Family
Barren Women in the Bible
The Hebrew Bible tells six stories of barren women: three of the four matriarchs (Sarah, Rebekah, and Rachel); the unnamed wife of Manoah/mother of Samson; Hannah, the mother of the prophet Samuel; and the Shunnamite woman, an acolyte of the prophet Elisha. Each woman suffers a period of infertility, in some cases exacerbated by the presence of a fertile, though less beloved, rival wife. Eventually, God intervenes and the woman conceives, but the beloved son is then dedicated back to God, either in service or in sacrifice.
Dorothy Walter Baruch
Psychologist Dorothy Walter Baruch championed the health development of children as an educator, author, psychologist, and as a community leader. Her psychodynamic approach to child development focused on the relationship between physical, emotional, and intellectual development and on rechanneling children’s feelings through play and art therapy.
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.
Bathsheba: Midrash and Aggadah
As in the Bible, Bathsheba plays a secondary role in the midrashim about her husband, King David, and her son, King Solomon. The rabbis view her as a righteous, guiltless woman, both during David’s life and as an advisor to Solomon.
Dorit Beinisch
Olga Belkind-Hankin
Ben Ish Hai
The Ben Ish-Hai, R. Joseph Hayyim b. Elijah, was a well-known Baghdadi Torah scholar. He wrote many responsa and halakhic books, which included his rulings on women’s halakhot.
Bene Israel
Berenice
A descendant of Herod the Great, Berenice was queen of Chalcis and Cicilia and opposed the Jewish Revolt in 66 CE. She eventually became the lover of Titus, the Roman general (and later emperor) who destroyed Jerusalem.
Gertrude Berg
Hinde Bergner
Hinde Bergner holds a special place in Yiddish literature by virtue of the fact that her memoir of family life in a late nineteenth-century Galician shtetl is one of few extant Yiddish memoirs to describe the traditional Jewish family on the edge of modernity from the perspective of a woman. Her intimate portrayal of her life results in a valuable source for Jewish social, family, and women’s history.
Libbie Suchoff Berkson
Libbie Suchoff Berkson was beloved by generations of campers as Aunt Libbie, director of Camp Modin for girls. She helped to establish the Jewish summer camp and ran it for decades, even while living in Israel and working on several other projects, such as a kindergarten and a teahouse.
Bet Hillel and Bet Shammai
Mayim Bialik
Mayim Bialik is most famous for starring as the titular character in the early 1990s series Blossom and, in the 2010s, on Big Bang Theory as Amy Farrah-Fowler. She is also known for being one of the few observant Jewish actors in Hollywood and for holding a PhD in Neuroscience from UCLA.
Bilhah: Bible
Bilhah is given to Rachel as a maid and would later serve as a surrogate mother for Rachel when she could not conceive. Though the story records none of Bilhah’s thoughts or words, she gives birth to two of Jacob’s sons for Rachel, Dan and Naphtali, and is remembered as one of the ancestresses of the Israelites.
Bilhah: Midrash and Aggadah
Bilhah was the maidservant of Rachel and mother of Dan and Naphtali. The rabbis fill in details about her life, her relationship with Jacob, and the confusing incident between Bilhah and Reuben, Jacob’s eldest son.
Gay Block
Renee Brant
Britain: Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries
Since being allowed to resettle in 1656, Jews in Great Britain have established deep community ties throughout their diverse community. Class differences between early Sephardic settlers and the later wave of Ashkenazi immigrants gave rise to numerous Jewish charitable organizations, in which women played a key role.
Jewish Women in the Cairo Genizah
Caribbean Islands and the Guianas
Women were among the earliest settles in the Dutch and English Caribbean. Early Caribbean Jewish women, despite living in patriarchal societies, still managed to engage in public pursuits. As Caribbean Jewish communities became increasingly racially blended over time, women of color became some of the most definitive architects of distinctly Creole Caribbean Jewry.
Peggy Charren
Peggy Charren, founder of Action for Children’s Television (ACT), took on the burgeoning television industry of the 1970s and won. She received a Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1995 for her work on behalf of quality television programming for children.
Children's Literature in Hebrew
Children's Literature in the United States
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.