As the daughter of Salman Schocken, founder of Schocken Books, and later as editor and president, Eva Schocken pushed the publishing company to the forefront of both education and women’s studies.
Dominique Schnapper is a French sociologist who has devoted an important part of her work to an analysis of French Jews and Judaism, in particular in connection with the French model of citizenship, nation, and the republic.
Born in Bombay into the legendary Sassoon dynasty, Flora (Farha) Sassoon lived a colorful life in India and then in England as a businesswoman, philanthropist, famed hostess, and Jewish scholar, taking on many public religious roles that were unusual for an Orthodox woman of her time.
Rachel Salamander is a writer, scholar, editor, and publisher. Born in 1949 in a DP camp in Germany, she has written and published multiple works about German Jewry and DP camps after World War II. In 1982, Salamander established the Literaturhandlung in Munich, a prominent bookshop and meeting place specializing in Jewish literature.
Approximately 350,000 Jewish women moved to Israel from the Former Soviet Union after 1989. Among the key issues they faced were occupational downgrading, sexuality and family life, sexual harassment, marital distress, and single-parent families.
The Rothschild family expanded from the mid-1700s to the present day. The women of the family were known for being leaders in philanthropy and business, as well as exceptional hostesses.
Nettie Rosenstein was a twentieth-century fashion designer and entrepreneur who was instrumental in the popularization of the “little black dress” in America.
Sophia Sonia Rosenberg was the creator and owner of Sonia Gowns Inc, an elegant dress company. After immigrating to New York in 1908, she worked for various dress companies and entered a business alliance with Gloria Vanderbilt in 1935.
Heather Reisman was possibly the most powerful person in Canada’s book publishing industry at the turn of the twenty-first century and certainly the country’s most prominent Jewish businesswoman. In addition to charitable giving, Reisman has shown sensitivity to Jewish concerns in the conduct of her business.
Jewish women have been involved in the production of Hebrew books from the earliest days of Hebrew printing. Until the nineteenth century, printing was a cottage industry, with an entire family joining in. Both Jewish and non-Jewish widows mainly took over the printing press after their husbands died, and women were involved in printing in both the Sephardi and the Ashkenazi worlds.
The first woman on the financial desk of a big-city newspaper and the first woman to break into the world of writing about finance, Sylvia Field Porter was a pioneering economist, columnist, and best-selling author. For over half a century, she educated the American consumer about money matters, empowering women to achieve economic independence.
The documents recovered from the Cairo Genizah give insight into the lives of Jewish women in poverty in medieval Egypt. Without husbands, women were often left without any means of earning a living, though the Jewish community assumed responsibility for providing for widows.
Polish Jewish Women played a complex role in their society and culture during the early Modern Period. This role was usually gender segregated, but upon a closer look, was more gender flexible than one might think.
Bracha Peli was unique among the literary community of pre-state Palestine, creating what was probably the most successful and dynamic publishing house in the country at the time. Born Bronya Kutzenok in Tsarist Russia, Peli had an expansive and highly successful career.
Jessica Blanche Peixotto defied convention and her family to become a respected authority in the field of economics. Through her education, professorship, and departmental leadership at the University of California at Berkeley, she broke down barriers for women in education.
Mollie Parnis’s wit and fashion-savvy made her clothing designs a must during her tenure as a fashion legend. Parnis was equally famed for her New York salons that welcomed literary and political giants and for her fashion designs that adorned first ladies.
Named one of the most powerful women in Hollywood in 2003, Amy Pascal has been president and vice president of several major production companies. As president of Columbia Pictures, she developed multiple major hits and has overseen major franchises like Spiderman and James Bond.
Sylvia Ostry, born in Winnipeg, Canada, was a distinguished economist, academic, and government leader. She taught at universities across Canada, served in numerous government posts, and authored over eighty publications, mostly on policy analysis.
In her too-short life, Vera Paktor reached unprecedented heights for a woman in maritime law, forging regulations for new developments in the shipping industry.
A born saleswoman, Carrie Marcus Neiman made her family’s department stores synonymous with high-end retail fashion. Dallas’s legendary Neiman Marcus specialty store owes its style, its personal brand of service, and its first cache of merchandise to Neiman, the fashion authority who helped launch a retailing concept.
Doña Gracia Nasi was the embodiment of passionate solidarity among exiles. As a young woman she inherited her husband’s fortune, and fled from Lisbon to Venice to Ferrara, where her family lived openly as Jews for the first time. In Constantinople, she assumed a role of leadership in the Sephardi world of the Ottoman Empire.
Lillian Nassau, the doyenne of New York City antiques dealers, was instrumental in the revival of international interest in turn-of-the-century lamps and metalwork.
Mizrahi feminism goes beyond the typical western scope of feminism to include the history and issues that concern women in the Middle East in Israel and in Arab and Muslim countries. An intersectional feminism, it is particularly sensitive to issues of race, class division, immigration, and ethnic discrimination.
