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Publishing

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Birth of multi-talented Ruth Hagy Brod

May 31, 1911

Born in New York City on May 31, 1911, and raised in Chicago, Ruth Hagy Brod had a varied career that took her from the newsroom to Latin America

"Settlement Cookbook" author Lizzie Black Kander is born

May 28, 1858

Lizzie Black Kander, author of The Settlement Cookbook, was born in Milwaukee, on May 28, 1858.

Fanny Goldstein, librarian and founder of Jewish Book Week, is born

May 15, 1895
Goldstein was the first female Judaica librarian and the first woman to direct a branch library in Massachusetts.

Publication of Gladys Rosen's Jewish bicentennial guidebook

May 2, 1975

Born and raised in New York City and educated at Columbia University, Gladys Rosen became the program specialist at the American Jewish Committee (AJ

"The American Jewess" begins publication

April 1, 1895

Published between April 1895 and August 1899, The American Jewess was the first English-language publication directed to American Jew

E.M. Broner publishes "The Telling"

March 1, 1993

Publication of E.M. Broner's "The Telling: The Story of a Group of Jewish Women Who Journey to Spirituality Through Community and Ceremony."

Lynn Gottlieb publishes "She Who Dwells Within"

March 3, 1995

Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb's She Who Dwells Within, which she describes as "a practical guide to nonsexist Judaism," was published on March 3, 1995.

Sophie A. Udin

Sophie A. Udin fought for women's rights and equal pay, but she is best known for helping found the first libraries in Israel and creating important American archives about Zionism, helping preserve vital documents and making them accessible.

Amy Swerdlow

Amy Swerdlow (1923-2012), child of a Communist household in the Bronx, shared her parents’ dedication to making a better world but developed her own political agenda. She became a leader of the global women’s peace movement, a pioneer in the field of women’s history, and a professor of history and women’s studies at Sarah Lawrence College in Yonkers, New York.

Jo Sinclair

Jo Sinclair was an American-Jewish novelist whose works explored the repercussions of oppression in many forms: self-denial and self-destruction, antisemitism and Jewish self-hatred, repression of women’s sexual energy and sexual orientation, racism and the internalization of prejudice, poverty, and other forms of marginalization. Her work looked to self-knowledge as a means of emerging from one’s internalized ghetto.

Susan Weidman Schneider

Author and editor Susan Weidman Schneider has agitated for feminist progress in the Jewish community, as an activist and then as a founder and editor-in-chief of Lilith magazine. She has helped galvanize change with her writings on Jewish women’s leadership; domestic abuse; Orthodoxy and feminism; ordination of women; LGBTQ issues; the treatment of converts to Judaism, and more.

Gail Rubin

In her photos of Israeli nature, Rubin focused her attention on diverse objects, including birds, water buffalo, butterflies, mountains, and bodies of water. Her career ended tragically at age 39 when she was murdered by terrorists on a beach near Ma’agan Michael.

Marge Piercy

Novelist and poet Marge Piercy's life and life’s work reflect her deep engagement with political activism, feminism, and Judaism. In genres including fiction, poetry, liturgy, memoir, and essays, Piercy’s work brings together spirituality, creativity, memory, sensuality, and political engagement.

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.

Lenore Guinzburg Marshall

Lenore Guinzburg Marshall, novelist, poet, activist, and literary editor, pushed her publishing company to publish William Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury after it had been rejected by twelve other publishers. She published her first novel, Only the Fear, in 1935 and her first poetry collection, No Boundary, in 1943, going on to write poetry, novels, short stories, essays, and a memoir.

Florence Howe

“The chief editor, fund raiser, cheerleader and occasional staff photographer” is the way the Chronicle of Higher Education described Florence Howe’s work at the Feminist Press. She made the publishing company her life’s work, and her contributions to the field of women’s studies as scholar, editor, and publisher are unparalleled.

Frances Horwich

Frances Horwich was loved by parents and children alike for her educational television show, Ding Dong School, which taught millions of children how to finger paint, grow plants, and do craft projects with household objects such as pipe cleaners and paper plates. She ended up writing 27 Ding Dong School books and two books for parents, as well as winning several awards over her career.

Gladys Heldman

After originally planning to be a medieval historian, Gladys Heldman became a competitive tennis player and later an advocate for women’s tennis. The current generation of women tennis players owe their equal status to her important efforts.

Charlotte Zolotow

Writer and editor Charlotte Zolotow wrote over 70 children’s books. Her best-known story is William’s Doll, which was produced as a short film and as a song for the popular children’s album Free to Be … You and Me. Some of Zolotow’s books approach difficult topics such as gender roles, death, single parents, and conflict.

Turkey: Ottoman and Post Ottoman

The Jewish population of Turkey navigated far-reaching changes in the political, social, and geopolitical spheres in the late nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries, as the Ottoman Empire pursued reform and collapsed and the Turkish Republic that took its place imposed a process of “Turkification” on its residents. During this period, Jewish women partook in traditional customs relating to religion, family, and the home, while also accessing new opportunities in the public sphere through education and political engagement.

Marie Trommer

Marie Trommer was an early twentieth-century writer, poet, artist, art critic, and contributor to American Jewish newspapers. After attending the Cooper Union Art School, Trommer became known for her contributions to Jewish newspapers, her poetry, and her oil and watercolor paintings. She was a member of the Creative Writers Group, Society of Independent Artists, and Art Alliance of America. 

Edith Mendel Stern

A prolific writer as well as an activist in the mental health field, Edith Stern authored four novels and many guides for laypeople on the subjects of mental illness, aging, and differently abled children.

Mollie Steimer

Mollie Steimer earned nationwide attention for her refusal to compromise her anarchist beliefs during the widely publicized 1918 trial in which she was sentenced to prison under the Sedition Act. Later deported to Russia and then to Germany, Steimer continued her anarchist activities throughout her life.

Mollie Slott

During a 56-year tenure with the Chicago Tribune-New York Daily News Syndicate, Mollie Slott guided the daily operation of a nationwide news distribution service that, in addition to the comics, included columns of advice, sports, politics, and serialized fiction.

Eva Schocken

As the daughter of Salman Schocken, founder of Schocken Books, and later as editor and president, Eva Schocken pushed the publishing company to the forefront of both education and women’s studies.

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