Ida Klaus made great strides for labor rights as the architect of the first code of labor laws for New York City employees and as a consultant to presidents from Franklin Delano Roosevelt to Jimmy Carter.
As executive director of Hadassah, Aline Kaplan credited the organization’s success to the commitment of its volunteers, whose numbers grew to a staggering 370,000 during her tenure.
The first woman ever appointed to the Federal Communications Commission, Frieda Barkin Hennock argued that women had a disproportionate stake in the media and helped establish public broadcasting.
Due to highly unusual circumstances, Hattie Leah Henenberg became a member of the first all-female state Supreme Court when almost every male judge and lawyer in the state had to recuse themselves from a case.
Rita E. Hauser’s dual background in politics and international law led to her key role in persuading Yasser Arafat and the Palestine Liberation Organization to recognize Israel and renounce terrorism.
Using the slogan, “This woman will clean House,” Jane Harman won the first of her nine terms as a congresswoman before becoming the first woman president and CEO of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.
Marta Friedländer-Garelik’s early visit to a factory convinced her to stay in school and become a lawyer, but ironically, working in a factory during WWII sent her on a new path to become a clothing designer.
Mary Belle Grossman made history in 1918 as one of the first two women admitted to the American Bar Association, then dedicated her career to protecting women.
Magdalen Flexner worked as an American ambassador in Europe, serving for decades as consul general in France at a time when women were rarely given such responsibility.
Edith Fisch literally wrote the book on evidence, a text regularly cited by judges and used in law schools throughout New York. Confined to a wheelchair by a childhood bout of polio, Fisch hit a literal roadblock in her ambitions to become a chemist: all the available graduate schools had stairs.
The daughter of Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis, Susan Brandeis Gilbert became one of the first women attorneys to argue a case before the Supreme Court.
Rita Charmatz Davidson’s career in the Maryland court system was a series of firsts, leading to her 1979 appointment as the first woman on the Maryland Court of Appeals, the highest judicial body in the state.
As a lawyer and activist, Emilie M. Bullowa devoted her life to justice for the disenfranchised, arguing, “Our democracy doesn’t work if the people who can’t afford … legal aid can’t get justice.”
As the first woman magistrate in Brooklyn and the second woman magistrate in New York, Jeanette Goodman Brill believed women had an aptitude and responsibility to judge cases involving women and children.
Rebecca Thurman Bernstein was lauded by local and national organizations for her efforts to improve health care, literacy, and Jewish life in Portland, Maine.
Margarete Berent fought for acceptance as the first female lawyer to practice in Prussia and began her career again from scratch after fleeing Nazi persecution.
![Hauser, Rita - still image [media]](http://cdn.jwa.org/sites/default/files/styles/bio_indeximage_thumb/public/mediaobjects/Hauser-Rita.jpg?itok=687IzwlM "Hauser, Rita - still image [media]")
