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Zionism

Content type
Collection
Collage of Jewish Women Who Died in 2023

Jewish Women Whose Memories I’m Carrying into 2024

Judith Rosenbaum

The year 2023 brought the deaths of several powerful and influential Jewish women, whose insights and voices changed the world and are all the more painful to lose in this difficult time. 

Collage of Shulamit Aloni on patterned blue and white background

Is It Possible to Be A Left-Wing Zionist?

Ava Cohen

While it may not be exactly the case right now, there have been many people in Israel’s short history that have gone against the grain to form progressive parties in the government, like Shulamit Aloni.

Topics: Zionism, Activism

Flora Benenson Solomon

Flora Benenson Solomon’s deep commitments to welfare and Zionism traversed geographical boundaries and social groups. From her efforts to improve the lives of Jewish and Arab communities in Palestine to the her work on behalf of garment workers in England, Solomon maintained an unwavering commitment to Zionism, which acted as a sustainer of Jewish identity in England.  

Aliza Parker

Project
General

Jayne Guberman interviewed Aliza Parker on February 13 and March 28, 2008, in Brookline, Massachusetts, as part of the Jewish Women's Archive's general oral history project. Parker discusses her family history, upbringing in Brooklyn, involvement in Zionist youth movements, experiences in Israel, teaching career, participation in a Jewish study group, and reflections on her marriage, children, and the evolving world and Israel.

Batya Gur

Israeli author Batya Gur is best known for her mystery novels centering on the investigations of detective Michael Ohayon. Her work brought literary complexity to the Hebrew mystery novel.

Mildred Rosenbaum

Project
Weaving Women's Words

Roz Bornstein interviewed Mildred Rosenbaum on August 8th and 9th, 2001, in Seattle, Washington, for the Weaving Women's Words Oral History Project. Rosenbaum recounts her journey from a childhood accident and hospitalization to her involvement in the Jewish community, her marriage, her support for Israel, and the establishment of Congregation Beth Shalom in Seattle.

Shoshana Shoubin Cardin

Project
Weaving Women's Words

Elaine Eff interviewed Shoshana Shoubin Cardin on August 30, September 4, September 7, and October 3, 2001, in Baltimore, Maryland, as part of the Weaving Women's Words Oral History Project. Cardin shares her journey as an immigrant to the United States, her experiences growing up in Baltimore, her education, marriage, and the challenges and changes in the Jewish community, as well as her lifelong commitment to volunteerism and philanthropy.

Dvorah Hacohen wins the National Jewish Book Award for "To Repair a Bro­ken World "

January 20, 2021

On January 20, 2021, distinguished Israeli historian Dvorah Hacohen won the National Jewish Book Award for To Repair a Bro­ken World, a biography of Hadassah founder Hen­ri­et­ta Szold. The multitude of strong female Jewish voices present in the construction and content of Hacohen’s book speaks to an intergenerational admiration for Jewish women leaders.  

Roz Garber

Project
Women Who Dared

Judith Rosenbaum interviewed Roz Garber on July 26th, 2000, in Brookline, Massachusetts, as part of the Women Who Dared project. Garber, a Canadian, shares her journey from choosing to study in the United States and embracing Conservative Judaism, to her work in the Soviet Union, educating and supporting Refuseniks, and her subsequent activism within the Jewish community, recognizing the importance of fighting injustice both at home and abroad.

Ruth Levy

Project
Weaving Women's Words

Marcie Cohen Ferris interviewed Ruth Surosky Levy on September 8, 2001, in Baltimore, Maryland, as part of the Weaving Women's Words Oral History Project. Levy shares her love for family and Judaism, recounting her upbringing in Baltimore, her father's kosher butcher shop, her involvement in Zionist activities, her education, her Navy service, raising her children, and the importance of Judaism in her life.

Bess Fishman

Project
Weaving Women's Words

Elaine Eff interviewed Bess Fischman on May 30 and June 8, 2001, in Baltimore, Maryland, as part of the Weaving Women's Words oral history project. Fishman shares memories of her childhood, family, Jewish observance, marriage, and involvement in Jewish organizations and the Zionist movement, being involved with the Beth T’filoh Sisterhood and visiting Israel.

Collage of teenage girl, background of Jewish stars and backpacks, pencils, computers

Jewish Schools Aren't Making the Grade

Rose Clubok

If we want to engage young Jews, we need to rethink how we educate them.

Berta Gerchunoff

Berta Wainstein de Gerchunoff was an Argentine socialist, feminist, and later Zionist leader. As President of the Argentine branch of WIZO, she led an exponential growth of women’s Zionist commitments all over Latin America.

Sally Gottesman

Sally Gottesman, born 1962 in New Jersey and residing in New York, is a non-profit entrepreneur whose leadership and philanthropy have had a major impact on the Jewish feminist and justice landscape.

Cecilia Klaften

Cecylia Klaften, a pedagogue and a civic activist from Lvov (Galicia/Eastern Lesser Poland), implemented social reform projects and especially promoted the founding of vocational schools for women in interwar Poland. In the 1920s she was one of the founders of the Jewish Women’s Association and the WIZO Jewish Women’s Organization for Pro-Palestinian Work in Lvov. In the 1930s she was politically active for Lvov’s City Council.

Róża Pomeranc-Melcer

Róża Pomeranc Melcer was a social reformer, feminist, and Zionist active in Galicia and later in Eastern Lesser Poland. She was the first and only Jewish Member of Parliament in the Second Polish Republic (1918-1939) and championed the goals of modern Zionist women's politics.

Judith Butler

Judith Butler is the Maxine Elliot Professor of Comparative Literature and the Program in Critical Theory at the University of California, Berkeley. Butler’s work treats gender, hate speech, the precarity of life, the precarity of one’s position as a Jewish thinker in light of Israeli policy towards Palestinians, alternative kinship structures, non-violence, vulnerability, and other, equally complex and important aspects of human existence.

Bruria Benbassat de Elnecavé

Bruria Benbassat de Elnecavé was an ardent activist who dedicated her life to educate Jewish Argentines in general and Jewish Argentine women in particular about Zionism and the State of Israel. 

Episode 40: Rachel Sharansky Danziger: Let My Story Go (Transcript)

Episode 40: Rachel Sharansky Danziger: Let My Story Go (Transcript)

Zioness at the D.C. Dyke March

Lessons from the D.C. Dyke March

Sophie Hurwitz

What can we learn from the debate about Jewish and Israeli symbols at Pride?

Episode 13: Borders of Love (Transcript)

Episode 13: Borders of Love (Transcript)

Israeli Flags in Jerusalem

Next Year in Jerusalem

Lisa Batya Feld

A rabbinical student studying in Israel explores how it feels to say “Next Year in Jerusalem” this year, knowing that next year she won’t be there.

Topics: Passover, Zionism

Episode 7: Women of the Wall (Transcript)

Episode 7: Women of the Wall (Transcript)

Sisters

A Sisterly Homeland

Savoy Curry

As soon as I mentioned Birthright, my sister seemed to know exactly where our conversation was headed. “I’ve been meaning to ask you about that, too,” she said, reminding me that despite being my younger sister she always seems to be one step ahead of me.

Sara Ehrman

A political operative who served as deputy director of issues and research for George McGovern’s 1972 presidential campaign, Sara Teitelbaum Ehrman had an inadvertent brush with history when she drove Hillary Rodham to Arkansas while urging her not to marry Bill Clinton.

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