Philanthropy and Volunteerism
Frances Allen De Ford
Helen DeRoy
Barbara Dobkin
Barbara Berman Dobkin is the pre-eminent Jewish feminist philanthropist of the end of the twentieth and beginning of the twenty-first century. Her vision, dedication, and philanthropic generosity have transformed the landscape of Jewish women’s organizations and funding in both North America and Israel.
Ruth Dreifuss
Ruth Dreifuss was the first Jewish member of the Federal Government of Switzerland and the first female President of the country. When she became President of the Confederation in 1999, she was the first Jew and the first woman to hold the office.
Sylvia Goulston Dreyfus
Sylvia Goulston Dreyfus worked to improve Boston both through community activism and through her support of art and music. Along with being president of the Hecht Neighborhood House, she was trustee of the New England Conservatory, worked on the Berkshire Music Festival, and served as honorary chair of the Palestine Orchestra Fund.
Eastern European Immigrants in the United States
Forty-four percent of the approximately two million Jewish immigrants who arrived in the United States between 1886 and 1914 were women. Although these women were more politically active and autonomous than other immigrant women, dire economic circumstances constricted their lives. The hopes these immigrant women harbored for themselves were often transferred to the younger generation.
Joanna Eckstein
Hannah Bachman Einstein
Bruria Benbassat de Elnecavé
Bruria Benbassat de Elnecavé was an ardent activist who dedicated her life to educate Jewish Argentines in general and Jewish Argentine women in particular about Zionism and the State of Israel.
Emunah
Sara N. Evans
Mary Jacqueline Fabian
Mary Jacqueline Fabian was a talented soprano who toured throughout the United States in Europe in the twentieth century. Fabian’s primary legacy to the arts lies not in her performances, her versatility on stage, or her popularity behind the microphone, but rather in her organizational skills and her unswerving conviction that opera and music education are not just for the elite.
Ruth Lewis Farkas
Ruth Lewis Farkas’ remarkable and varied career ranged from creating a retail chain that survived the Great Depression, to teaching sociology, to running international education initiatives. Her impressive and full life spanned many occupations: educator, sociologist, businesswoman, philanthropist, inventor, wife, and mother.
Ruth Breslau Fein
Mary Fels
Mary Fels used her wealth and her talents to further the Zionist cause, arguing passionately for a Jewish state and helping create both settlements and industry in Israel. Both Fels and her husband, a successful soap manufacturer, felt their wealth gave them a responsibility to reform capitalism and use their money for philanthropy.
Jane Brass Fischel
An outstanding communal leader in New York City’s Orthodox Jewish community in the early twentieth century, Jane Brass Fischel was a generous philanthropist and active participant in Jewish communal activities.
Marjorie Fisher
Ruth E. Fizdale
Ruth E. Fizdale is credited with making modern social work a profession. Fizdale helped transform social work from a charitable volunteer activity to a paid profession, through her development of a fee-for-service, nonprofit counseling firm.
Edith Flagg
Flora Benenson Solomon
Flora Benenson Solomon’s deep commitments to welfare and Zionism traversed geographical boundaries and social groups. From her efforts to improve the lives of Jewish and Arab communities in Palestine to the her work on behalf of garment workers in England, Solomon maintained an unwavering commitment to Zionism, which acted as a sustainer of Jewish identity in England.
Selma Fraiberg
Selma Fraiberg was a psychoanalyst, author, and pioneer in the field of infant psychiatry. Her classic parenting book The Magic Years was the result of her years of research in the field of social work and her experiences as a stay-at-home mother.
Bertha Rayner Frank
Henrietta Franklin
Henrietta Franklin (née Montagu) was a leading British educationist and suffragist and a supporter the Liberal Judaism movement, pioneered by her sister Lily Montagu.
Lillian Simon Freehof
Lillian Simon Freehof (1906-2004) was a leader in developing transcription services for people with visual impairments and blindness, working with Sisterhood volunteers at Rodef Shalom Congregation in Pittsburgh, PA, and, at the national level, with the Federation of Temple Sisterhoods (now WRJ). She also wrote books and plays for children and young adults and books on needlework and Jewish festivals for adults. She was the wife of Rabbi Solomon B. Freehof.
Myra Ava Freeman
The first Jew to be appointed lieutenant governor of a Canadian province and the first woman to hold the office in Nova Scotia, Myra Freeman was born in St. John, New Brunswick. Serving as Lieutenant Governor from 2000 until 2006, Freeman made her mandate the redefinition and democratization of the largely ceremonial office. In 2003 she was named First Honorary Captain (Navy) of Maritime Forces Atlantic, Her Majesty’s Canadian Forces.
