Encyclopedia Categories | Jewish Women's Archive

Rosa Schapire

Rosa Schapire was one of the few women to pursue art history studies at a time when the discipline itself was still in its infancy. Her foray into this male-dominated profession was indicative of her allegiance to feminist aspirations to equal opportunity and adult suffrage.

Miriam Schapiro

Miriam Schapiro helped pioneer the feminist art movement, both through her own pushing of creative boundaries and by creating opportunities for other women artists. Starting in 1970, Schapiro raised women’s consciousness through her writing, painting, printmaking, teaching and sculpture. She lectured extensively on feminist issues to professional conferences, university audiences, art classes and women’s groups.

Madalyn Schenk

Madalyn Shenk drove significant political change both in Louisiana and in the nation as a whole.

Therese Loeb Schiff

Therese Loeb Schiff used her wealth to address a wide range of needs in the American Jewish community. She was a paradigm of the intellectual, religious, and cultural activities and also the social service of upper-middle-class German Jewish women during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Sonja Schlesin

Sonja Schlesin was one of Gandhi's most trusted and important associates during the period when he was a young lawyer in South Africa. She rose from becoming his secretary in 1906 to playing a major role in the large nonviolent demonstrations and protest marches of 1913, which he organized on behalf of the immigrant Indian community.

Therese Schlesinger-Eckstein

Therese Schlesinger’s life was characterized by her lifelong passion for learning and her endeavor to improve the plight of working-class women. She was a dedicated feminist who was inspired by the ideals of socialism, struggling to combine both of these political passions within the Austrian Social Democratic Party.

Ruth Schloss

Through her socio-political artworks, Israeli painter Ruth Schloss (1922-2013) directed the viewer's attention to the human conditions of the downtrodden and marginalized in Israeli society from the 1940s through the early 2000s. She depicted figures and images people usually prefer to ignore, such as the poor and the unprivileged, the working class, newcomers, Mizrahi Jews, Palestinian refugees, the disastrous ruins of the wars in Israel, the Intifada in the occupied territories, women and children, newborns, and the elderly.

Dominique Schnapper

Dominique Schnapper is a French sociologist who has devoted an important part of her work to an analysis of French Jews and Judaism, in particular in connection with the French model of citizenship, nation, and the republic.

Susan Weidman Schneider

Author and editor Susan Weidman Schneider has agitated for feminist progress in the Jewish community, as an activist and then as a founder and editor-in-chief of Lilith magazine. She has helped galvanize change with her writings on Jewish women’s leadership; domestic abuse; Orthodoxy and feminism; ordination of women; LGBTQ issues; the treatment of converts to Judaism, and more.

Rose Schneiderman

For nearly half a century, Rose Schneiderman worked tirelessly to improve wages, hours, and safety standards for American working women. She saw those things as “bread,” the very basic human rights to which working women were entitled. But she also worked for such “roses” as schools, recreational facilities, and professional networks for trade union women, because she believed that working women deserved much more than a grim subsistence.

Ottilie Schönewald

Deeply involved in several women’s and Jewish organizations, Ottilie Schönewald was an activist who became a politician to advance her causes. She worked with the League of Jewish Women and helped Jews emigrate from Nazi Germany. After Schönewald and her family fled in 1939, she continued her social work during and after the war.

Florence Schornstein

Florence Schornstein spent a lifetime making New Orleans a better place to live, and Hurricane Katrina only strengthened her resolve.

Adeline Schulberg

Adeline Schulberg’s long and winding career path led her from socialist activist, to child welfare advocate, to Hollywood agent. During World War II, she moved to London and returned to activist work, helping rescue refugees from Nazi Europe.

Deborah Wasserman Schultz

An outspoken Democrat, Debbie Wasserman Schultz was entrusted with great responsibility for the party both in the US House of Representatives and as chair of the Democratic National Committee.

Debra L. Schultz

Debra Schultz served as an advisor to the Jewish Women’s Archive in creating the Living the Legacy curriculum based on research she had done on the history of Jewish women in the civil rights movement.

Amy Schumer

Amy Schumer is one of America’s most loved and successful comedians. Her career is built on a true riches-to-rags-to-riches story and is firmly centered on growing up in an unconventional Jewish upbringing.

Lynn Schusterman

Billionaire philanthropist Lynn Schusterman changed the landscape of the American Jewish community through her advocacy for Israel, engagement with young Jews, and pioneering funding of inclusion and equality. As Chair of the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation, her bold vision and commitment to repairing the world extended from Tulsa, OK, across the American Jewish community, to Israel and the Former Soviet Union.

Laurie Schwab Zabin

Laurie Schwab Zabin’s work in reproductive health changed how Americans approach sex education and teen pregnancy.

Ethel Baskin Schwartz

From Depression-era protests to twenty-first century marches, Ethel Baskin Schwartz dedicated her life to organizing and fighting for unions and civil rights.

Felice Nierenberg Schwartz

Recognizing the hurdles that can stop women from achieving, Felice Nierenberg Schwartz founded Catalyst, an organization to help women with children enter the workforce, created a national network of resource centers and programs to enable women to work part time, and advocated for working mothers in her widely published writing.

Rosika Schwimmer

Rosika Schwimmer earned a reputation as a leading proponent of women’s rights in Hungary before the age of 30. She remained devoted to the causes of feminism and pacificism throughout her life, despite the many obstacles that challenged her commitment to the goals of world peace and equality.

Adolphine Schwimmer-Vigeveno

Adolphine Schwimmer-Vigeveno was an active member of the Jewish Women’s Council in the Netherlands in the decades before the outbreak of World War II. She served as the general editor of its periodical and later as its president, stimulating solidarity among Jewish women, organizing Jewish social work, and exploring contemporary Jewish issues, including Zionism.

Sally Gross standing in the middle of a sidewalk, with the caption "Every day it's a new story"

Jewish Women in Screendance

Jewish women made overwhelming contributions to the creation of the field of Screendance. Maya Deren, Amy Greenfield, Anna Halprin, Yvonne Rainer, Meredith Monk, and others have created a legacy of socially conscious dance for the screen that collectively exhibits and performs principles of Jewish ritual and practice. Many of these artists share a focus on social justice and a collective approach to what might be called a feminist Jewish art form.

Barbara Seaman

Muckraking journalist Barbara Seaman survived a tumultuous childhood in New York City to become a bestselling author, a prominent second wave feminist, and, as a founder of the women’s health movement, an architect of informed consent. A lifelong scourge to the pharmaceutical industry, Seaman exposed the dangers of the high-dose birth control pill, hormone replacement therapy, and male doctors’ hubris.

A pink-patterned cover with the title and author, and two illustrations of women's faces. The first features a woman with gray hair in a bun, plain glasses, and gold earrings. The second shows a woman with blonde hair in a curly bob, glasses with colorful wing-shaped frames, hoop earrings, and a cigarette.

Sylvia Bernstein Seaman

“I’m still capable of marching. I marched sixty years ago. I just hope my granddaughter doesn’t have to march into the next century.” Sylvia Bernstein Seaman was a pioneering feminist of the twentieth century who broke the silence around breast cancer through her frank writing.

Sharing Stories
Inspiring Change

The Shalvi/Hyman Encyclopedia of Jewish Women

Activism