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Boycotts

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Facebook

Is it time to break up with Facebook?

Rebecca Long

Are we still on Facebook? Yes. Do we feel icky about it? Definitely. Do we plan to stay on Facebook for now? Yes, and I’ll tell you why.

Topics: Boycotts, Journalism
Sisters

A Sisterly Homeland

Savoy Curry

As soon as I mentioned Birthright, my sister seemed to know exactly where our conversation was headed. “I’ve been meaning to ask you about that, too,” she said, reminding me that despite being my younger sister she always seems to be one step ahead of me.

Death of Seattle Artist and Activist Selma Waldman

April 17, 2008
“I am an artist . . . enamored of charcoal (the tool that does not lie) and the act of drawing." - Selma Waldman

Hannah Jukovsky

Hannah Jukovsky made headlines when she organized a boycott of standardized testing to draw attention to class and race inequities in Massachusetts public schools.
Clara Lemlich in a Shirtwaist, circa 1910

Where's the Beef?

Jordyn Rozensky

Today I googled the Wendy’s commercial of the early 1980s were an older woman uses the catchphrase “Where’s the beef?!”. This may—or may not—surprise you. What probably will surprise you was the fact that this search was not inspired by my Memorial Day plans of grilling, but because of my job here at the Jewish Women’s Archive.

While exploring our archives I came across a truly remarkable activist, Clara Lemlich Shavelson.  Born in 1886, Shavelson was a key player in the labor movement. She was also a suffragist, communist, community organizer, and peace activist. Read on to find out where the beef comes into play!

Topics: Boycotts

Butchers, Babushkas, and Consumer Activism

Learn about the 1902 Kosher Meat Boycott in New York City and listen to a discussion of how consumer activism relates to Jewish values.
Image of an Afghani Girl

In the Name of Allah: What a Young Afghani Woman Has Taught Me

Samantha Wood

Tell someone a story, and you don’t know what will happen next.

Last summer I was lucky to study at the Jewish Women’s Archive’s Institute for Educators. We spent five intense days learning the Living the Legacy curriculum with top scholars in social activism, Jewish feminism and history. In the coming months, I will be using Living the Legacy to teach a series of social justice workshops to teens in western Massachusetts.

But something else happened because of what I learned at the Jewish Women’s Archive.

Meat

Overturn the World

Susan Reimer-Torn

On July 2, 1965 the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) began its work for women's equality, enforcing Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which among other things prohibited employment discrimination within labor unions. This week, we take a glimpse even farther back, to the turn of the century, to the roots of women organizing for fair prices.

Jewish women protest kosher meat prices on Lower East Side

May 15, 1902
Thousands of Jewish housewives rioted on the Lower East Side, making news and inspiring other women organizers

Activist Clara Shavelson leads butcher shop boycott

May 27, 1935

On May 27, 1935, New York City women, organized as the City Action Committee Against the High Cost of Living, picketed butcher shops to demand a reduction in the price of meat.

Uprising of 20,000 (1909)

In 1909, more than 20,000 Yiddish-speaking immigrants launched an eleven-week general strike in New York’s shirtwaist industry, the largest strike by women to date in American history. The strikers won only a portion of their demands, but the uprising sparked five years of revolt that transformed the garment industry into one of the best-organized trades in the United States.

Socialism in the United States

Disproportionate numbers of Jewish immigrant women in America were associated with socialism in the first decades of the twentieth century. Their ideological commitment was expressed mainly in activism in left-leaning garment workers' unions. Their radicalism grew out of the same sources as male radicalism (changes experienced in late 19th century Europe and America, including proletarianization and secularization), but Jewish working women's radical consciousness and collective action emerged in the face of additional and different obstacles.

Clara Lemlich Shavelson

Clara Lemlich Shavelson pushed union leaders to recognize the importance of women in the labor movement and sparked the famous Uprising of the 20,000 garment workers strike in 1909. She continued her activism throughout her life, organizing around women’s suffrage and leading food boycotts and rent strikes.

Doña Gracia Nasi

Doña Gracia Nasi was the embodiment of passionate solidarity among exiles. As a young woman she inherited her husband’s fortune, and fled from Lisbon to Venice to Ferrara, where her family lived openly as Jews for the first time. In Constantinople, she assumed a role of leadership in the Sephardi world of the Ottoman Empire.

Jacqueline Levine

Jacqueline Levine is an outstanding example of female activist leadership in American Jewish life. Levine lent her voice to a stunning array of social justice causes, from civil rights to ending hunger to women’s leadership in the Jewish community.

Eastern European Immigrants in the United States

Forty-four percent of the approximately two million Jewish immigrants who arrived in the United States between 1886 and 1914 were women. Although these women were more politically active and autonomous than other immigrant women, dire economic circumstances constricted their lives. The hopes these immigrant women harbored for themselves were often transferred to the younger generation.

Not Just Fun and Games -- Women, Jews, and the Olympics

Lily Rabinoff-Goldman

The first Olympics I remember well were the 1988 Summer Games, held in Seoul. We were sitting shiva for my grandfather on Long Island. I remember my sister and I lying on our grandparents' bed (my grandmother always had pink satin sheets) and being completely mesmerized by the tiny female gymnasts as they tumbled across the floor. To my knowledge, none of those women were Jewish (Kerri Strug made her debut in 1992, and the Israeli gymnasts who competed in 1988 likely did not make it to American television), but American Jewish women have made a strong impact on the Olympic Games over the past 100-plus years.

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