Too old, not properly educated, a member of the Social-Democrat Party, and a Jewish woman, Dorothea Hirschfeld nevertheless succeeded in entering the civil service at the age of forty-three. She directed the Berlin Center for Social Work and Care of the Poor in Berlin from 1924 to 1929, and despite being pushed out of work by the Nazis, survived deportation and remained in Germany until her death in 1966.

During the Great Depression, Dorothy C. Kahn helped pioneer social work as a service provided by the government to all who needed it. Kahn developed, implemented, and advocated for social welfare programs and policies whose underlying principles upheld her deepest beliefs about what social welfare could mean in a democracy.

A product of the Progressive Era and conservative Philadelphia German Jewish society, C. Marian Kohn was a social worker and tireless advocate for working women in the early twentieth century.

Esther Loeb Kohn helped bridge the gap between Chicago’s volunteer and professional social workers and spent thirty years running the Hull House settlement whenever founder Jane Addams was away on her frequent travels.

Jennie Davidson Levitt, daughter of Jewish philanthropists Saul and Mary (Cohen) Davidson, continued her family’s tradition of activism and philanthropy with her work for Jewish organizations. She helped rescue Jewish children during the war, and later lobbied for better medical and psychiatric services.

Social worker Alice Springer Fleisher Liveright devoted much of her life to working for equal rights for women and African Americans, and for social welfare for children and poor adults. Passionate in her quest for social justice, she served as president of the Juvenile Aid Society, president of the Philadelphia Conference of Social Work, and as the Pennsylvania State Secretary of Welfare.

When her community became a mecca for adults suffering from tuberculosis, Fannie Eller Lorber created a Jewish children’s home for those who had no one else to care for them. Lorber epitomized the volunteer spirit of urban Jewish women in the American West.

Known as the “Jane Addams of the Jews,” Minnie Low was a leader in the Jewish social service community. At a time when social work usually meant wealthy people donating to the poor, Low pushed for new kinds of aid such as vocational training and loans that made the needy self–sufficient.

Emma B. Mandl immigrated to the United States at age fifteen and helped found the Baron Hirsch Women’s Club, a major Chicago philanthropic organization. Through the club, where she served as president, Mandl created and led vital institutions for Jewish East European immigrants in Chicago, from orphanages to trade schools to tuberculosis wards.