Jewish History: Antisemitism
Romania, Women and Jewish Education
Since the adoption of a public school system in the mid-1800s in Romania, Jewish women in Romania women have had to fight anti-Semitism and sexism to pursue their education.
Romanian Yiddish Theater
Romania was a wellspring of the Yiddish theater, as there were Jewish theater troupes in the major Romanian cities and acting troupes traveled throughout the country performing dramas, comedies, musicals, and operettas. Women played a significant role in performing and shaping Romanian Yiddish theater and became known internationally for their work on the Yiddish stage.
Ernestine Rose
Ethel Rosenberg
Baroness Germaine de Rothschild
A member of one of France’s most privileged Jewish families, Germaine de Rothschild (née Halphen) was a noted philanthropist, accomplished musician, author of two books, and mother of four. Most significantly, she orchestrated France’s Kindertransport efforts, helping provide refuge to between 350 and 450 Jewish children.
Bernice Rubens
One of Britain’s most successful post-World War II authors, Bernice Rubens was born in Cardiff, Wales, in 1928. In 1970, she became the first woman recipient of the Booker Prize for her novel The Elected Member.
Mina Fridman Ruetter
Mina Fridman Ruetter (1922-2003), an Argentinean-born Jew, was the most prominent leader of the Yiddisher Kultur Farband (YKUF) beginning in the 1970s. She studied and worked as a writer, teacher, and translator in organizations linked to the Communist Party and the Soviet Union. She was a highly visible leader and the disciple of YKUF intellectuals such as Pinie Katz and Samuel Gordon.
Alice Salomon
Alice Salomon was an educator, feminist, economist, and international activist who was one of the pioneers of the emerging field of professional social work in Germany in the early 20th century. In 1925 she was among the founders of the German Academy for Women’s Social and Educational Work, and she later served as the first president of the International Committee of Schools of Social Work.
Charlotte Salomon
Else Rahel Samulon-Guttmann
Else Samulon-Guttmann showed her exceptional intelligence early in life, studying law at Berlin university and earning a PhD from Heidelberg University. Appointed a judge in 1929, she lost her position with the Nazi rise to power in 1933. Samulon-Guttmann stayed in Germany for her mother and was murdered at Auschwitz in 1944.
Alice Schalek
Alice Schalek first entered the public sphere at the turn of the century as the author of a well-received novel, published under the male pseudonym Paul Michaely. The first woman in Austria to become a career photojournalist and travel writer, and the first and only female member of the Austrian Kriegspressedienst (war information unit) during World War I, Schalek paved the way for careers in both photography and journalism for other women.
Eva Schocken
As the daughter of Salman Schocken, founder of Schocken Books, and later as editor and president, Eva Schocken pushed the publishing company to the forefront of both education and women’s studies.
Ottilie Schönewald
Deeply involved in several women’s and Jewish organizations, Ottilie Schönewald was an activist who became a politician to advance her causes. She worked with the League of Jewish Women and helped Jews emigrate from Nazi Germany. After Schönewald and her family fled in 1939, she continued her social work during and after the war.
Jo Sinclair
Berta Singerman
Berta Singerman (1901-1998) was an Argentine actress and reciter of poetry, famous throughout the Ibero-American cultural world. Born in Russia to a family of traditional singers (chazanim), she immigrated to Buenos Aires, Argentina, when she was four years old.
Sol Hachuel
Sol Hachuel, or as she is also known Lalla Soulika or Sol ha-tsaddeqet, was a Moroccan Jewish martyr from the first half of the nineteenth century. Hachuel was born in Tangier and beheaded in Fez at the age of sixteen or seventeen. Her story has inspired countless versions among North African Jews and Muslims as well as Europeans, and her tomb remains a prominent pilgrimage site in Morocco.
Medieval Spain
Written histories of Jews in medieval Spain rarely include women, so one must seek alternate sources. Marital status was the frequent topic of rabbinic responsa. Some Jewish women made their own income as merchants and moneylenders. Inheritance laws were problematic for Jewish women – disputes were settled in both Jewish and non-Jewish courts.
Sports in Austria 1918-1938
This article gives an overview of the participation of Jewish women in Austrian sport from the Habsburg monarchy to the present day. Drawing on selected biographies of sportswomen and functionaries, and with a regional focus on the capital city of Vienna, it explores the double relationship between female emancipation and Jewish self-assertion in an environment that had long been male-dominated and anti-Semitic.
Sports in Germany: 1898-1938
Women’s participation in Jewish gymnastics clubs increased significantly during the first two decades of the twentieth century. The Jewish sports movement grew during the 1920s, allowing women to participate in cross-country running, swimming, and tennis. After German sports clubs annulled Jewish membership in 1933, women poured into these Jewish sports groups.
Jewish Gender Stereotypes in the United States
Stereotypes of Jews have existed from their arrival in the New World to the present. Jews were portrayed as greedy, unscrupulous, and unrefined. However, Jews also created stereotypes about one another based on class, gender, and religion. Specifically, the Ghetto Girl, Jewish Mother, JAP, and others reflected tensions between genders about the place of Jews in the economy and culture.
Grete Stern
Grete Stern was one of the founders of Argentina’s modern photography. After studying photography in bohemian Berlin and at the legendary Bauhaus School, Stern developed an unconventional approach to photography, including advertisement collages and studies with crystals, objects, and still-lifes. Between 1935 and 1981 Stern was an influential artistic presence in Argentina, known for her photographic work, graphic design, and teaching.
Selma Stern-Taeubler
Originally a historian and researcher in Heidelberg and Berlin, Selma Stern-Taeubler settled at the Hebrew Union College in Cincinatti after fleeing Nazi Germany. She became the first archivist of the American Jewish Archives at the college and later wrote books of fiction and nonfiction. Despite her contributions to Jewish history, American-Jewish academe has largely undervalued Stern-Taeubler’s work, which continued until her death in 1981.
Suburbanization in the United States
Jews migrated in large numbers to newly constructed suburbs after World War II and the end of restrictive covenants that had excluded them. During the day, suburbs were largely female spaces where married Jewish women cared for their children and private homes, while volunteering for Jewish and civic activities. Jewish daughters raised in suburbs enjoyed middle-class comforts but also experienced pressures to conform to American gentile ideals of beauty.
Margarete Susman
Margarete Susman published her first writings, a book of poetry, in 1901 and went on to have a prolific writing career that included plays, books, and journal articles. Susman combined literature and theory, often reflecting seminal texts of modern theory and addressing political issues and women’s rights. Her writings concentrate on the most problematic issues of the modern world: God and human beings, man and woman, Jew and Christian.
Bela Szapiro
Before World War II, Lublin was one of the largest Jewish communities in Poland. Bela Szapiro’s activities contributed to making it the vibrant cultural and political center of Polish Jewry that it was.
