This Week in History offers a unique calendar of American Jewish experience—connecting specific dates throughout the year to an array of compelling historic events related to American Jewish women.

As activists, professionals, artists, and intellectuals, Jewish feminists have shaped every aspect of American life. Drawing on the insights of feminism, they have also transformed the Jewish community. In this online exhibit, you will discover the powerful contributions of Jewish feminists through their own words and historical artifacts.

Browse the diverse collection of Jewish women who influenced the feminist movement by category, key dates or keywords.

Women of Valor recognizes and highlights the lives and accomplishments of sixteen trailblazing Jewish women, each of whom had the courage and conviction to overcome the social, cultural, and religious barriers she faced in creating a more just and equitable world.

Investigate themes in the activism and experiences of Jewish feminists, as they identify role models, set a feminist agenda, move from silence to voice, confront power, discover the political underpinnings of personal issues, and explore the vital and challenging relationship between feminism and Judaism.

Feminist change often requires that women face powerful institutions – from the government to the medical establishment to the synagogue – and challenge their assumptions, expectations, and rules. Some Jewish women have changed these institutions by confronting them from the outside, while others have transformed them from within.

Many Jewish feminists have been deeply influenced by other women – public leaders, family members, and mythical figures – whose legacies inspired their actions and activism. These feminist foremothers continue to serve as role models and a source of pride and strength for many women today.

The popular feminist slogan “The personal is political” conveys a groundbreaking insight of feminism in the 1960s and 70s. In discussing their personal lives with one another, feminists began to realize that issues they had considered individual and private – conflicts in relationships, obstacles at work, frustrations meeting gender expectations – were actually shared by many women. These personal issues had structural causes, and therefore needed to be addressed in political terms, not on an individual basis.