Tilly Edinger made her mark as one of the leading vertebrate paleontologists of the twentieth century. Her pioneering work in paleoneurology, the study of fossil brains, established her international reputation as the outstanding woman in her field. She performed research in Germany before World War II and continued researching and teaching in the United States until her untimely death in 1967.

Helene Deutsch was mentored by Sigmund Freud and was the first psychoanalyst to write a book on female psychology. In the 1920s she emerged as one of the most successful teachers in the history of psychoanalysis and in 1924 she became the first woman to head a psychoanalytic clinic.

Esther Dischereit, a German-Jewish writer living in Berlin, speaks for the second and third generation of children of Holocaust survivors. Her prolific production covers all genres, including prose, poetry, sound installations, and concept art. She uses her many talents to fight anti-semitism and racism and to give a voice to the persecuted and forgotten.

Though she began her career in publishing at liberal Jewish journals, Midge Decter became a prominent neoconservative in the 1970s, famous for her attacks on the women’s liberation movement. By the 1980s, Decter turned to foreign policy and became a vocal Cold Warrior opposed to the Soviet Union because of the threat it posed to the United States and Israel.

Maya Deren pursued an ambitious career as a writer, publishing poetry, essays, and newspaper articles. She was also one of the most important avant-garde filmmakers of her time for her use of experimental editing techniques and her fascination with ecstatic religious dances. In 1946 she used a Guggenheim Fellowship to photograph Haitian dance.

Babette Deutsch, born and raised in New York City, was a gifted poet, novelist, translator, and educator. In her work, she interwove elements of vastly different cultures and times, from the Bible and Shakespeare to Russian and Japanese literature. She often used her work to explore Jewish themes and culture.

Natalie Zemon Davis was a pioneering historian of early modern Europe, gender, and religious and cultural life. Focusing primarily on ordinary historical actors and marginal groups, Davis earned a reputation as a scholar who culls the archives to uncover fascinating stories of everyday life.

Lucy S. Dawidowicz was an American-Jewish historian whose influential and controversial works reflect her deep personal and academic commitment to the Jewish people. She spent time in Poland immediately before the Holocaust and time in Germany immediately after it. Dawidowicz’s works, which received numerous awards, concern American and Eastern European Jewry, and the Holocaust.

Devorah Dayan was a symbol of the new Hebrew woman in pre-state Israel: she was maternal, rooted in the land, and fulfilled the values of a pioneer society. Her long writing career mostly comprised of autobiographical essays in publications for the women workers’ movement.

Jewish immigrants to the New World brought with them their ritual and celebratory Jewish dances, but these traditional forms of Jewish dance waned in the United States. Working-class and poor Jewish immigrants parents sought out culture and education in the arts for their children, often as a vehicle for assimilation. Jewish women were particularly attracted to the field of modern dance.

Liza Czapnik was a Polish freedom fighter during World War II who started working against the Nazi occupation after witnessing a mass murder of Jewish people near her hometown. After being interned in the Grodno ghetto, she escaped and began working as a courier for the anti-fascist underground in Bialystok. After the war, she earned a PhD and taught English until 1991, when she made Aliyah and settled in Beersheva.

American Jewish cookbooks capture the range of Jewish religious and cultural expression in the United States. Women took advantage of the versatility and variety of cookbooks to add their voices to the growing and developing Jewish culture in the United States.

Jewish-Algerian-French writer Hélène Cixous published her first book in 1967 and approximately her eighty-seventh in February 2021. This “life writing” comprises poetic fiction and autobiography, literary and feminist theory, art criticism, and theatrical works. Cixous explores the myriad contradictions and consequences of loss and exile, of “being Jewish” and “being a woman.”

Children’s literature in the United States would not be the same without Jewish women. From Sydney Taylor to Judy Blume to Lesléa Newman, Jewish women have written books read by millions of children and teenagers in the U.S. for more than a century.

Best remembered for her contribution to Jewish cultural life and for her unique ability to inspire those around her, Corinne Chochem had a distinct impact on Hebrew folk dance, both in her teaching and her two books, Palestine Dances (1941) and Jewish Holiday Dances (1948).

From poetry to the probing of women’s eating disorders, from autobiography to the story of a voice, from commentary on sexual identity to Israel and Palestine, Kim Chernin’s writing, “writing consultation,” and pastoral counseling practices all arose from the “spiritual politics” and deep examination of self and society that she considered the essence of her Jewishness.