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, 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.

Five years after the American chapter of the Organization for Rehabilitation through Training (ORT) was founded in 1922, a women’s auxiliary group (WAO) was created. WAO aided displaced Europeans and focused on creating vocational schools across the world. In the later twentieth century, WAO expanded to help create medical services for students and provide recreational facilities, among other programs.

Jewish women were instrumental in creating women’s studies as an academic discipline and contributed significantly to its growth and evolution. They have been critical not only as political activists, administrators, and editors of the key women’s studies journals, but also as prominent thinkers in the field’s intellectual debates.

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.

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.

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.

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.

“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.