During the mid-twenties and the thirties in Germany, Hannah Karminski was the “soul” of the League of Jewish Women (Jüdischer Frauenbund, JFB), founded in 1904 by Bertha Pappenheim (1859–1936). She served as secretary of the League and, from 1924 to 1938, as editor of its newsletter. After the forced liquidation of the League in 1938, Hannah Karminski decided to remain in Germany and to continue her work in the Reichsvereinigung der Juden in Deutschland (Reich Association of Jews in Germany).

The League of Jewish Women (Jüdischer Frauenbund, or JFB) founded in 1904 by Bertha Pappenheim, attracted a large following. Absorbing some traditional Jewish women’s charities and building on programs that Jewish women’s groups had pioneered, the JFB offered a feminist analysis and approach to social welfare.

Challenging all varieties of American Judaism, feminism has been a powerful force for popular Jewish religious revival. Of America’s four Jewish denominations, all but the Orthodox have accepted women as rabbis and cantors.

To page through the newsletters and annual reports published periodically by the Israel Women’s Network between February 1986 and January 2000 is to become aware of the powerful impact that can be made by a group of well-informed, energetic, articulate and determined feminists. Combining consciousness-raising, education, litigation and lobbying, the Israel Women’s Network was responsible for a veritable transformation in the status, image and self-image of Israeli women which marked the last fifteen years of the twentieth century.