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Zionism

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Sarah Malkhin

Sarah Malkhin was among the first women agricultural laborers to arrive in Palestine during the the Second Aliyah. Through efforts to establish new kinds of agricultural settlements founded on ideals of emancipation and independence, Malkhin and her colleagues clashed with veteran settlers of the Old Yishuv.

Hannah Maisel-Shohat

Combining her zeal for the Zionist movement and her extensive education in agriculture, Hannah Maisel-Shohat dedicated herself to the establishment of women’s farms and agriculture education programs in Palestine in the 1920s.

Zivia Lubetkin

Zivia Lubetkin was an important member of the underground resistance movement in Poland during World War II, and later an active member of the United Kibbutz Movement in Palestine.

Hildegard Löwy

Born in 1922, Hildegard Löwy was the youngest member of the Baum Gruppe, a mainly Jewish resistance group against the Nazis. She had firm Zionist and pacifist principles and believed communism was the best way for Jews to obtain equal rights. Arrested in April 1942, Löwy tried to escape from prison but was ultimately convicted of Communist treason and executed in a Berlin prison.

Sophie Irene Simon Loeb

At a time when widowed mothers often had no way to support their children, Sophie Irene Simon Loeb helped create support systems for needy children and their mothers. Loeb was one of many women to enter the political arena through reform work, using her life experience and a personalized approach.

Irma Levy Lindheim

Irma Levy Lindheim was a colorful American Zionist millionaire, fund-raiser, and educator. Called “the grandmother” of the kibbutz for helping found and sustain multiple kibbutzim, Irma Levy Lindheim also made phenomenal contributions to fundraising and organizational efforts to create and maintain the fledgling State of Israel.

Rivka Kuper Liebeskind

Rivka Liebeskind joined the Akiva Zionist movement as a teenager, becoming a leader in her local chapter and encouraging members to continue their activities after the German occupation began. When the movement transitioned to resistance activities in 1942, she aided young people escaping the Krakow ghetto. Liebeskind survived her deportation to Birkneau and moved to Israel after the war.

Batia Lichansky

Batia Lichansky, Israel’s first woman sculptor, famously expressed the pioneer Zionist spirit during the formative years of the State of Israel through her portrait sculptures, reliefs, and memorials sculpted in stone, wood, and bronze. After studying across Europe, Lichansky became a prominent Israeli artist and won the Tel Aviv-Jaffa Dizengoff Prize twice, in 1944 and 1957.

Bertha Szold Levin

Bertha Szold Levin was a Baltimore educator, civic leader, and Jewish activist in the early twentieth century.

Lotta Levensohn

A writer, publicist, and Zionist activist, Lotta Levensohn was among the original founders of Hadassah, the Women’s Zionist Organization of America.

Blume Lempel

Blume Lempel used stream-of-consciousness, flashback, and free association in her writing to create unique stories with themes rarely seen in Yiddish literature: eroticism, incest, and rape. She only wrote in Yiddish, and much of her work remained untranslated until very recently.

Nehama Leibowitz

Although Nehama Leibowitz refused to acknowledge that she was a revolutionary in any way, ultimately her unique achievements changed Orthodox society’s perception of a woman’s capabilities and undoubtedly opened doors for the female Torah scholars who followed. Through her teaching, Leibowitz brought numerous people, including non-Jews, to a new conception of Torah study.

Lehi (Lohamei Herut Yisrael)

Lohamei Herut Yisrael (Lehi) was an underground Zionist extremist organization active between 1940 and 1949, during which it forcefully opposed the British Mandatory government and Palestinian Arab opponents to a Jewish state. Women participated in most areas of Lehi’s activity, from carrying out military actions to propaganda production.

Emma Lazarus

Emma Lazarus (1849-1887), an internationally known poet and essayist, created the role of the American Jewish writer. She lent her voice to the Statue of Liberty to enunciate a vision for America, but she herself was in no doubt about the Jewish roots of her vision in tikkun olam (repairing the world) through righteousness, justice, and compassion.

Lucy Fox Robins Lang

A committed anarchist by age fifteen, Lucy Fox Robins Lang contributed greatly to both the labor movement and the anarchist movement as aide and confidante to major figures like Emma Goldman and Samuel Gompers, though her work was largely uncredited and behind the scenes.

Sarah Kussy

Sarah Kussy was a founder and leader of a constellation of significant Jewish organizations, including Hadassah and the United Synagogue Women’s League. Through her many associations, Kussy worked to change the face of Jewish education, Zionist activities, and women’s participation in Jewish American communal life.

Gertrud Kraus

Gertrud Kraus was a pioneer dancer and choreographer, mainly in expressionist dance. Her career began in Vienna during the 1920s, but she performed her solo and group recitals throughout Central Europe and soon became a prominent modern dance artist. In 1935, at the peak of her European career, she immigrated to Palestine and her extensive and innovative work made her the leading figure of modern, expressionist dance in Israel.

Marcia Koven

Marcia Koven was the founding curator of the Saint John Jewish Historical Museum, one of a number of museums dedicated to Jewish history in Canada’s Maritime Provinces. Her work inspired other Jewish museum projects in Atlantic Canada, and she held a number of other leadership roles related to Jewish life and history.

Julia Koschitzky

An activist, philanthropist, and leader of Canadian and world Jewry, Julia Koschitzky was born in Cardiff, Wales, the daughter of Max Podolski and Elli (Moses) Podolsk. The family relocated to Canada in 1949, eventually settling in Toronto in 1956. Julia and her husband Henry Koschitzky became involved in communal leadership and philanthropy, specifically in Jewish education and social welfare, and she took on active roles in Jewish affairs both in Toronto and around the globe.

Malka Kolodny

Malka Fisz Kolodny served as one of the first teachers in pre-State Palestine. She taught subjects ranging from basic literacy to chemistry and biology and encouraged, counselled, and supported her students, staying in touch with them for years.

Chajka Klinger

Chajka Klinger, a member of Ha-Shomer ha-Za’ir, was active in the resistance against the Nazis in Bedzin and Warsaw. Her mission was to live, so that she could keep the flame and memory of resistance alive. Her diaries were the first written evidence about the Warsaw Ghetto uprising to escape Nazi Europe.

Gerda Weissmann Klein

Holocaust survivor Gerda Weissmann Klein has used her experiences to educate countless people through her books, television appearances, and motivational speaking. Among numerous other awards for her work, Klein was appointed to the United States Holocaust Commission by President Clinton in 1997, and in 2011 she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Obama.

Margot Klausner

Margot Klausner was co-founder and president of Israel’s major film and television studio and co-manager of the Habima Theater. She was an author, film producer, founder of the Israeli Parapsychology Society, publisher of the monthly magazine Mysterious Worlds: A Journal of Parapsychology, and a popular public speaker on theater, film, and the occult in Israel.

Kindergartens in Palestine: First and Second Aliyah (1882-1914)

Hebrew-language education of the youngest Jewish residents of Palestine was considered key to the continued success of the Zionist movement. The women who taught in these kindergartens, established during the First and Second Aliyah, demonstrated their dedication to the movement and became essential to its success.

Kibbutz Ha-Dati Movement (1929-1948)

Beginning in 1929, the religious kibbutz (Kibbutz Ha-Dati) movement represented the confluence of progressive ideals of equality and collectivism and traditional customs of Judaism. As a result, women in the movement lived at a crossroads.

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