Hannah Marks Solomons was an influential San Francisco educator and civic worker, as well as the wife of a leading member of the Jewish community.

Rosa Sonneschein created and edited the American Jewess, the first English-language magazine for Jewish women in the United States, where she advocated for the expansion of women’s roles in the synagogue and the Jewish community and expressed her strong support for Zionism.

Flora Langerman Spiegelberg made substantial innovative contributions to civic welfare and Jewish life. She was a nineteenth-century settler of New Mexico and a twentieth-century progressive reformer in New York City who fought for public sanitation regulations and better working conditions for garbage collectors.

Jewish women’s spirituality developed historically within the confines of a patriarchal tradition. Over time, feminists have developed rituals and created spaces that honor the unique experiences of women.

Mollie Steimer earned nationwide attention for her refusal to compromise her anarchist beliefs during the widely publicized 1918 trial in which she was sentenced to prison under the Sedition Act. Later deported to Russia and then to Germany, Steimer continued her anarchist activities throughout her life.

Rahel Goitein Straus, a pioneering woman medical doctor trained in Germany, was a model “New Jewish Woman” of the early-20th century. Successfully combining a career as a physician with marriage and motherhood, she committed herself to Jewish and feminist causes and organizations throughout her life, while also embracing Zionist ideals.

Before World War II, Lublin was one of the largest Jewish communities in Poland. Bela Szapiro’s activities contributed to making it the vibrant cultural and political center of Polish Jewry that it was.