Fania Marinoff may have been an actress of stage and screen, but she was best known as a hostess whose home became a major hub for artistic circles in New York.
Philanthropist Adele Rosenwald Levy demonstrated her leadership skills and her passion for the Jewish community when she helped inspire American Jews to donate even more to aid Holocaust survivors than they had given to support the war effort.
Jennie Davidson Levitt continued her family’s tradition of activism and philanthropy with her work for Jewish organizations, including resettling Jewish refugees during and after WWII.
Harriet Lowenstein gave the Joint Distribution Committee its name and led many of the organization’s efforts to aid those trapped in Europe during both World Wars.
Ruth Kisch-Arendt became one of Germany’s foremost performers of lieder—nineteenth–century allegorical poems set to music—through the intense period of anti-Semitism leading up to the Holocaust, then used her talents to highlight great Jewish composers after WWII.
Lillian Kasondorf Kavey helped immigrants escape Eastern Europe by cutting the red tape that prevented their relatives from saving enough money to bring them to America.
Called the “grandmother of American puppetry“ for her definitive history of puppets and marionettes, Helen Haiman Joseph was also known for her own practice of the craft as a talented designer and director.
Having escaped the Holocaust on the strength of her musical talents, Tziporah H. Jochsberger went on to use music to instill Jewish pride in her students.
Laura Margolis Jarblum’s deft management of wartime social services on three different continents for the Joint Distribution Committee saved the lives of thousands.
Marie Jahoda was a major figure in psychology for her work on the effects of unemployment on emotional well-being as well as the social impact of McCarthy-era blacklisting.
Jean Jaffe’s career was doubly remarkable: she was a field reporter at a time when women were usually relegated to the society pages and a Yiddish-language journalist at a time when most American reporters wrote in English.
Anna Jacobson fought to continue teaching German language and literature at Hunter College throughout the 1930s and 1940s, at a time when many schools suppressed all things German.
Rose Gell Jacobs led Hadassah through the early days of WWII, overseeing the organization’s shift from creating medical services in Palestine to rescuing thousands of Jews from war-torn Europe.
Rose Gell Jacobs led Hadassah through the early days of WWII, overseeing the organization’s shift from creating medical services in Palestine to rescuing thousands of Jews from war-torn Europe.
An important benefactress of Brandeis University, Florence Grunsfeld Heller made her mark as one of the first women to run a general Jewish organization, the Jewish Welfare Board.
