Cecilia Razovsky was a remarkably active woman who spent her life striving to assist immigrants in adapting to life in the United States and other countries. Razovsky found countless ways to help Jewish refugees in particular, from writing plays and pamphlets to running committees and organizations for immigrant aid.

G. G. Michelson (1925-2015) was a corporate and civic leader who was a trailblazer for women. As chair of Columbia University’s board of trustees from 1989 to 1992, she was the first woman to head the board of an Ivy League institution; she was also the first woman on the New York State Financial Control Board. In her 47-year career at Macy’s, she rose from management trainee to senior vice president and, as an executive, negotiated with unions representing twenty thousand employees.

Following successive careers as a New York City politician president and director of a major Jewish organization, Ruth Messinger has become nothing less than an icon of American Jewish progressive leadership. She became Manhattan borough president in 1990. After losing the 1997 mayor’s election to Rudolph Giuliani, she became the president and CEO of the American Jewish World Service, a position she held from 1998 to 2017.

A direct, no-nonsense politician who participated in Israel’s governance from its independence onward, Golda Meir served as Israel’s first female Prime Minister through the turbulent period of the Yom Kippur War.

Elizabeth Holtzman pursued a public career epitomizing some of the most important trends in postwar American and Jewish life. In her successive roles as a congresswoman, Brooklyn district attorney, comptroller of New York City, and political commentator, she emerged as an effective and activist public servant, a forceful campaigner, and a champion of liberal and feminist causes.

The child of a refugee from Nazi Germany, Jane Harman began her career in law. After being elected in 1992, she spent 20 years as a vocal advocate of Israel, pro-choice legislation, and women’s issues as a Representative for California’s 36th Congressional District. After leaving Congress for the private sector, Harman held leadership positions in several prominent political organizations.

Theresa Wolfson, economist and educator, taught at Brooklyn College from 1929 until her retirement in 1967. A prolific writer, she published in the fields of labor economics and industrial relations. As early as 1916, Wolfson studied barriers to the advancement of women in the workplace and the unequal treatment of women within trade unions.

During her five years in Congress, Gladys Noon Spellman was a voice for fiscal reform. Elected in 1975, Spellman served on the Committee on Banking, Currency and Housing, the Democratic Steering and Policy Committee, and the Committee on Post Office and Civil Service. Her service coincided with a period of American politics in which Jews were becoming increasingly visible, both as voters and as elected officials.

Clara Sereni was an Italian writer of Jewish descent. The rich legacy of her Jewish roots as well as her inherited passionate political commitment permeate all her narrative works. The act of writing offered Sereni an opportunity to articulate female subjectivity and language experimentation, providing a setting for exposing issues related to identity, politics of gender, disability, and ethnic diversity while building a new utopia.

Tova Sanhadray-Goldreich was a leader of religious Zionist movements in her home in eastern Galicia before making aliyah to Palestine, where she organized a merger of several women’s organizations to form Emunah. She was also the first woman member of the National Religious Party to be elected to the Knesset.

Rachel Salamander is a writer, scholar, editor, and publisher. Born in 1949 in a DP camp in Germany, she has written and published multiple works about German Jewry and DP camps after World War II. In 1982, Salamander established the Literaturhandlung in Munich, a prominent bookshop and meeting place specializing in Jewish literature.