Like Jewish women everywhere, Dutch Jewish women struggled with issues of assimilation, emancipation, and equality as both Jews and women. This article summarizes the conditions and challenges facing Jewish women in the Netherlands and the paths to progress and change they sought—education, work, activism, and literature, among others—from the nineteenth century to the present, including after the particular decimation of Dutch Jewry during the Holocaust.

Louise Nevelson belongs to a generation of Manhattan-based painters and sculptors whose careers coincided with the development of modernism in America. Nevelson created sculptures that audiences could both experience and see. Several of her pieces are now owned by the Whitney, the Brooklyn Museum, and MOMA.

Pauline Newman played an essential role in galvanizing the early twentieth-century tenant, labor, socialist, and working-class suffrage movements. The first woman ever appointed general organizer by the International Ladies Garment Workers Union (ILGWU), Newman continued to work for the ILGWU for more than seventy years—first as an organizer, then as a labor journalist, a health educator, and a liaison between the union and government officials.

Nursing was a well-respected profession for Jewish women in Palestine, until doctors and nurses clashed about the proper level of education for nurses in the 1930s. Despite the challenges women faced in the medical field, they contributed greatly during times of war and violence before the founding of Israel.

Dalia Ofer is an Israeli historian whose work mainly focuses on women’s experiences in the Holocaust and collective memory of the Holocaust in Israeli society. Ofer has published a multitude of books and articles on these topics during her career, and she has held positions at many prestigious universities around the world including the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Harvard, Yale, and Columbia.

Israela Oron is a retired Brigadier-General in the Israel Defense Forces who worked to reform the IDF’s Women’s Corps and redefine women’s role in the Israeli military. As OC (Officer Commander) of the IDF’s Women’s Corps, she balanced extending more opportunities for women in positions traditionally held by men with the need to retain an infrastructure that would care for the specific needs of women in the IDF.

Sylvia Ostry, born in Winnipeg, Canada, was a distinguished economist, academic, and government leader. She taught at universities across Canada, served in numerous government posts, and authored over eighty publications, mostly on policy analysis.

Paula Padani was an influential choreographer, performer, and teacher who explored Jewish themes in her work as she danced throughout Israel, the United States, and Europe. Her work was inspired by the landscapes of Israel and biblical themes, and she was celebrated in post World War Two Paris for her talent and vitality as a Jewish artist.