highly unusual for her time, Sara Landau not only made a name for herself as a respected economist, but paired her scholarship with inexhaustible volunteerism both in her community and through national organizations.
Isa Kremer, cropped

Isa Kremer

A former star of the Russian Imperial Opera, Isa Kremer insisted on singing Yiddish songs to instill pride in Jewish audiences despite rampant anti-Semitism.

Ruth Kisch-Arendt

Ruth Kisch-Arendt became one of Germany’s foremost performers of lieder—nineteenth–century allegorical poems set to music—through the intense period of anti-Semitism leading up to the Holocaust, then used her talents to highlight great Jewish composers after WWII.

Laura Z. Hobson

Laura Zametkin Hobson’s unconventional life became fuel for her remarkable novels, including the highly popular Gentleman’s Agreement in 1947.
Ariel Durant

Ariel Durant

Ariel Durant collaborated with her husband, Will, on their Pulitzer-winning, multi-volume history of western civilization as well as, unusually, their dual autobiography.

Annette Daum

Annette Daum combined interfaith dialogue and feminism in the hopes of both defusing anti-Semitism in the feminist movement and finding solutions to the common problems facing women in different faiths.

Gretel Bergmann

High jumper Gretel Bergmann’s Olympic hopes were dashed when Nazi officials both refused to let her leave Germany and refused to let her compete in the 1936 Games.

Vicki Lewis

Lieutenant Vicki Lewis struggled with anti-Semitism throughout her time as a weapons trainer in the US Army.

Esther Brandeau

The first Jew known to set foot on Canadian soil, Esther Brandeau disguised herself as a boy to gain freedom and independence.
Ethel Rosenberg with Husband Julius

Ethel Rosenberg

When Ethel Rosenberg was accused of treason alongside her husband and executed after one of the most controversial trials in American history, her guilt or innocence became secondary to what her treatment said about the position of Jews in America.
Bess Myerson

Bess Myerson

When Bess Myerson encountered anti-Semitism as the first Jewish Miss America, she used her new-found fame to fight hatred through the Anti-Defamation League.

Tehilla Lichtenstein

Lichtenstein cofounded Jewish Science with her husband as an alternative to Christian Science, creating a small but passionate following and carving a place for herself as a congregational leader.
Hannah Arendt at the University of Maryland, 1965

Hannah Arendt

Hannah Arendt grappled with the Holocaust throughout her lifetime, creating the concept of “the banality of evil” to understand the widespread complicity in the mass killings.
Gloria Greenfield

Gloria Greenfield

Disturbed by growing anti-Semitism in the women’s movement, Gloria Greenfield left the movement and began creating documentary films that brought national attention to anti-Semitism in America and around the world.
Pamela Cohen, 1997

Pamela Cohen

Called “the general of a fighting army” by jailed dissident Natan Sharansky, Pamela Cohen rescued countless refuseniks from Soviet Russia with her grassroots efforts.
Lynn Amowitz, July 2001

Lynn Amowitz

After years of offering medical help to refugees, Lynn Amowitz decided she needed to solve the problems at their source: the human rights violations driving refugees from their homes.

Fanny Jaffe Sharlip

Fanny Sharlip was born in the small town of Borosna, Russia. In her memoirs written in 1947, she characterizes herself as a child "always hungry for knowledge. I asked too many questions. I was told over and over again that it was not healthy to know too much. I could not be harnessed by telling me that children don't have to know. That only made me more curious." Fanny loved school and was an excellent student. "I was very happy as only a child my age could be; I lived and breathed school.

Bella Abzug at a New York Press Conference, 1972, by Diana Mara Henry

Queen Esther and Bella Abzug: Costumes, Leadership, and Identity

Throughout history, activists have chosen different costumes and personas as strategic tools to help them stand up against injustice. Examine how the biblical figure Esther and the historical figure Bella Abzug fought for justice and liberation by adopting personas that helped them to achieve their goals. JWA staff will demonstrate ways to use the stories of these women in your classrooms as you prepare for Purim.

Letty Cottin Pogrebin

Our goal at Ms. was to make such lives visible, to honor women's work, and to expose the legal, economic, and social barriers that stand in the way of women's full humanity.

Gloria Greenfield

In the late 1960s, I began a journey “out of the patriarchy” towards territory unknown.

Ruth Nussbaum and Husband Max Nussbaum, circa 1960s

Ruth Nussbaum preserves a Torah on Kristallnacht

November 10, 1938

Ruth Nussbaum preserves a Torah on Kristallnacht.

"A Train in Winter" Front Cover

"A Train in Winter" reveals the strength of women’s friendship

November 13, 2011

There are 230 heroines in Caroline Moorehead’s book "A Train in Winter."

Steve Benson on Irena Sendler's Heroism Thumbnail

Irena Sendler saves Jewish children from the Warsaw Ghetto

October 20, 1943

Irena Sendler Saves Jewish Children from the Warsaw Ghetto

Chanel Dubofsky Headshot
April 26, 2013

J.A.P.: Let’s Keep It Unpalatable

Chanel Dubofsky

We can be powerful women who know what we want. We should be, and we should be able to be without having to define ourselves according to antiquated parameters. Let’s set up new paradigms, and push beyond attachments to class and gender performance.

Topics: Anti-Semitism

Out of the Shadow: A Russian Jewish Girlhood on the Lower East Side

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