Encyclopedia Categories | Jewish Women's Archive

Rosalie Silberman Abella

Rosalie Silberman Abella became Canada’s first Jewish woman judge and youngest ever judge in 1975 at the age of twenty-nine. She headed a ground-breaking 1984 commission which pioneered the theories of equality and discrimination. In 2004 she became the first Jewish woman to sit on the Supreme Court of Canada.

Abortion: Halakhic Perspectives

While halakhic discussions about abortion largely excluded the arguments and perspectives of women, in general poskim (decisors) determined that a woman’s life takes priority over the life of the fetus. Halakhic perspectives have explored the point at which the fetus is considered a human and taken the mother’s physical and psychological health into account in determining her right to abort.

Ruth Abrams

The first woman to serve on the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, Ruth Abrams upheld the rights of women and minorities throughout her career.

Bella Abzug

A leader of the women’s movement, Bella Abzug fought to pass the Equal Rights Amendment and other vital legislation for the rights of women as a member of the House of Representatives. Towards the end of her career, she focused on global issues of women’s rights and human rights, ensuring that those issues were continually addressed by the United Nations.

Gloria Allred

Gloria Rachel Allred has devoted her legal career to fighting for women’s equality, handling high-profile cases of sexual harassment, workplace discrimination, and hate crimes.

Shulamit Aloni

Shulamit Aloni, Member of the Knesset and Minister, was an important champion of human rights, civil rights, religious freedom, and the Palestinian right to self-determination. As founder and head of the Ratz and then Meretz party, she spearheaded progressive politics in Israel both on the formal level and in civil society for over half a century.

Birdie Amsterdam

Birdie Amsterdam capped a career of firsts in the legal profession with her role as the first woman elected to the New York State Supreme Court. Over the course of her career, she volunteered for various organizations and causes, such as running a bond drive during World War II and serving as Tammany Hall district co-leader of the Manhattan Democratic Club.

Joyce Antler

Using both field research and her own experiences posing as a pregnant woman, Joyce Antler not only helped repeal New York’s laws against abortion, but ensured that women had real access to medical services after the law was repealed.

Edna Arbel

While Edna Arbel was a justice on Israel’s Supreme Court from 2004 to 2014, her career has been influential for decades. She served variously as a District Attorney, a Judge, and as State Prosecutor, and her courageous determination to combat both governmental corruption and rising violence not only placed her in the public limelight but at times also aroused considerable hostility.

Australia: 1788 to the Present

The first Jewish women, like the first Jewish men, arrived in Australia on the very first day of European settlement in 1788. Those convict pioneers were followed by free settlers who made Jewish communal and congregational life viable and helped to develop the vast continent. Jewish women have made significant contributions to Australia's national story.

Elisheva Barak-Ussoskin

After earning her law degree in 1977, Elisheva Barak-Ussoskin quickly advanced through several positions before becoming a judge in the National Labor Court of Israel in 1995. Her rulings had a critical influence on the development of labor law and labor relations in Israel.

Clarice Baright

Clarice Baright was one of the first women admitted to the American Bar Association and the second woman to become a magistrate in New York City. Despite many barriers, she had a distinguished career and was the first woman to try a case before an army court-martial.

Patricia Barr

Patricia Barr turned her personal struggles into a national cause as an advocate for breast cancer research and treatment. An “out-liar,” as she called herself, Barr became an activist in multiple worlds: breast cancer, feminism, Judaism, education, and the Israeli peace movement.

Jennie Loitman Barron

In her long career as a lawyer and a judge and in her lifelong work for women’s rights, Jennie Loitman Barron set many precedents for women in Massachusetts and across the United States.

Charlene Barshefsky

A determined advocate who earned the nickname “Stonewall” for her trade talks with Japan, Charlene Barshefsky was the primary negotiator who laid out terms for China’s entry into the World Trade Organization in 2001. She was also a powerful proponent of free trade in the Clinton administration, helping negotiate the Free Trade Area of the Americas.

Evangelyn Barsky

One of the first two women allowed to pass the bar in Delaware, Evangelyn Barsky made a great impact on her community in her brief career.

Dorit Beinisch

Dorit Beinisch is one of only nine women appointed as justices in Israel’s Supreme Court before 2005. In her various public positions, Beinisch has paid special attention to corruption in government and ensuring that the government institutions (especially the military, the police force, and general security forces) remain subject to the dictates of law.

Ruth Ben Israel

Ruth Ben Israel was an Israeli legal scholar who specialized in labor law, social equality, and women’s legal rights. While a member of Tel Aviv University’s law faculty from 1986 until her retirement in 2005, Ben Israel wrote more than fifteen influential books on labor law and served as a legal advisor to multiple Knesset Committees related to labor and women’s rights.

Hadassa Ben-Itto

Hadassa Ben-Itto was a jurist and best-selling author. In addition to serving in multiple prestigious positions, she is best known for her book The Lie that Will Not Die: One Hundred Years of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion (Hebrew, 1998).

Miriam Ben-Porat

Although Miriam Ben-Porat is perhaps best known as the first woman to be appointed an Israeli Supreme Court Justice, she also held many positions throughout her life, from state comptroller to professor and author. She was appointed to the Supreme Court in 1976, where she made rulings characterized by both legal and non-legal elements and grounded in the principles of equality and good faith.

Half-portrait of Helene Cazes Benatar smiling

Hélène Cazes Benatar

Hélène Cazes Benatar was a Moroccan-born human rights lawyer who rescued thousands of refugees in North Africa during World War II. She was a life-long advocate for individual rights and political equality, especially for disenfranchised Maghrebi Jews. During World War II, she fought to protect victims of pro-Fascist Vichy rule; post-war, she promoted the migration of Moroccan Jews to Palestine and elsewhere.

Rita Schwerner Bender

When her husband was murdered during Freedom Summer in 1964 in Mississippi, Rita Levant Schwerner Bender used the ensuing media attention to focus the public’s awareness on the importance of civil rights.

Margarete Berent

Margarete Berent was the first female lawyer to practice in Prussia and the second female lawyer ever licensed in Germany. In 1925 she opened her own law firm in Berlin and, after fleeing Nazi Germany, opened her own firm in the United States. Not only was she the first female lawyer and the head of her own law firm, but she was also an ardent feminist and active in promoting opportunities for women.

Clementine Bern-Zernik

A lawyer by training, Vienna-born Clementine Bern-Zernik produced broadcasts for the US Office of War Information in London during the war, served as the director of a Displaced Persons Camp in post-war Germany, and spent the last 50 years of her life as a UN liaison to the New York Public Library. Throughout her life she maintained a strong Austrian identity and was a founding member of the Austrian-American Federation.

Rebecca Thurman Bernstein

Rebecca Thurman Bernstein was lauded by local and national organizations for her efforts to improve health care, literacy, and Jewish life in Portland, Maine. Bernstein was proud of her Jewish heritage and worked for many Jewish causes, but her interests were not limited to or by her Jewishness.

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The Shalvi/Hyman Encyclopedia of Jewish Women

Politics and Government: Law