Encyclopedia Categories | Jewish Women's Archive

Andrea Dworkin

A lightning rod for controversy, American feminist Andrea Dworkin denounced violence against women, advocated women’s self-defense, and drafted groundbreaking legislation claiming that pornography violated women’s civil rights. In 1974, Dworkin and Ricki Abrams co-wrote Woman Hating in which they charged that pornography incited violence towards women and that consensual sex subjugated women.

Eastern European Immigrants in the United States

Forty-four percent of the approximately two million Jewish immigrants who arrived in the United States between 1886 and 1914 were women. Although these women were more politically active and autonomous than other immigrant women, dire economic circumstances constricted their lives. The hopes these immigrant women harbored for themselves were often transferred to the younger generation.

S. Deborah Ebin

S. Deborah Ebin was a national community and Zionist leader who devoted her life to the advancement of Jewish education and Zionist ideals. A dynamic orator, fund-raiser, and world traveler, she was a formidable figure in American Jewish life.

Joanna Eckstein

Joanna Eckstein widened the perspective of Seattle residents both with her travel writing and as a patron of the arts who supported individual artists and museums.

Gesa Ederberg

The first woman rabbi to serve in Berlin since Regina Jonas, Gesa Ederberg has played an essential role in restoring Jewish life in Germany.

Education of Jewish Girls in the United States

American Jewish girls have had access to a broad range of educational opportunities. Pioneering innovations such as the Hebrew Sunday school opened doors to religious education, while in public schools, training schools, and the hallways of higher education, American Jewish girls pursued secular studies as well. Today, the landscape for American Jewish education has expanded beyond the classroom to include a range of experiential educational opportunities.

Dora Ehrlich

Hailed by Jewish News as “The First Lady of Detroit Jewish Womanhood,” Dora Buchhalter Ehrlich took on community leadership positions usually reserved for men.

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.

Hannah Bachman Einstein

Hannah Bachman Einstein’s activism and volunteer activities bridged very different worlds, from temple sisterhood leadership to lobbying and helping draft legislation for children’s welfare. She helped draft what became the Child Welfare Law of 1915, was the first female board member of the United Hebrew Charities, and served as president of the New York State Association of Child Welfare Boards.

Ronit Elkabetz

Ronit Elkabetz (1963-2016) was one of Israeli cinema's leading actors. Coming from the northern periphery, she played in some of the major Israeli films of the last decades. She is particularly remembered for the trilogy she directed with her brother Shlomi Elkabetz: To Take a Wife (2004), The Seven Days (2009), and Gett: The Trial of Viviane Amsalem (2013), all addressing the issue of the oppression of Mizrahi women in the name of the Jewish religion.

Jacqueline Koch Ellenson

A rabbi and community leader, Jacqueline Koch Ellenson has balanced her concern for both Israeli and American women as chair of the Hadassah Foundation and director of the Women’s Rabbinic Network.

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.

Shulamith Reich Elster

Dr. Shulamith Reich Elster was known as the dean of Jewish education in America. She put Jewish day school education on the map during her ten-year tenure as Headmaster of the Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School of Greater Washington. She then joined the prestigious Council for Initiatives in Jewish Education and concluded her long career as executive director of Hillel of Greater Washington.

Emma Lazarus Federation of Jewish Women's Clubs

The Emma Lazarus Federation of Jewish Women's Clubs, or ELF, was a women's group inspired by the humanistic spirit of poet Emma Lazarus. The clubs worked through education and outreach to promote a progressive, secular Jewish heritage, as well as causes such as women's rights and the elimination of antisemitism and racism.

Emunah

Emunah was founded in 1935 under the leadership of Tova Sanhedrai-Goldreich. With its headquarters in Jerusalem, the organization aims to strengthen various sectors of the Israeli community. World Emunah aims to strengthen global commitment to Israel in communities abroad.

Katharine Engel

Katherine Engel helped the massive wave of European Jewish émigrés after World War II resettle and adjust to life in the United States. A renowned emigré expert and Jewish communal leader, Engel was also an outspoken critic of McCarthyism and a tireless advocate of immigration reform.

Judith G. Epstein

Judith Epstein led Hadassah through the tumultuous years of World War II, shifting its mission from building infrastructure in Palestine to establishing an internationally recognized Jewish state. During her tenure, Hadassah became the largest Zionist organization in the world.

Equality, Religion and Gender in Israel

Although the principles of equality for women under the Declaration of Independence and the Women’s Equal Rights Law were not endowed with constitutional force, and the 1992 Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty does not expressly include the principle of equality, these laws have been interpreted by the courts as securing the principle of gender equality as a basic principle of the legal system.

Sara Riwka B’raz Erlich

An exemplar of the amalgamation of cultures in the Diaspora, Sara Riwka Erlich was a Brazilian-Jewish woman author and scientist whose writings drew from her work in psychiatry, her Jewish heritage, and her experiences in Brazil and Israel. The daughter of Polish immigrants, Erlich was born in Recife, Brazil, in 1935 and published memoirs, stories, poems, and essays in Portuguese until the early twenty-first century.

Tamar Eshel

A lifelong diplomat with a strong record of defending women’s rights and human rights, Tamar Eshel capped her career with two terms as a member of the Knesset from 1977 to 1984. In 1990 she was made an honorary citizen of Jerusalem in recognition of her service to Israel.

Ethiopian Jewish Women

Jewish women in Ethiopian villages were traditionally inactive in public and were in charge of the domestic sphere. After immigration to Israel, their lives changed dramatically, with some young women acquiring higher education and becoming high-profile career women.

Blanche Goldman Etra

Blanche Goldman Etra opened doors to independence and education for other women by founding women’s divisions of medical schools and women’s seminars on financial planning. A woman of high intelligence and great energy, characterized by a strong sense of integrity and morality, Etra set out to use her considerable talents for the betterment of the Jewish and general communities.

Jane Evans

Although she never became a rabbi, Jane Evans, Executive Director of the National Federation of Temple Sisterhoods, became a powerful voice for women’s ordination within the Reform Movement.

Sara N. Evans

Sara Nachamson Evans served as the “first lady” of Durham, North Carolina, from 1951 to 1963. Known affectionately as “Miz Evans” by her friends and family, she was a prominent local, regional, and national leader of Hadassah.

A promotional photo of Mary Fabian, signed and labeled with a show title and "Chicago Opera Co, 1924"

Mary Jacqueline Fabian

Mary Jacqueline Fabian was a talented soprano who toured throughout the United States in Europe in the twentieth century. Fabian’s primary legacy to the arts lies not in her performances, her versatility on stage, or her popularity behind the microphone, but rather in her organizational skills and her unswerving conviction that opera and music education are not just for the elite.

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The Shalvi/Hyman Encyclopedia of Jewish Women

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