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.

Elisabeth Badinter is one of France’s most prominent and controversial philosophers. Among her most important contributions figure her numerous writings about feminism and gender relations, which emphasize the importance of “equality through resemblance,” as well as her historical works on the Enlightenment.

Psychologist Dorothy Walter Baruch championed the health development of children as an educator, author, psychologist, and as a community leader. Her psychodynamic approach to child development focused on the relationship between physical, emotional, and intellectual development and on rechanneling children’s feelings through play and art therapy.

Born in Wilkomir, Lithuania, in 1925, the much-awarded Rivka Basman began writing poetry at an early age. She composed poetry during the Holocaust, and continued to publish books of lyrical poetry long after. Only late in life did she directly address her experiences during the Holocaust.

Shulamit Bat-Dori defied notions about the inappropriateness of theater in the kibbutz, creating popular and acclaimed plays for the masses. Bat-Dori joined Ha-Shomer ha-Za’ir and made Aliyah in 1923, bringing her passion for theater, dance, music, and languages to Kibbutz B (later Mishmar ha-Emek). She wrote plays and founded the Kibbutz theater.

Marion Eugenie Bauer was a modernist and experimental composer whose musical scholarship advocated for women’s voices to be heard and revived interest in female composers. As a teacher, writer, and composer, she was actively involved in many music and composition organizations, frequently as the only woman in a leadership position. 

Dutch-born Sarah Bavly was a pioneer nutritionist in the Yishuv who laid the groundwork for Israel's nutritional infrastructure and educational programming, directing Hadassah's hospital nutrition departments and school lunch programs and establishing the State's first College of Nutrition.

Jeanne Behrend was a renowned pianist, music educator, and composer who was dedicated to creating music and popularizing North and South American music. Behrend won Columbia University’s Joseph Bearns Prize in 1936; debuted at Carnegie Hall in 1937, performing one of her own compositions; and founded the Philadelphia Festival of Western Hemisphere Music in 1959.

Known as the “Mother of Women’s Basketball,” Senda Berenson pioneered women’s basketball as the director of the physical education department at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts. Many of the rules she developed for women’s basketball became the standard ones used for seventy years.