Browse by Category | Jewish Women's Archive

Shafi Goldwasser

Shafi Goldwasser was honored with the Turing Award, the highest honor in computer science, for her work in revolutionizing the field of cryptography.

Claire Goll’s poetry and prose were fueled by the tragedies and scandals that shaped her life. She and her husband, writer Yvan Goll, were central cultural figures of the French avant-garde, and her prolific body of work includes journalism, multiple novels, short fiction, and numerous translations of other authors’ works.

Rivke Savich Golomb

Rivke Savich Golomb was an educator and Yiddishist who taught at Jewish schools in Warsaw, Palestine, Canada, and Mexico over the course of her career. She and her husband established Nuevo Colegia Israelita I. L Peretz in Mexico in 1950. Their “golombist” philosophy was based around integrating Yiddishkait into a humanist Jewish world.

Gomer, daughter of Diblaim: Midrash and Aggadah

According to the Rabbis, God commanded Hosea to marry Gomer, the daughter of Diblaim, to teach him proper conduct for one who was to prophesy to Israel. Despite Gomer’s harlotry, the rabbis interpret her story as proof that, even when God is angry with Israel, God still loves Israel.

Gomer: Bible

The prophet Hosea uses his adulterous wife Gomer as a metaphor for God as the faithful husband to Israel. Gomer and Hosea’s relationship shows how women were ostracized for extramarital sex while such behavior was tolerated if not encouraged in men, paralleling the relationship between Israel and God. It is difficult, however, to separate historical facts about the couple’s domestic problems from the theological message expressed through them.

Allegra Goodman

Allegra Goodman centers her acclaimed novels and short stories on deep, nuanced depictions of Jewish characters and Jewish families grappling with the problems of the larger world.

Carolyn Goodman

As a psychologist, Carolyn Goodman created early intervention programs for at-risk families, but when her son, Andrew Goodman, was killed during Freedom Summer, she became a powerful civil rights activist.

Janice Goodman

Janice Goodman’s work on civil rights issues drove her to become a lawyer, arguing class action cases for women’s rights.

British Delegation to World WIZO Founding Conference, Carlsbad, 1921

Romana Goodman

Romana Goodman (1885-1955) was a staunch feminist and passionate Zionist who helped establish the influential Women’s International Zionist Organization (WIZO) in 1918. During her career, she was also a founding member of the Jewish Women’s League for Cultural Work in Palestine, helped lead several Zionist conferences, and assisted in the creation of the first B’nai B’rith women’s lodge in England in 1919.

Nadine Gordimer

In 1991, writer, journalist, and activist Nadine Gordimer became the first South African to win the Nobel Prize for Literature. Gordimer’s work presents a sweeping canvas of a South African society, where all have been affected by the institutionalized racial discrimination and oppression of apartheid.

Beate Sirota Gordon

Through diplomacy and ingenuity, twenty-two-year-old Beate Sirota Gordon wrote unprecedented rights for women into Japan’s post-war constitution.

Dorothy Lerner Gordon

Dorothy Lerner Gordon—musician, broadcaster, author—dedicated her talents to the entertainment and education of children and young people. Throughout her career, she created radio programming to give children access to literature, music, and current events.

Jaimy Gordon

Jaimy Gordon won the National Book Award for Lords of Misrule, her novel of horseracing, desperation, and luck set in West Virginia.

Jean Gordon

Jean Gordon had two successful careers in her lifetime, as a founder of the Advance Pattern Company and as the owner and publisher of Dance Magazine. Through her work with Dance Magazine, she led the publication to financial stability and to a prominent place in the dance world.

Maralee Gordon

Rabbi Maralee Gordon helped found the Chutzpah Collective, a radical Jewish political collective that utilized the inclusion of women in religious rituals as a jumping-off point for making all Jews feel welcome in the Jewish community regardless of disability or sexual orientation.

Vera Gordon

Although she started acting in Russia at a young age, Vera Gordon initially struggled to build a career in the United States. She went on to a long career on stage and screen, however, known especially for portraying Jewish mothers in a positive light—with warmth and deep emotion.

Lesley Gore

Known for the feminist anthem “You Don’t Own Me,” teenage pop sensation Lesley Gore carefully negotiated which parts of her life the media did and did not own.

Eydie Gorme

One of the great stylists of the American popular song, Eydie Gorme achieved national prominence with her appearances on Steve Allen’s Tonight! show, where she met and performed with her husband Steve Lawrence. Gorme’s dynamic nightclub act, frequently as a duo with Lawrence, drew sell-out crowds keeping true to the best traditions of the American “standard”—traditions she herself helped to establish.

Vivian Gornick

Vivian Gornick is an American essayist, memoirist, and noted second-wave feminist. She is known for bringing a personal lens to political and critical writing.

Maria Gorokhovskaya

Ukrainian-born Maria Gorokhovskaya was the top performer among all athletes, both male and female, at the 1952 Olympics in Helsinki, where, at the "advanced" age of thirty-one, she earned seven medals in the Games' gymnastics competitions. She went on to help the USSR win gold at the 1954 World Championships and was inducted into the International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame in 1991.

Shira Gorshman

A multi-faceted Yiddish writer, Shira Gorshman embodied the vision and struggles of Jewish socialism throughout her long and productive life. Her work encompassed the shtetl of Lithuania, pioneering Palestine, the Soviet experiment, the Holocaust, and finally the return to modern Israel. In all these journeys her characters, many of whom are women, are revealed in their full humanity and individuality.

Jackie Gothard

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

Bessie Goldstein Gotsfeld

Bessie Goldstein Gotsfeld helped organize American Mizrachi Women, pushed for its independence from men’s groups, and made aiding children in Israel a major goal of the organization.

Jeane Herskovits Gottesman

Jeane Herskovits Gottesman was a philanthropist noted for her spiritual devotion to her work. She raised money for Jewish education, helping to support Yeshiva University, and was also a dedicated board member of Hadassah. Through Hadassah’s Youth Aliyah program, she helped rescue Jewish children during the Holocaust.

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.

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Inspiring Change

The Shalvi/Hyman Encyclopedia of Jewish Women