Education: Teachers
Ruth Whitman
Poet Ruth Whitman was known for her acclaimed translations of Yiddish poetry, as well as for her own autobiographical work. She wrote a series of narrative poems in the voices of women from the past, including Lizzie Borden, Tamsen Donner, Hanna Szenes, and Hatshepsut, the only woman pharaoh in ancient Egypt. In these, she explored problems with sexual identity, love, work, and motherhood.
Maria Winetzkaja
Maria Winetzkaja was a rebellious and independent woman whose international opera career spanned twenty years. As a leading mezzo-soprano and excellent dramatic actor, Winetzkaja toured the world with several opera companies, taught voice at the Juilliard School, and raised two sons. Winetzkaja was a powerful force who desired equality for women throughout her life.
Adele Wiseman
Adele Wiseman was one of Canada’s most highly regarded writers of the second half of the twentieth century. She is best known for The Sacrifice (1956) and Crackpot (1974), her two groundbreaking novels that explore Jewish life in Canada. Both are set in Winnipeg’s insular North End, reveal her interest in characters who challenge normative behavior, and affirm Wiseman’s belief in community.
Judy Wolf
Sue Wolf-Fordham
Nelly Wolffheim
Nelly Wolffheim spent her career developing and teaching a kindergarten curriculum based around Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic framework. She taught this curriculum, which encouraged children to express their sexual desires, to Jewish women teachers in Berlin. After escaping Germany for England in 1939, Wolffheim struggled to continue her research but began publishing her work again after the war.
Theresa Wolfson
Theresa Wolfson, economist and educator, taught at Brooklyn College from 1929 until her retirement in 1967. A prolific writer, she published in the fields of labor economics and industrial relations. As early as 1916, Wolfson studied barriers to the advancement of women in the workplace and the unequal treatment of women within trade unions.
Judy Frieze Wright
Sidonie Wronsky
Sidonie Wronsky was among the pioneers of professional social work and one of the early social work educators. She was a member of social work organizations, taught at German schools, and wrote prolifically on issues pertaining to social work, Judaism, and women. She continued her career in social work and education after her emigration to Palestine in 1933.
Frieda Wunderlich
Frieda Wunderlich was a prominent economist and politician in Germany, serving in local government, writing books and articles, and lecturing when she was forced from her positions as a woman and a Jew in 1933. After leaving Germany, she became the only woman faculty member of the New School for Social Research in New York and went on to be the first woman dean of an American graduate school in 1939. She achieved international recognition for her research and publications on labor and social policy, including women’s work.
Leni Yahil
Leni Yahil was a German-born Israeli scholar and pioneer of Holocaust research in the decades following the Second World War. Working closely with Yad Vashem, she was among the first to emphasize Jewish primary sources, explore the importance of Jewish resistance, and document the Jewish experience in Northern Europe during the Holocaust.
Rosalyn Yalow
Rebecca Yenawine
Rina Yerushalmi
Theater director and choreographer Rina Yerushalmi, one of Israel’s leading artists, is the founder and artistic director of the experimental Itim Theater Ensemble. Her unique theatrical language is based on visual images that present the classical texts in a new light, making them acute and relevant. Yerushalmi currently serves as Professor of Theater at Tel Aviv University.
Rebecca Young
Vele Rabinowitz Zabludowsky
Vele Rabinowitz Zabludovsky was a transnational Yiddish and Hebrew teacher who dedicated her life’s work to teaching and the preservation of Yiddish culture and language. She spent over fifty years teaching Yiddish language and culture in Mexico.
Fannie Bloomfield Zeisler
“She plays like a man” was a near-refrain in critiques of Fannie Bloomfield Zeisler, a brilliant pianist who emerged in the young, male-dominated American concert world of the 1880s. Zeisler exploded notions about women pianists with the precision, power, and expressiveness of her performances.
Zoe Benjamin
Zoe Benjamin was a twentieth-century Australian teacher who pioneered liberal ideas in early child education, child rearing, and child psychology. She wrote and lectured, both in person and over the radio, in depth on these topics. Her work gained such distinction that she was known overseas in England as well as Australia.
