Protests

Pauline Newman Attending a Labor Conference in 1947

Pauline Newman organizes influential New York rent strike

December 26, 1907

On December 26, 1907, months of organizing work by 16-year-old Pauline Newman culminated in the start of the largest rent strike New York City had

Women on the Picket Line at the "Uprising of the 20,000," February 1910

Clara Lemlich sparks "Uprising of the 20,000"

November 22, 1909

“I am one of those who suffers from the abuses described here, and I move that we go on a general strike.” Thus, in Yiddish, 23-year-old Clara Lemlich addressed a crowd of thousands of restless laborers at New York City’s Cooper Union on November 22, 1909.

Women strike for peace

November 1, 1961

On November 1, 1961, Women Strike For Peace (WSP) was inaugurated with a day-long strike by an estimated 50,000 women in 60 cities, all pressing for nuclear disarmament.

Three generations of activist Seaman family mark 10th anniversary of Women's Strike for Equality

August 26, 1980

When women and men paraded down New York's Fifth Avenue on August 26, 1980, to mark the tenth anniversary of Women's Strike for Equality and the sixtieth anniversary of women's right to vote, three

"Women Strike for Equality"

August 26, 1970

Ten thousand women marched down New York's Fifth Avenue on August 26, 1970, to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the passage of the 19th amendment, which granted women the right to vote.

Thumbnail of Rachel King on the Publication of Carol Gilligan's In a Different Voice, 2015

Carol Gilligan publishes "In a Different Voice"

May 24, 1982

Carol Gilligan has built a career out of challenging the mainstream.

Bessie, Sidney, Selma, and Philoine Hillman, 1922

Labor leaders announce their engagement at May Day Parade

May 1, 1916

Born in Russia in 1889, Bessie Abramowitz Hillman immigrated to Chicago at age 15 to escape an arranged marriage.

"The Collected Stories" by Grace Paley, 1998

Writer Grace Paley arrested at Vietnam protest

March 19, 1970

On March 19, 1970, writer and activist Grace Paley was arrested with 181 other individuals for protesting the Vietnam draft in an act of mass civil d

Labor activist Rose Pesotta organizes in Akron, Ohio

February 25, 1936

In 1936, in the midst of nationwide union organizing drives, the International Ladies Garment Workers Union (ILGWU) se

Triangle Factory Fire in the Oklahoma State Capital, March 26, 1911

Triangle Shirtwaist Fire

On March 25, 1911, a fire erupted at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in New York, resulting in 146 deaths and many injuries, most of them young, recently immigrated Jewish women. To the Jewish community, the unprecedented scope of the tragedy and its horrors were evocative of the pogroms that had been to date the greatest disaster to befall Jewry in modern times.

Socialism in the United States

Disproportionate numbers of Jewish immigrant women in America were associated with socialism in the first decades of the twentieth century. Their ideological commitment was expressed mainly in activism in left-leaning garment workers' unions. Their radicalism grew out of the same sources as male radicalism (changes experienced in late 19th century Europe and America, including proletarianization and secularization), but Jewish working women's radical consciousness and collective action emerged in the face of additional and different obstacles.

Clara Lemlich in a Shirtwaist, circa 1910

Clara Lemlich Shavelson

Clara Lemlich Shavelson pushed union leaders to recognize the importance of women in the labor movement and sparked the famous Uprising of the 20,000 garment workers strike in 1909. She continued her activism throughout her life, organizing around women’s suffrage and leading food boycotts and rent strikes.

Rose Schneiderman

For nearly half a century, Rose Schneiderman worked tirelessly to improve wages, hours, and safety standards for American working women. She saw those things as “bread,” the very basic human rights to which working women were entitled. But she also worked for such “roses” as schools, recreational facilities, and professional networks for trade union women, because she believed that working women deserved much more than a grim subsistence.

Lilly Rivlin

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.

Bertha Pappenheim

Bertha Pappenheim was the founder of the Jewish feminist movement in Germany. In 1904, she founded the League of Jewish Women. Pappenheim believed that male-led Jewish social service societies underestimated the value of women’s work and insisted on a woman’s movement that was equal to and entirely independent of men’s organizations.

Peace Movement in the United States

Throughout the twentieth century, Jewish women played a major role in American peace organizations and movements. Jewish women have also been in prominent roles advocating for peace between Israel and Palestine, both in the Knesset and with private organizations.

Adah Isaacs Menken

In her short but remarkable life, actress Adah Isaacs Menken became legendary for her scandalous defiance of convention. One of the most glamorous celebrities of the 1860s, Menken also cultivated a literary following. She wrote poetry and developed relationships with Walt Whitman and Charles Dickens, among others.

Bessie Abramowitz Hillman

Bessie Abramowitz devoted her life to unions, organizing her first strike at fifteen, announcing her engagement on a picket line, and continuing her efforts for workers’ rights until her death. She remained active in union activities until her death in New York City, on December 23, 1970, at age eighty-one.

Peace Movements in Israel

Though Israel has been involved in a state of protracted conflict and in a cycle of wars since well before its establishment in 1948, a massive peace movement emerged only in 1978. Throughout the years, the various Israeli peace movements and organizations have focused on anti-militarism and electoral politics, as well as on broader cultural shifts within Israeli society.

Robin Morgan

Poet, activist, journalist, and feminist leader Robin Morgan has dedicated her life to addressing women’s oppression globally and fighting for systemic social, economic, and political change. She has published more than twenty books, including poetry, essays, fiction and non-fiction work; her writings, especially her Sisterhood anthologies, remain central feminist canon and foundational texts and references for feminist thought.

Jacqueline Levine

Jacqueline Levine is an outstanding example of female activist leadership in American Jewish life. Levine lent her voice to a stunning array of social justice causes, from civil rights to ending hunger to women’s leadership in the Jewish community.

Juedischer Frauenbund (The League of Jewish Women)

Founded in 1904, The League of Jewish Women pursued secular German feminist goals while maintaining a strong sense of Jewish identity. The League supported vulnerable women through practical social reforms while fighting for political power within the German Jewish community. It saw employment opportunities as essential to women’s economic, psychological, and emotional independence.

Izieu, Women of

Nazi Klaus Barbie’s capture, deportation, and murder of forty-four Jewish children living at a home in Izieu, France, in 1944 is known primarily as a story of children, but the bravery of five women is also a significant part of the tale. Sabine Zlatin, Léa Feldblum, Suzanne Levan-Reifman, Fourtunée Benguigui, and Ita-Rosa Halaunbrenner were workers at the home or mothers of children who lived there. They played critical roles testifying against Barbie in his 1987.

Clara Immerwahr

The first woman to be awarded a doctorate in physical chemistry at a German university, Clara Immerwahr’s her achievements were long overlooked by male-dominated university circles. Immerwahr committed suicide in protest of her husband’s involvement in the implementation of gas attacks during World War I. Recognized only posthumously, her name has become linked with moral responsibility in science.

International Ladies Garment Workers Union

The International Ladies Garment Workers Union was founded in 1900 by eleven Jewish men who represented seven local East Coast unions with heavy Jewish immigrant populations. Initially excluded from the union, women began organizing and eventually developed bargaining power after the Uprising of the 20,000 in 1909.

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