Jewish Studies

Ruth F. Brin

Ruth F. Brin helped transform modern prayer with her evocative writing, translation, and poetry. She wrote liturgical poetry, using vivid imagery from her own experience and challenging or reworking imagery of God as father or king that she found problematic as a woman and a modern American Jew.

Jessie Bernard

Sociologist Jessie Bernard’s feminist epiphany came at age 67 in 1969, but her earlier work anticipated feminist theory by discussing the differences between men’s and women’s experiences and arguing that quantitative studies did not accurately represent women’s stories.

Rose I. Bender

Rose I. Bender was an early twentieth-century Zionist activist who served extensively in her community, ultimately becoming the first female executive director of the Zionist Organization of Philadelphia in 1945.

Evelyn Torton Beck

Evelyn (Evi) Torton Beck is a multi-faceted scholar, analyst, activist, feminist, dancer, Jew, and lesbian who has enriched each discipline she engaged. She wrote the iconic Nice Jewish Girls: A Lesbian Anthology, as well as articles on Franz Kafka, Frieda Kahlo, and the transformative power of the sacred circle dance. Under Beck’s leadership, the Women’s Studies Department at the University of Maryland, College Park, became world-renowned.

Drawing of Bathsheba kneeling before David.

Bathsheba: Bible

Bathsheba is the married woman whom King David takes in adultery and who, though initially passive, becomes the pivotal figure in his downfall. The king has Bathsheba’s husband, Uriah, slain in battle and then takes her as a wife. While her first child, conceived in adultery, dies, the second, Solomon, becomes heir to the throne as a consequence of Bathsheba’s maneuverings.

Australia: 1788 to the Present

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.

Dora Askowith

Dora Askowith, author, historian, and college educator, believed that a knowledge of Jewish women’s history would serve as a catalyst for organization, activism, and moral leadership. She taught women at Hunter College for a total of forty-five years and wrote that she was anxious to teach college students Jewish history because they were “poorly versed in the history of their own faith.”

Nima Adlerblum

Nima Adlerblum was a writer, educator, and early Zionist activist in New York, whose life began and ended in Jerusalem. She wrote widely on philosophy, education, Jewish philosophy, and American history, and also founded Hadassah’s national cultural and educational program in addition to serving as its national and cultural chair from 1922 to 1935.

September 18, 2008

Pink, Green, Blue: What Color is YOUR Torah?

Judith Rosenbaum

By Melissa B. Simon

As a young woman growing up in the Jewish community, I often sought out a woman's voice in the biblical text. I wanted to hear more from our matriarchs and yearned to know the real story behind Dina, Miriam, and Tamar. Too often I felt like I was confronted by Jewish publications that seemed dominated by the male perspective and left me hungry for something different.

Topics: Feminism, Jewish Education, Jewish Studies

May 11, 2006

Feminist dialogue at its best

Judith Rosenbaum

Last night was the first event in the Heirs to a Revolution: Intergenerational Dialogues on Jewish Feminism series from JWA and Hebrew College, and it was really provocative. Blu Greenberg and Devorah Zlochower addressed the topic “Feminism and Orthodoxy: No Longer Strange Bedfellows?”.

Topics: Feminism, Jewish Studies, Judaism-Orthodox

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