A pioneer in the field of art film programming and film archiving in Israel, Lia van Leer was the founder of the Haifa Cinematheque, the Jerusalem Cinematheque, the Israel Film Archive, and the Jerusalem Film Festival. As a result of her work, film in Israel is seen as an expression of culture and art and is funded by government agencies.

Rahel Levin Varnhagen was the first intellectual Jewish woman in German history who established herself as an independent thinker. Her way of writing was dialogical; she wrote to and together with her addressees.

Doris May Ulmann was a photographer who elevated photography to a fine art form, as she captured celebrities of her day, doctors, black plantation workers, and the rural poor of Appalachia. Born in New York in 1882, Ulman rose to become a prominent photographer of all aspects of American life and is credited with producing the most extensive documentation of southern plantation life in her work.

Joy Ungerleider-Mayerson rescued the faltering Jewish Museum in New York. She shifted the museum’s focus from avant-garde art back to Judaica, launched exhibitions of art rescued from the Holocaust, and restored the struggling institution’s financial stability. She also created the Dorot Foundaiton, launching some of the finest non-denominational Jewish study programs worldwide.

The Jewish population of Turkey navigated far-reaching changes in the political, social, and geopolitical spheres in the late nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries, as the Ottoman Empire pursued reform and collapsed and the Turkish Republic that took its place imposed a process of “Turkification” on its residents. During this period, Jewish women partook in traditional customs relating to religion, family, and the home, while also accessing new opportunities in the public sphere through education and political engagement.

Malka Heifetz Tussman introduced into Yiddish poetry one of the most rigid verse forms, the triolet, and mastered another, the sonnet corona. A teacher of Yiddish language and literature in the Midwest and the West, Tussman was awarded the Itzik Manger Prize for Yiddish poetry in Tel Aviv in 1981.

Dvora Tomer had a career in the Israeli military for three decades, during which time she worked to expand women’s opportunities in the Israel Defense Forces to include a wider range of roles and fairer treatment.

Mina Tomkiewicz was a Polish author who wrote two books based on her personal experience growing up in Warsaw, Poland, and her deportation to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.

Zelda Treger was born in Vilna, Lithuania, which was occupied by the Germans beginning in June 1941. Treger soon joined the United Partisan Organization (FPO) and was tasked with smuggling groups of residents and supplies out of the ghetto and labor camp. Escaping capture several times, she aided in the liberation of Vilna and ultimately settled in Tel Aviv, where she remained until her death.

Marie Trommer was an early twentieth-century writer, poet, artist, art critic, and contributor to American Jewish newspapers. After attending the Cooper Union Art School, Trommer became known for her contributions to Jewish newspapers, her poetry, and her oil and watercolor paintings. She was a member of the Creative Writers Group, Society of Independent Artists, and Art Alliance of America. 

With suffragist spirit and comedic skill, Bessie Thomashefsky adapted great American and British plays for Yiddish-speaking audiences. Thomashefsky performed Yiddish adaptations of plays by Chekov, Wilde, and Shakespeare, as well as modern Yiddish creations at the People’s Theater in New York, playing many strong female characters. From 1915 to 1919, she ran the People’s Theater and renamed it for herself. 

From the moment she arrived in the city in 1912 until the day she died in 1980, Anna Ticho lovingly portrayed Jerusalem in paint, pen and ink, charcoal, pastel, and pencil. Her works have been shown around Israel and abroad, and she has received numerous honorary titles and awards. She bequeathed her home, Ticho House, to the Israel Museum to be used as a site for exhibitions and cultural events.