Activism: Feminism
Esther Herlitz
Esther Herlitz was a feminist trailblazer in Israeli politics and diplomacy. She was the first official female Israeli ambassador, among six female Labor Party members who served in the eighth and ninth Knessets, and the first woman to serve on the Committee for Foreign Affairs and Defense. She also helped formulate and ensure the passage of a liberal abortion law in 1977.
Judith Herman
Dr. Judith Herman was a pioneer in identifying the frequency with which sexual abuse of female children occurs within the family, in the treatment of victims of abuse, and in psychotherapeutic confrontations of abusers.
Susannah Heschel
Beth Bowman Hess
Beth Bowman Hess was a feminist sociologist and gerontologist whose leadership, scholarship, teaching, service and mentoring were a model for many women. She brought a humanist and feminist sensibility to gerontology by discussing the difficulties the elderly faced not as problems inherent in older people, but as problems in the social order that should be confronted and changed.
Jenny Hirsch
Born to an impoverished Jewish family, Jenny Hirsch became very involved with the German women’s movement as a writer and editor. She served both as secretary and editor of the monthly journal for the Lette Society, an alliance of German associations related to women’s work.
Elizabeth Slade Hirschfeld
Historians in the United States
American Jewish women have made important contributions to historical scholarship, especially in the arenas of social history of the United States and Europe, women’s history, and Jewish history. Jewish women, sensitive to the situations of minority groups, became pioneers in these fields as they developed from the 1970s on.
Nicole Hollander
Florence Howe
“The chief editor, fund raiser, cheerleader and occasional staff photographer” is the way the Chronicle of Higher Education described Florence Howe’s work at the Feminist Press. She made the publishing company her life’s work, and her contributions to the field of women’s studies as scholar, editor, and publisher are unparalleled.
Sara Hurwitz
Sara Hurwitz was the first Orthodox woman to be publicly ordained and serve in an Orthodox synagogue, the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale. She went on to co-found, with Rabbi Avi Weiss, Yeshivat Maharat, the first institution to provide a credentialed pathway for Orthodox women to be ordained and serve as rabbis.
Paula E. Hyman
Distinguished historian Paula Hyman was engaged deeply in Jewish feminism and wrote extensively on the history of Jewish women in an effort to integrate their experience into the Jewish historical narrative. A role model for many, she challenged sacrosanct beliefs and stereotypes with vigor and knowledge and left behind a myriad of scholarly contributions and a profound vision for Jewish women.
Jewish Women and Intermarriage in the United States
Marriages between Jews and people of other faiths have long fascinated scholars, clergy, and communal leaders, who often considered the choice of a Jewish spouse as an indication of the strength of ethnoreligious identity and commitment to perpetuating Judaism and the Jewish people. However, many Jewish women who intermarry in the United States continue to identify Jewishly, engage in the Jewish community, and raise Jewish children.
This entry uses gender as category of analysis and change over time to illuminate the experience and meaning of interfaith marriage for Jewish women in America. It describes how women navigated their ethnoreligious identities when they married Gentile men, the influences of feminism, the rise of ethnic consciousness, and parenthood.
Israel Women's Network
The Israel Women’s Network (IWN) was founded in 1984 and is responsible for many of the feminist breakthroughs in Israel. Though the success of IWN led to an undesirable degree of politicization, it remains an active agent in Israeli feminism.
Israeli Women's Writing in Hebrew: 1948-2004
Women writers faced many obstacles in the early years of modern Hebrew, but by the end of the twentieth century they had overcome marginalization to become a central part of the country’s literature. The achievements of women’s writing in Hebrew rank among the unquestionable triumphs of Israeli feminism.
Dafna Nundi Izraeli
Feminist sociologist and peace activist Dafna Nundi Izraeli spent her life dedicated to women's studies, a field of inquiry previously largely unrecognized and trivialized by Israeli academia. She was among the first researchers in Israel to point out the connection between the gender power structures in the Israel Defense Force and in Israeli civilian society. Through her academic and political leadership roles, she worked tirelessly for the advancement of feminist values and scholarship.
Aletta Henriette Jacobs
A pioneer in many realms—birth control, women’s suffrage, peace activism, and envisioning a wider future for women—Aletta Henriette Jacobs began her career as the Netherland’s first women physician in 1879. She went on to participate in many women’s rights conferences and was a staunch anti-war activist, traveling to the Hague and the United States to advocate her position.
Jewish Feminism in Post-Holocaust Germany
Jewish feminism in Germany today is an expression of a wide-reaching renewal of Judaism occurring in many European countries since the early 1990s. German Jewish feminists built on the historical tradition of the Jewish women’s movement in pre-Holocaust Germany and has since taken many paths.
Jewish Feminism in the United States
Challenging all varieties of American Judaism, feminism has been a powerful force for popular Jewish religious revival. The accomplishments of Jewish feminists have transformed American Jewish life, even as the ultimate goal of gender equity and shared power has yet to be fully realized.
Jewish League for Woman Suffrage
The Jewish League for Woman Suffrage (JLWS) was the only Jewish women’s organization in England—and the world—devoted exclusively to obtaining both national and Jewish suffrage for women.
Jewish Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo
The Jewish women who formed part of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo were pivotal to the human rights movement in Argentina, fighting for truth and justice for victims of the 1976-1983 dictatorship that resulted in 30,000 disappeared, tortured, and killed.
Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance
JOFA, the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance, was the first Orthodox feminist organization in the United States. Since 1997, it has striven to expand Jewish women's religious and spiritual roles within the parameters of halakhah and to address specific halakhic issues related to women in marriage and divorce. JOFA provides practical suggestions for increasing women's participation in religious rituals and halakhic-theoretical views on modern Jewish observance.
Jewish Women in Contemporary Popular Music: 1950 to Present
Since 1950, Jewish women musicians have moved with the times, performing with bands, as solo acts, and as songwriters. They have included mainstream pop performers and rock, punk, and Riot Grrrl musicians. Some Israeli artists have reached international audiences, often via the Europvision Song Contest.
Jewish Women Watching
Jewish Women Watching was a Jewish feminist activist group in the 2000s. It fought against sexism, racism, and economic inequality in the Jewish community and was known for its members’ anonymity, costumes, shocking forms of protest, and witty press releases.
Joan Nestle
Joan Nestle is an activist, writer, and educator known for her work on lesbian identity, sexuality, culture, and history, among other topics. Nestle also co-founded the New York-based Lesbian Herstory Archives, the largest lesbian-focused archive in the world, in 1975. Her essays and stories, which she began writing in the late 1970s, have been published in three anthologies.
Erica Jong
Erica Jong is an American writer most famous for her bestselling novel Fear of Flying (1973). Sometimes controversial in her role as a media celebrity, Jong has published novels, poetry collections, memoirs, works of literary criticism, and literary anthologies, most often focusing on the explicit expression of women’s sexuality and neglected or untold stories of contemporary and historical women.
