Social Work

Content type
Collection
Collage of Bertha Pappenheim on orange and white background
January 20, 2023

Bertha Pappenheim and My Great Great Grandmother

Aviva Schilowitz

Bertha Pappenheim and Oma Irene’s work still feels essential today. We still are working to help people in the Jewish community who many would prefer to pretend don’t exist.

Topics: Social Work, Women's Rights, Organizations and Institutions
Rose Henriques "Hessel Street: Sabbath Cakes to the Baker"

Philanthropist and artist Rose Henriques is born

August 17, 1889

Rose (Loewe) Henriques spent her adult life in London's East End, providing social welfare offerings to the largely Jewish population and documenting the area’s experience of the tumultuous early twentieth century in her acclaimed paintings.

Painting of Hannah Floretta wearing a poufy white dress

Hannah Floretta Cohen

Hannah Floretta Cohen was the first woman president of Britain’s traditionally male Jewish Board of Guardians for Jewish Poor Relief. She also promoted many other Jewish and non-Jewish charitable organizations to promote women's education, to benefit the sick and the elderly, and to encourage investment in the Palestine Mandate, through her public speaking, financial expertise, and administrative skills.

Bernice Kazis

Bernice Kazis

Bernice Kazis is a former teacher and social worker who dedicated much of her career to resettling Soviet Jews in the greater Boston area.

Andrea Waldstein

Andrea Waldstein

Andrea Waldstein is a Boston-based social worker and activist who worked internationally to support Soviet Jews, particularly women.

Enid Shapiro

Enid Shapiro, 1925 - 2017

Enid Shapiro lived tikkun olam. She was an early feminist, a devoted Jew, an unceasing learner, and she made a difference in countless people’s lives through her devotion to repair the world and her commitment to kindness and care that came from a place of profound integrity.

JWA UK Logo
June 29, 2017

The Other JWA

Emily Cataneo

JWA made a startling discovery recently: we have a doppelgänger. Okay, that’s not quite accurate. Perhaps it would be better to say that our URL, jwa.org, has a near-doppelgänger: jwa.org.uk. Who was this mysterious British JWA, we wondered?

Topics: Feminism, Social Work
"The Jewish Woman" Magazine Cover, October 1921

Benevolent Societies and Tzedakah

Examine different ways that American Jewish women historically—and we today—fulfill the obligation of tzedakah (charity) and gemilut chesed (acts of loving kindness).

Josephine Stern Weiner with Pat Nixon

Josephine Stern Weiner

Josephine Stern Weiner’s lifetime of community service culminated in her creation of Women in Community Services (WICS), an umbrella organization that coordinated efforts between Jews and Christians, blacks and whites, at the height of the civil rights movement.
Jackie Gothard, 2013

Jackie Gothard

A third-generation New Orleans native and the first female president of Congregation Beth Israel, Jackie Gothard worked tirelessly to restore the synagogue and bring the community back together.

Deena Gerber

Deena Gerber

As executive director of the Jewish Family Service, Deena Gerber helped survivors navigate New Orleans’s shattered infrastructure and access social services after the storm.

Jackie Gothard

Jackie Gothard

The first female president of her childhood synagogue, Congregation Beth Israel, Jackie Gothard helped the Orthodox synagogue rebuild after Hurricane Katrina.
Deena Gerber

Deena Gerber

A seasoned social worker and executive director of Jewish Family Service of Greater New Orleans, Deena Gerber helped residents put their lives back together in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
Susan Davis

Susan Davis

Congresswoman Susan Davis, the first Democrat in more than fifty years to serve more than one term for California’s 53rd district, has repeatedly fought for women’s health issues on both a state and local level.
Joanna Eckstein in the USSR

Joanna Eckstein

Joanna Eckstein widened the perspective of Seattle residents both with her travel writing and as a patron of the arts who supported individual artists and museums.
Marcia Cohn Spiegel

Marcia Cohn Spiegel

Marcia Cohn Spiegel was one of the first to speak out about alcoholism and domestic violence in the Jewish community, using her own experience to help others.
Nancy Miriam Hawley with the Boston Women's Health Book Collective

Nancy Miriam Hawley

Nancy Miriam Hawley helped found the Boston Women's Health Book Collective, Inc., the organization responsible for writing the best seller Our Bodies, Ourselves, which empowered women to take control of their own health care.
Rebecca Yenawine, 2002

Rebecca Yenawine

Rebecca Yenawine’s unorthodox approach to a group of teenage vandals led her to create a unique art school for inner city kids.
Janet Yassen, January 15, 2003

Janet Yassen

Janet Yassen helped build the first rape crisis center in Massachusetts and went on to become an international consultant on preventing rape and sexual violence.
Sue Wolf-Fordham, 2005

Sue Wolf-Fordham

Sue Wolf-Fordham’s experience as the parent of a special-needs child drove her to create resources for families of disabled children around the world.

Judy Wolf

Judy Wolf helped create a resource center for children with disabilities in the city of Dnepropetrovsk that not only transformed the lives of families there but became a model for special education throughout the Ukraine.
Anita Weinstein

Anita Weinstein

As founding director of EZRA, Anita Weinstein created local and far-reaching programs to relieve hunger and homelessness.
Jill Weinberg, Gerda Weisman Klein, and Kurt Klein, Chicago, October 23, 2000

Jill Weinberg

A career serving the Jewish Federation brought Jill Weinberg to her life’s work as the first director of the Midwest Regional Office of the US Holocaust Memorial Museum.
Laurie Schwab Zabin

Laurie Schwab Zabin

Laurie Schwab Zabin’s work in reproductive health changed how Americans approach sex education and teen pregnancy.
Denise Schorr

Denise Schorr

As a member of the French Resistance, Denise Schorr began saving Jewish children when she was still just seventeen.

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