Frances Stern’s experience as a second-generation American Jew dedicated to social reform and in contact with several prominent women engaged in social work led her to a career in scientific nutrition, applied dietetics, and home economics. Stern founded the Food Clinic of the Boston Dispensary, a center for dispensing practical advice on food and meal preparation for outpatients and their families that also served as a center for research on the relationships among health, nutrition, class, and ethnicity.

Originally a historian and researcher in Heidelberg and Berlin, Selma Stern-Taeubler settled at the Hebrew Union College in Cincinatti after fleeing Nazi Germany. She became the first archivist of the American Jewish Archives at the college and later wrote books of fiction and nonfiction. Despite her contributions to Jewish history, American-Jewish academe has largely undervalued Stern-Taeubler’s work, which continued until her death in 1981.

Gloria Steinem was a leader of second-wave feminism and the co-founder of Ms. Magazine, the first feminist periodical with a national readership. As a journalist and spokesperson, she mobilized a generation of women to advance the cause of women’s liberation. Steinem has worked tirelessly all her life as an advocate for change.

Johanna Spector was an influential ethnomusicologist whose writings, recordings, and film projects documented the music of little-studied Jewish communities from around the world. After surviving the Holocaust, Spector earned her doctorate, founded the ethnomusicology department at the Jewish Theological Seminary, established the Society for the Preservation of Samaritan Culture, and served as president of the Asian Music Society. 

Professor of social economy Maida Solomon was recognized as a pioneer in the field, contributing to the “invention” of the field of psychiatric social work and overseeing its definition, its development of standards, and its integration with the other institutions of modern American medicine and education—in short, its professionalism.

Jews have made a disproportionate contribution to the field of sociology, despite discrimination and exclusion. Because sociologists are not identified by religion, it is difficult to know which American women sociologists are Jewish. Therefore, the first challenge in understanding the contribution and experience of American Jewish women sociologists is to identify them.

Feisty and opinionated, Sylvia Sidney was quite the opposite of the waiflike victim of social oppression she played in Hollywood’s Depression Era films. While she disliked playing the victim, her vulnerability and working-class persona resonated with audiences. She earned an Oscar nomination for her performance in Summer Wishes, Winter Dreams, took on a comic role as the caseworker in Beetlejuice, and played a sympathetic grandmother in one of the first TV movies about AIDS, An Early Frost.

Aline Saarinen first gained notoriety as an art critic and served as an associate art editor at the New York Times. Her career in art criticism segued into a career in television as a popular on-air personality. Saarinen’s presence on television led to her appointment as chief of the National Broadcasting Company’s Paris news bureau, the first woman to hold a position of this type.

Alice Salomon was an educator, feminist, economist, and international activist who was one of the pioneers of the emerging field of professional social work in Germany in the early 20th century. In 1925 she was among the founders of the German Academy for Women’s Social and Educational Work, and she later served as the first president of the International Committee of Schools of Social Work.

Sylvia Rosner Rothchild was a prolific writer and historian whose works of fiction and nonfiction explored American Jewish identities and captured audiences. Many of her writings depict the descendants of Eastern European Jews who arrived in the United States in the decades surrounding the turn of the twentieth century.

A prolific journalist, essayist and novelist, Anne Roiphe is an American writer known for tackling issues of feminism and Jewish identity. Despite her sometimes controversial writings, Roiphe has become an important voice for secular Jews who, while perhaps uncomfortable with organized religion, nevertheless feel an attraction and a commitment to their Jewish heritage.

Gladys Rosen created resources that changed how people approached Jewish history. As program specialist for the American Jewish Committee, she published Guidelines to Jewish History and Social Studies Instructional Materials, which offered summaries of Jewish history and resources for teaching Judaic studies. She went on to coedit a number of books on Jewish culture and history and was an interviewer on the radio program, Jewish Viewpoint.

Lilly Rivlin is a documentary filmmaker whose films are centered around feminism, the Arab-Israeli peace process, Jewishness, and her family relationships. Rivlin’s films The Tribe (1984), Miriam’s Daughters Now (1986), and Gimme a Kiss (2000), all of which explore Jewishness and family, are among her best.

A polarizing and important social reformer, Julia Richman sought to better manage the massive influx of immigrants in New York by Americanizing the new arrivals as quickly as possible, particularly through intense training in English. An educator who eventually became district superintendent of the Lower East Side schools in 1903, she created playgrounds, improved school lunches, and enforced health examinations for students.

Lydia Rapoport was a social worker, professor, caseworker, and advocate of social change. Her contributions to crisis theory transformed how social workers and therapists handle crisis intervention.