Writing: Non-Fiction
Anne Roiphe
A prolific journalist, essayist and novelist, Anne Roiphe is an American writer known for tackling issues of feminism and Jewish identity. Despite her sometimes controversial writings, Roiphe has become an important voice for secular Jews who, while perhaps uncomfortable with organized religion, nevertheless feel an attraction and a commitment to their Jewish heritage.
Esther Rome
A coauthor of Our Bodies, Ourselves, a classic women’s resource book, Esther Rome came of age with the onset of the modern feminist movement and was a leader in shaping modern American notions of self-help and advocacy for women’s physical and mental health.
Gladys Rosen
Gladys Rosen created resources that changed how people approached Jewish history. As program specialist for the American Jewish Committee, she published Guidelines to Jewish History and Social Studies Instructional Materials, which offered summaries of Jewish history and resources for teaching Judaic studies. She went on to coedit a number of books on Jewish culture and history and was an interviewer on the radio program, Jewish Viewpoint.
Norma Rosen
Born in Brooklyn in 1925 to secular and assimilated parents, Norma Rosen was an American-Jewish novelist, essayist, educator, editor, and professor. Rosen’s exploration of Jewish history and religion in her writings contributed to questions surrounding Jewish theology and Jewish feminism in the second half of the twentieth century.
Chava Rosenfarb
Chava Rosenfarb, a major Yiddish novelist of the second half of the twentieth century, is one of the few Holocaust survivors who transmuted their experiences into fiction rather than memoirs or reminiscences.
Frances Rosenthal Kallison
Frances Elaine Rosenthal Kallison was a horsewoman and historian, a cofounder of the Texas Jewish Historical Society, and the only Jewish woman in the National Museum and Cowgirl Hall of Fame. A regional leader of the National Council of Jewish Women, she lobbied to end the poll tax and open pre-natal clinics for the poor. The exhibit she curated on Texas Jewry for the 1968 World’s Fair in San Antonio has been continually updated.
Esther Rosenthal-Shneiderman
Sylvia Rosner Rothchild
Sylvia Rosner Rothchild was a prolific writer and historian whose works of fiction and nonfiction explored American Jewish identities and captured audiences. Many of her writings depict the descendants of Eastern European Jews who arrived in the United States in the decades surrounding the turn of the twentieth century.
Dame Miriam Rothschild
Dame Miriam Rothschild was a renowned British natural scientist who published over 300 scientific papers throughout her lifetime, making groundbreaking contributions to the fields of entomology, zoology, marine biology, and wildlife conservationism. In 1985 she was made a Fellow of the Royal Society and credited for her work in the histology, morphology, and taxonomy of fleas.
Vera Cooper Rubin
Aline Saarinen
Aline Saarinen first gained notoriety as an art critic and served as an associate art editor at the New York Times. Her career in art criticism segued into a career in television as a popular on-air personality. Saarinen’s presence on television led to her appointment as chief of the National Broadcasting Company’s Paris news bureau, the first woman to hold a position of this type.
Rachel Salamander
Rachel Salamander is a writer, scholar, editor, and publisher. Born in 1949 in a DP camp in Germany, she has written and published multiple works about German Jewry and DP camps after World War II. In 1982, Salamander established the Literaturhandlung in Munich, a prominent bookshop and meeting place specializing in Jewish literature.
Eva Salber
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.
Sharon Salzberg
Sheryl Sandberg
Michèle Sarde
Writer Michèle Sarde’s biographies, novels, and essays cover a wide range of themes and issues, including female literary figures, women’s equality, and the trauma of war persecutions through the lens of both the Holocaust and the Armenian genocide. She has received many awards for her work and taught at Georgetown University for over 30 years.
Nathalie Sarraute
Writer and lawyer Nathalie Sarraute was an innovative figure in post-World War II French literature. No longer allowed to practice law during the German occupation of France, she posed as the governess of her three daughters to hide her Jewish identity. Sarraute’s many novels and plays are characterized by an “inwardness” and an unusual lack of characters, names, and plot.
Sandy Sasso
Susan Weidman Schneider
Denise Schorr
Debra L. Schultz
Anna Jacobson Schwartz
Felice Nierenberg Schwartz
Recognizing the hurdles that can stop women from achieving, Felice Nierenberg Schwartz founded Catalyst, an organization to help women with children enter the workforce, created a national network of resource centers and programs to enable women to work part time, and advocated for working mothers in her widely published writing.