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Medicine

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Naomi Deutsch

A leader in the field of public health nursing, Naomi Deutsch spearheaded health and sanitation campaigns in the United States, Central America, and the Caribbean. In running settlement houses, teaching, and eventually developing and implementing policy at the federal level, Deutsch dedicated her career to serving others through public health.

Frances Allen De Ford

A pioneering physician in the industrial Kensington neighborhood of Philadelphia, Frances Allen de Ford's work led to a decrease in malarial infection. She also supported women's rights, including the right to vote, and was influential in her daughter Miriam's work as a suffragist.

Ray Karchmer Daily

Ophthalmologist Ray Karchmer Daily fought for equality and accessibility for women and children in Texas. The first Jewish woman to graduate from a Texas medical school, Daily advocated for equal treatment of female medical students and promoted equitable policies for low-income and disabled students in the Texas school system.

Rose Laub Coser

Sociologist Rose Laub Coser redefined major concepts in role theory—the idea that our actions are largely dictated by our roles in society—and applied them to expectations of women’s roles in the family and the workplace.

Claribel Cone

Claribel Cone was well known in her time for being a dignified and highly independent woman with two passions: medical research and collecting art and artifacts. She is immortalized in drawings by French modernists Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse and in Gertrude Stein’s essay “Two Women.”

College Students in the United States

In the last two decades of the twentieth century, Jewish women in America achieved parity with their male counterparts on college campuses, but only after many decades of struggle.

Elizabeth D. A. Cohen

Called a midwife and a “doctoress,” Elizabeth D.A. Cohen fought for the respect of her colleagues. She was the first woman doctor recognized by the state of Louisiana and battled to save patients from two epidemics of yellow fever.

Shulamith Cantor

As director of the Hadassah School of Nursing in Jerusalem, Shulamith Cantor helped set the standard for nursing in Palestine.

Edith Bülbring

German-born scientist Edith Bülbring was renowned for her work in smooth muscle physiology, which paved the way for contemporary cellular investigations. She pursued this work through a large and flourishing large research group at Oxford University, which she led for seventeen years. In 1958 she was elected to the Royal Society.

Hilde Bruch

Hilde Bruch’s seminal work on eating disorders contributed significantly to understanding and treatment of the diseases in the 1970s.

Brazil, Contemporary

Brazil is home to the second largest Jewish community in South America. Jewish women played important roles in the absorption of Jewish immigrants from Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa, and also made important contributions to Brazilian intellectual and artistic life.

Anna Pavitt Boudin

A dentist by career, Anna Pavitt Boudin is remembered for her prominent role in the American’s Women ORT. While maintaining her own private dental practice, Boudin became the founding president of Women’s American ORT, an organization that grew to be one of the largest Jewish women’s organizations in the United States.

Batsheva Bonne-Tamir

Batsheva Bonne-Tamir (1932-2020) was one of the first human population geneticists in Israel. She is mostly known for her studies on genetic markers and genetic diseases among the Samaritans.

Birth Control Movement in the United States: 1912-1960

In the 1910s, Margaret Sanger began the family planning movement in the United States. While Sanger was not Jewish, Jews had an enormous impact on her activism, and her activism indelibly shaped the lives of Jewish women in America.

Miriam Bernstein-Cohen

Miriam Bernstein-Cohen was an influential actor, director, poet, and translator in Europe and Israel.  She was a versatile actor, appearing successfully both in comedies and in serious plays with the Ohel, Matateh, and Haifa Municipal Theater companies. In addition to her theater work, she wrote books and essays on theater and literature throughout her life.

Fanny Berlin

A courageous, motivated pioneer in medicine, in the late 1800s Fanny Berlin became one of the first Jewish women to practice surgery in the United States and the respected chief surgeon of a major hospital.

Bene Israel

The Bene Israel is one of three Jewish communities in India. Bene Israel women were the producers and preservers of Bene Israel culture in India, and many were very influential leaders in their communities, academia, and religious life.

Therese Benedek

Therese Benedek was among the pioneers of psychoanalysis, first in Germany and then in the United States. She developed expertise in psychosomatic medicine, sexual dysfunction, and family dynamics, but she is best known for her work on the psychosexual development of women.

Rachel Sassoon Beer

Rachel Sassoon Beer was the first woman to edit a national newspaper when she simultaneously owned and edited both The Observer and The Sunday Times in England in the 1890s.

Sadi Muriel Baron

A pioneering neurologist and psychiatrist, Sadi Muriel Baron managed to interweave teaching, working with poor urban families, and running a successful private practice. Baron was also the mother of Dr. Renée Richards, who became one of the most famous American transgender personalities after her transition in 1976.

Ruth Arnon

Immunologist Ruth Arnon and her team made unprecedented breakthroughs when they developed the first synthetic antigen and the first drug approved for treating multiple sclerosis, Copaxone. Arnon also invented a synthetic, nasally administered flu vaccine and has published over four hundred articles, chapters, and books on immunology and biochemistry.

Margaret Gene Arnstein

Margaret Gene Arnstein was a principal architect of the American nursing profession. Her belief that nurses should be involved in health policy and research helped transform her profession. Renowned for her work in public health, Arnstein also advanced nursing education and research.

Naomi Amir

Naomi Kassan Amir was a pioneer in pediatric neurology, bringing her training from the United States to what was a brand-new field in Israel. Known for her holistic approach, Amir saw children not just in terms of their disabilities but in the context of their family and their community.

World AIDS Day

Jordan Namerow

Today is World AIDS Day and, having spent this past summer in Uganda where I volunteered with an indigenous HIV/AIDS advocacy organization, AIDS awareness has particular resonance for me this year.

Topics: Activism, Medicine

Breast Cancer Awareness: Overseas, At Home, and in Jewish Communities

Jordan Namerow

I recently returned from Uganda where I spent three months volunteering with a health rights organization. Next door to the NGO at which volunteered is the UgandaWomen's Cancer Support Organization (UWOCASO) run by a small, courageousgroup of breast, cervical, and ovarian cancer survivors.

Topics: Medicine

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