A respected writer whose work has been informed by her experiences as a child refugee from Nazi-occupied Austria, Lore Segal has published five books of autobiographical fiction for adults as well as several books for children and translations. She was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2006 and named a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2008.

Anna Seghers is considered one of the most important German women writers of the twentieth century. Her many novels and stories written during her multiple exiles, including Das siebte Kreuz (1942) adapted into the Hollywood film “The Seventh Cross,” reflect her strong socialist and anti-fascist beliefs, and she remains controversially linked to her later involvement with the East German government.

Although it was never published in her lifetime, Grace Seixas Nathan’s writing showed her passion for her country, her family, and her religion. She began writing poetry at an early age, particularly on Jewish themes. Throughout her life, Nathan corresponded with various friends and relations, blending eloquence and emotion with a fierce wit that bring her era to life.

Proud, independent, enterprising, and contentious, Yente Serdatsky exemplifies the enormous difficulties experienced by Yiddish women writers in achieving recognition. Serdatsky published stories, one-act plays, and dramatic sketches in various Yiddish periodicals, and focussed on the narratives of immigrant women like herself.

Clara Sereni was an Italian writer of Jewish descent. The rich legacy of her Jewish roots as well as her inherited passionate political commitment permeate all her narrative works. The act of writing offered Sereni an opportunity to articulate female subjectivity and language experimentation, providing a setting for exposing issues related to identity, politics of gender, disability, and ethnic diversity while building a new utopia.

“Our literature lacks the participation of the second half of humanity.” Thus proclaimed the Hebrew writer Hava (Eva) Shapiro (1878-1943) in her 1909 feminist manifesto, the first ever in the Hebrew language. She was the most prolific female Hebraist of her era to remain in the Diaspora and the first woman ever to have kept a diary in Hebrew.

Polish author and historian Sarah Shner-Nishmit traveled constantly to evade capture during World War II, working at a labor camp and joining a partisan group. Shner made aliyah in 1947 and subsequently began her writing career, which included children’s books and historical research. She also helped found Kibbutz Lohamei ha-Getta’ot, where she lived until her death.

Wilma Shore was a writer and teacher most active between the 1940s and the 1960s. She lived at various times in Los Angeles and New York City, settling finally in New York City. Involved with left-wing political activity, she and her husband were blacklisted during the House Committee on Un-American Activities hearings.

Fradel Shtok’s Yiddish poetry and prose is distinctive for its treatment of the inner sensual lives of Jewish women. Although she showed great promise as writer, she was discouraged by the unenthusiastic reception of her work by leading critics and withdrew from the literary scene after publishing only one collection of short fiction in 1919. A number of Shtok’s poems appeared in American Yiddish literary journals and anthologies, but no collection of her poetry ever appeared.

Esfir Shub was active as an editor, director, and writer of nonfiction films for twenty years, from 1927 to 1947—one of the few women in the Soviet Union at that time to achieve some standing in the film industry. Shub found success as a woman in the film industry by pioneering the form of compilation documentary and by producing technically competent work that satisfied the political needs of the communist moment.

Yiddish writer Esther Shumiatcher-Hirschbein was born in Belarus in 1899 and emigrated to Calgary, Canada, with her family in 1911. Her poetry devoted to her pregnancy and childbirth were considered groundbreaking, along with other themes in her work, including grief, marriage, sexuality, and widowhood.

Judith Shuval is one of the main scholars in the field of the sociology of health in Israel. Her research on migration and health, inequality in health, self-care in health, the doctor-patient relationship, and the processes of professional socialization has been based in concrete life in Israel and has broader implications for such topics cross-culturally.

Feisty and opinionated, Sylvia Sidney was quite the opposite of the waiflike victim of social oppression she played in Hollywood’s Depression Era films. While she disliked playing the victim, her vulnerability and working-class persona resonated with audiences. She earned an Oscar nomination for her performance in Summer Wishes, Winter Dreams, took on a comic role as the caseworker in Beetlejuice, and played a sympathetic grandmother in one of the first TV movies about AIDS, An Early Frost.

Beverly Sills was a trailblazing opera singer who, after a robust singing career at the New York City Opera Company (NYCO) and the Metropolitan Opera House, became the first female director of the NYCO, and the first female chair of the Lincoln Center board. Sills defied the odds in her career accomplishments while raising two children with disabilities and being actively involved with several charitable organizations.