Although most historians view Louise Waterman Wise as simply the wife of Stephen S. Wise, her influence as a tireless advocate for the care and protection of children, the development of communal health care, refugee resettlement, and the establishment of the State of Israel was unparalleled.

Adele Wiseman was one of Canada’s most highly regarded writers of the second half of the twentieth century. She is best known for The Sacrifice (1956) and Crackpot (1974), her two groundbreaking novels that explore Jewish life in Canada. Both are set in Winnipeg’s insular North End, reveal her interest in characters who challenge normative behavior, and affirm Wiseman’s belief in community.

Pearl Willen was a twentieth-century social and human welfare activist and communal leader with a love for Jewish heritage. She had a lifelong record of service for such causes as civil rights, women’s rights, and the rights of workers.

Maria Winetzkaja was a rebellious and independent woman whose international opera career spanned twenty years. As a leading mezzo-soprano and excellent dramatic actor, Winetzkaja toured the world with several opera companies, taught voice at the Juilliard School, and raised two sons. Winetzkaja was a powerful force who desired equality for women throughout her life. 

Short story writer, novelist, and screenwriter Thyra Samter Winslow was well known for her stories and articles published in The Smart Set, American Mercury, and The New Yorker. Her writing frequently dealt with themes of small-town life, assimilation, and complicated images of women in unhappy marriages.

Rachel Wischnitzer was a pioneer in the fields of Jewish art history and synagogue architecture. Her wide-ranging scholarship included books, articles, book reviews, and exhibition catalogs on ancient, medieval, and modern Jewish art. The breadth of her contributions to the history of Jewish art and architecture is exemplified in her lifelong dedication to her work.

By the mid-1870s, approximately a quarter of the Jewish population of Palestine, excluding Jerusalem, was North African, and the overwhelming majority of adult Jews were women. This discrepancy was due to a large number of widows, who experienced economic and physical hardship in their new home but also a new sense of freedom.

Annette Wieviorka (b. 1948) is a major French historian of the Holocaust. Her work highlights the specificity of the Shoah in the context of Nazi and Vichy crime generally.

While the Wife of Job has a limited role in the biblical narrative, the apocryphal Divrei Lyov transforms her into a central character of the plot. Unique to the apocryphal account, Job is cited as having two wives, Utzit and Dinah, whereas the midrashic account has Job marrying only one woman.

In characterizing her husband’s unconditional devotion to God as an act of cowardice, Job’s nameless wife is the one who opens the possibility of speaking against God. Much like Eve, Job’s wife prompts her husband to doubt God’s use of divine powers and, in doing so, she deepens his knowledge and opens his eyes.

Job’s wife is the subject of a moral critique by the midrash for advising her husband to commit blasphemy. Different midrashim account for the possible outcomes and motives of her actions.

Lot, his wife, and his daughters are urged to escape the violence in Sodom that ensues when the local people want to rape two visitors to Lot’s house. Lot and his family are told not to look back when they flee, but Lot’s wife does look back and is turned into a pillar of salt. This gripping narrative contains elements of folklore and provides an explanation for the salt formations along the Dead Sea.