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Voting Rights

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Civil Rights Movement in the United States

As part of the Black-Jewish civil rights alliance and rooted in twentieth-century political, cultural and gender dynamics, Jewish women’s activism took many forms. Jewish women contributed as professionals, through Jewish and women’s organizations, and as foot soldiers in the movement’s nonviolent direct action organizations such as CORE (the Congress of Racial Equality) and SNCC (the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee).

Cécile Brunschvicg

Cécile Brunschvicg was one of the grandes dames of French feminism during the first half of the twentieth century. Although her chief demand was women’s suffrage, she also focused on a range of practical reforms, including greater parity in women’s salaries, expanded educational opportunities for women, and the drive to reform the French civil code, which treated married women as if they were minors.

Alice Goldmark Brandeis

A longtime activist for women’s equality and labor rights, Alice Brandeis also promoted progressive causes through the work of her husband, Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis. Her efforts on behalf of Sacco and Vanzetti, radical presidential candidate Robert La Follette, and the Jewish activist Bergson Group stirred controversy.

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.

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.

Hertha Ayrton

Hertha Ayrton was a distinguished British scientist who was the first woman to receive the Hughes Medal of the Royal Society for a scientific work that was exclusively her own. She was committed to suffrage activism and ensuring proper recognition of women’s scientific work.

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.

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.

Happy Women's Equality Day!

Judith Rosenbaum

It's been 88 years since the 19th amendment gave American women the right to vote -- a right I hope we'll all take very seriously this year. I'd like to add to Lily's reflections on this anniversary the story of one Jewish woman who worked for the suffrage campaign in her homestate, Montana, in the 1910s.

A shuk of stories

Judith Rosenbaum

Today is the 60th anniversary of the founding of the State of Israel, and I'd like to mark it not (only) by eating falafel but with something less tangible but ultimately more nourishing: considering stories. Sixty years is only half way to 120 - the mythical age Jews wish upon one another - but this "half life" contains within it so many dreams and visions, loves and losses, hopes and fears, connections and fractures, struggles that remain unresolved.

Happy Women's Equality Day!

Judith Rosenbaum

Today is the 86th anniversary of the passage of the 19th amendment, which granted American women the right to vote. It took women activists 72 years to win the federal right to vote, and it was a hard battle, filled with many setbacks and contentious disagreements about ideology and strategy.

Sex Wars

Judith Rosenbaum

It’s the story of an immigrant struggling to survive economically in the big city, a woman running for president, a crusade against pornography and birth control, a decades-long debate on how to achieve political equality for women.

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