Organizations and Institutions

Jennie Loitman Barron

In her long career as a lawyer and a judge and in her lifelong work for women’s rights, Jennie Loitman Barron set many precedents for women in Massachusetts and across the United States.

Evangelyn Barsky

One of the first two women allowed to pass the bar in Delaware, Evangelyn Barsky made a great impact on her community in her brief career.

Miriam Baratz was a founding member of Deganyah Aleph, the first socialist Zionist farming commune in pre-state Israel. She advocated for communal childcare and education, and for a cooperative and egalitarian economic structure. The gender paradigm she helped establish at Deganyah set a precedent of egalitarianism for the entire kibbutz movement.

Lizzie Spiegel Barbe

Lizzie Spiegel Barbe, a member of a prominent Chicago family, devoted more than fifty years of her life to being a clubwoman and leader within the Chicago Jewish community. Like other “Jewish Clubwomen” of this era, Barbe was motivated to establish leadership roles for women that had previous not existed within the organized Jewish community.

Hannah Barnett-Trager

Hannah Barnett-Trager’s involvement in the literary world began when she helped found and then worked as a librarian at the Jewish Free Reading Room in London. She published her first article in 1919 and went on to write books for both children and adults. Trager’s writing discussed Jewish culture and politics, often drawing from her own experiences.

Patricia Barr

Patricia Barr turned her personal struggles into a national cause as an advocate for breast cancer research and treatment. An “out-liar,” as she called herself, Barr became an activist in multiple worlds: breast cancer, feminism, Judaism, education, and the Israeli peace movement.

Sophie Cahn Axman

Sophie Cahn Axman became known for her work as a probation officer helping troubled children. In 1904 found her calling as a probation officer for Jewish boys housed at the Manhattan House of Corrections.

Australia: 1788 to the Present

The first Jewish women, like the first Jewish men, arrived in Australia on the very first day of European settlement in 1788. Those convict pioneers were followed by free settlers who made Jewish communal and congregational life viable and helped to develop the vast continent. Jewish women have made significant contributions to Australia's national story.

Assimilation in the United States: Nineteenth Century

Female German Jewish immigrants were uniquely impacted by both their gender and class during the process of their assimilation to American life. They began participating in voluntary social work, which secularized over time, reflecting the women’s increased sense of personal autonomy. Through their work, German Jewish women immigrants preserved Jewish tradition and expanded their roles beyond the home.

The Orthodox Congregation B'nai David Sisterhood of Detroit, Michigan, circa 1950

Assimilation in the United States: Twentieth Century

Jewish women assimilating into a changing American society across the twentieth century navigated often conflicting gender roles. As they strove to achieve upward social mobility, they adapted Jewish assumptions of what women, especially married women, should do to accommodate American norms for middle class women. Their collective accomplishments registered in political activism, organizational creativity, strong support for feminism, religious innovation, and educational achievement in the face of antisemitism, stereotypes, and denigration.

Associazione Donne Ebree D'Italia (ADEI)

The Association of Italian Jewish Women, or ADEI, was founded in 1927 in the city of Milan, Italy, home to the second largest Jewish community in the country.

Art in the United States

American Jewish women have made major contributions to the art world as artists, photographers, gallery owners, museum curators, art critics, art historians, and collectors. The number of American Jewish women artists rose in the 1930s, and their activities expanded from painting into sculpture. This growth of Jewish women artists continued into the 21st century.

A Moroccan-Born Mother with Two of her Argentine-Born Daughters, circa 1929

Argentina: Sephardic Women

Argentina’s Sephardic community included Jews from all over the Sephardi diaspora. Immigrant women often worked alongside their fathers or husbands in general stores, as well as doing household chores and raising children. As Sephardic communities became more established, women’s educational opportunities expanded, and women played important roles in philanthropy and Zionism.

Judeo-Argentine newspapers and magazines from different periods in Yiddish, Hebrew and Spanish

Argentina: Zionist Activities

Argentine Jewish women were important players in Zionism, from early women’s committees of male groups to independent female ones. They carried out significant work on behalf of WIZO (Women’s International Zionist Organization) to help women and children in the Jewish community of Palestine and later in Israel, and participated in other Zionist organizations.

Jeannette Arons

Jeannette Arons served in a variety of roles with the National Council of Jewish Women, including president of the Brooklyn section. Her activism within NCJW ranged from helping juvenile offenders rebuild their lives, to advocating for the rights of people with disabilities, to helping Jewish immigrants become citizens.

Shoshana Arbeli-Almozlino

From her upbringing in a traditional Iraqi family to her work in the Knesset and as Israeli Minister of Health, Shoshana Arbeli-Almozlino’s life spanned countries, careers, and experiences. She will be remembered as an active member of Knesset who fought for the rights of the working class and for the equal status of women in Israeli law.

Students of the Mechona with Meyer Berlson in Buenos Aires, 1954

Argentina: Jewish Education

Over the course of the twentieth century, Jewish educational opportunities expanded for girls and teaching as an occupation became a possibility for Jewish women in Argentina. The 1920s saw the first female teachers in Jewish schools, and by the end of the 1950s, seventy percent of teachers were locally-trained women.

Argentina: Philanthropic Organizations

Three Jewish women’s philanthropic organizations emerged on the scene in early 20th-century Argentina to support orphans and poor children in the community. The Society of Israelite Beneficent Women was responsible for the Jewish Girls’ Orphanage that opened in 1919. The Yiddish-speaking Women’s Aid Association formed the Jewish Infants’ Home to help new mothers and ran a Kindergarten. The Women’s Commission helped run the Jewish Boys’ Orphanage.

Jenny Apolant

An ardent suffragist, Jenny Apolant served as a board member of the General Association of German Women from 1910 to 1925. In Frankfurt, she was one of the first women municipal councilors from 1919 to 1924, founded the Political Workers Association in 1922, and strove to improve the condition of women through profound social change.

The Women’s Mizrachi Federation in America, Detroit Meeting, circa 1960s

AMIT

Founded in 1925 by Bessie Gotsfeld to create vocational schools for religious girls in Palestine, AMIT is now the largest religious Zionist organization in the United States and has a significant presence in Israel.

American Jewish Congress

The American Jewish Congress (AJCongress) advocates for Jewish interests in the United States and abroad. Women have played an important part in AJCongress since the organization was first established after World War I.

Sadie American

Forceful, dedicated, and brash, Sadie American shaped the National Council of Jewish Women for more than twenty years before resigning and severing all ties with the organization. As one of the Council’s founders, American organized local sections and represented the group nationally and internationally, generally building up the organization.

Rose Haas Alschuler

Rose Haas Alschuler founded and directed more than twenty nursery schools and early childhood education programs before turning her attention to Zionist causes and becoming a vital fundraiser for the State of Israel.

American Birth Control Movement

Jewish women activists were among the first in the United States to highlight the need for reproductive health care. Women from a range of socioeconomic backgrounds found common political cause promoting access, advocacy, and education in the American birth control movement, achieving successes and confronting challenges throughout the twentieth century.

Miriam Albert

Miriam Albert became the first national president of B’nai B’rith Young Women in 1946. In the thirty years she served the organization, she helped increase its membership to 150,000, and she was praised for both her warmth and her leadership.

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