Belda Lindenbaum
Belda Lindenbaum was driven by the birth of her daughters to create new opportunities for Jewish women and girls. As board president of the Drisha Institute for Women, Lindenbaum helped create classes on Jewish education geared towards women, summer institutes, and art fellowships. She also served on the board of Bar Ilan University. Lindenbaum served as vice president of the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance, which works to expand opportunities for Orthodox women to participate in ritual and leadership roles in the Jewish community, and was a founding board member of Yeshivat Maharat, the first yeshiva to ordain Orthodox women as clergy. With her husband Marcel, as well as Rabbi Shlomo Riskin, Belda cofounded Midreshet Lindenbaum, a post-high school learning center in Israel for young women from Israel and abroad, combining religious studies with service in the Israeli Defense Forces—a program ordinarily offered only to young men. The Lindenbaums have also funded a lecture series on the role of women in Judaism for the Hartman Institute in Israel.