Activism: Feminism
Joy Ladin
Joy Ladin is the Gottesman Professor of English at Stern College, a prolific poet, and a central figure in transgender theology. Her numerous written works reframe classical Jewish theological questions from a transfeminist perspective.
Constance Rothschild, Lady Battersea
Constance Rothschild Lady Battersea was a link between English and Jewish feminism, as she convinced upper- and middle-class Anglo-Jewish women to join English feminist groups such as the National Union of Women Workers and encouraged them to create Jewish women’s organizations, such as the Union of Jewish Women and the Jewish Association for the Protection of Girls and women, which allied themselves with the women’s movement.
Law in Israel
Leaders in Israel's Religious Communities
Since the late twentieth century, Israeli women have begun to assume leadership positions that are undoubtedly “religious” in both content and form. In the Reform and Conservative movements, gender equality has existed for decades, while in the most traditional ultra-Orthodox societies distinctive female religious leadership exists only within halakhic constraints. In modern Orthodoxy, measured changes have led to significant changes over the years and a new generation of religious leadership.
Leadership and Authority
Lori Lefkovitz
Käthe Leichter
A socialist feminist with a doctorate in political economy, Käthe Leichter was a prominent figure in “Red Vienna” during the interwar years. As a politician, labor organizer, and author, she dedicated her life to benefitting working-class women through social and political reform, and to the struggle against fascism.
Anne Lapidus Lerner
Anne Lapidus Lerner is a pioneering scholar of Jewish women’s studies and was the first woman vice chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary. Lerner has established and fostered a long-lasting legacy through the teaching and mentorship of generations of students and dedication to Jewish learning. In 2017 she was awarded the Mathilde Schechter Award by the Women’s League for Conservative Judaism.
Marj Jackson Levin
Jacqueline Levine
Ann Lewis
Lilith
Lilith’s character has evolved throughout the years. She began as a female demon common to many Middle Eastern cultures, was transformed by Medieval Jewry into Adam’s first wife, and was finally reclaimed by Jewish feminists as an icon.
Lilith Magazine
Belda Lindenbaum
Belda Lindenbaum was driven by the birth of her daughters to create new opportunities for Jewish women and girls.
Literature Scholars in the United States
Jewish women have been among the key figures in literary scholarship in the United States in the postwar period. Those entering the profession in the 1950s faced more difficulties as women than they did as Jews. Today, Jewish women are found in all corners of the profession, from feminist and queer theory to administration, critical race studies, and beyond.
Esther Luria
Esther Luria was a freelance journalist whose work appeared in many politically left-of-center Yiddish publications in the early twentieth-century United States. A socialist, a feminist, and a political activist, she was also an educator. She used her columns not only to advocate for the ideas in which she believed, but also to provide her mainly east European immigrant readers with a better understanding of their new environment.
Ada Maimon (Fishman)
Clara Malraux
Journalist, essayist, novelist, and translator Clara Malraux spent her early life involved with antifascist activities and joined the French Resistance during World War II while in hiding with her daughter. Her work often describes her attempts to make a place for herself in a misogynistic and antisemitic society.
Rosa Manus
Rosa Manus was a Dutch leader in international women’s movements for suffrage and equality, as well as a vocal pacifist before and during World War II. As a Jew, she at times clashed with other feminist leaders.
Martha Ackelsberg
Martha Ackelsberg is a Jewish feminist lesbian anarchist activist, community leader, and academic. She is a leading scholar of anarchism and of anarchist women’s organizations of the Spanish Civil War. A founder and/or early leading visionary in pivotal United States Jewish developments, Ackelsberg has been a key voice shaping feminist, lesbian, and havurah contributions to twentieth- and twenty-first century Jewish life.
Maskilot, Nineteenth Century
Nineteenth-century maskilot were Jewish women proponents of the Haskalah, who wished to take part in the cultural and social revolution it preached. Despite assumptions that the Haskalah was an exclusively male movement, a small number of women read Hebrew literature, wrote in Hebrew, and regarded themselves as part of the Haskalah movement.
Nicolette Mason
Portrayals of Women in Israeli Media
Eve Merriam
Eve Merriam was an accomplished poet and playwright, best known for her books of children’s poetry that are beloved by audiences of all ages. Her life and career centered around New York, where she used her keen critical eye and unique tactile style to create poems and plays about urban life, social justice, feminism, and more.
