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Philanthropy and Volunteerism

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Richea Gratz

Born into a wealthy Philadelphia family, Richa Gratz became the first Jewish women to attend college in America. After completing her education, she began her career in social work alongside her husband, supporting her synagogue as well as cultural organizations and aid societies.

Rebecca Gratz

Through the schools, philanthropic societies, and orphanages she established, Rebecca Gratz established a new model of religious education and made it possible for a new generation to identify as both fully Jewish and fully American.

Rebecca Fischel Goldstein

The quintessential rebbetzin [rabbi’s wife], Rebecca Fischel Goldstein was a prime mover in her husband’s drive to build the Institutional Synagogue and make it a center of Jewish life in Harlem. As a consummate volunteer leader, she strove to make women a dominant force in organized Jewish life.

Elizabeth Glaser

Elizabeth Glaser’s fight to save her HIV-positive children led to her creation of the Pediatric AIDS Foundation to save children worldwide from the devastation of AIDS.

German Immigrant Period in the United States

Among nineteenth-century German Jewish immigrants to the United States, married women often made their own sources of incomes. However, high rates of poverty in large cities motivated women to create benevolent societies. As women participated more in the public sphere, the traditionally strict dichotomy between male and female roles changed in immigrant communities.

Ida Weis Friend

Ida Weis Friend worked to improve the lives of those in her Southern Jewish community on many levels. Her leadership in Jewish organizations, such as Hadassah and the National Council of Jewish Women, and her political activism, such as her time as a delegate to the Democratic National Convention and Commission on Interracial Cooperation, earned her many honors and accolades.

Lillian Freiman

Lillian Freiman was unquestionably the most prominent Jewish woman in Canada in the interwar period. Freiman was exemplary for her degree of independent social activism and devotion to an array of Jewish and non-Jewish social causes.

Ruth E. Fizdale

Ruth E. Fizdale is credited with making modern social work a profession. Fizdale helped transform social work from a charitable volunteer activity to a paid profession, through her development of a fee-for-service, nonprofit counseling firm.

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.

Racie Adler

Racie Friedenwald Adler helped shape a number of Jewish institutions, most significantly the Women’s League for Conservative Judaism. As the Women’s League vice president, she helped establish Jewish student houses on campuses, the forerunners of modern Hillel houses.

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