Jewish History

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Regina Mundlak

Regina Mundlak was a skilled artist who exhibited her works in Warsaw at the Society for Promotion of Fine Arts and at the Aleksander Krywult Salon, and the Cassirer Salon in Berlin. She was interested in depicting Jewish life in the Diaspora, first through sketched portraits and later with oil paint. In 1942 she was probably deported from the Warsaw Ghetto to the Treblinka extermination camp.

Moshavah

Women played important roles in the moshavot (villages), the pioneer settlement form created by the Jews in Palestine at its formative period 1882-1914. Various types of women in the moshava had significant roles in creating the “new Jew” of the second generation and in establishing and consolidating the moshavot.

Elsa Morante

Elsa Morante (1912-1985) was an Italian author whose writing often addressed persecution and injustice. After fleeing Fascist authorities during World War II, Morante traveled extensively while continuing to write prolifically; she later won the Viareggio literary prize, Strega Prize, and Prix Medicis.

Elinor Morgenthau

Elinor Morgenthau’s accomplishments were largely invisible, as she helped her husband, Henry Morgenthau, Jr., rise to great heights in Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s administration. Because of her sharp political and social skills, she often filled in for her husband, and eventually she became Eleanor Roosevelt’s assistant in the Office of Civilian Defense.

Lina Morgenstern

In the face of formidable anti-Semitic opposition, Lina Morgenstern was a highly successful feminist author, educator, and peace activist who was supported by many, including the Prussian Empress Augusta. In 1896 she organized the first International Congress of Women in Germany, which was attended by feminist leaders from all over the world.

Deborah Dash Moore

Deborah Dash Moore is a leading scholar of American Jewish history. Her influential work has focused on both urban and visual Jewish history in locales from New York to Miami to Los Angeles. A prolific interpreter of Jewish and American culture, Moore has played a key role in making American Jewish history a recognized subfield in the academy.

Mizrahi Feminism in Israel

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.

Mo'ezet Ha-Po'alot (Council of Women Workers)

The Mo’ezet Ha-Poalot was founded in 1921 as the women’s branch of the Histadrut, the General Federation of Workers in mandatory Palestine. In the name of women workers, the organization struggled for many years for equality in the eyes of the Histadrut, though it ultimately came to represent more broadly the interests of Jewish women in Palestine and Israel, including immigrants and housewives.

Marga Minco

Marga Minco (b. 1920) is a Dutch writer famous for her literary work relating to the Holocaust and for her economical use of words. Both topic and writing style have made her work unique.

Hélène Metzger

Hélène Metzger was a French historian of chemistry and a philosopher of science, whose work remains influential today. Her independence and drive brought her great recognition, despite the lack of credibility given to her as a woman.

Jacqueline Mesnil-Amar

Jacqueline Mesnil-Amar struggled between her allegiance to French culture and her identity as a Jewish person. In her published journal, she perceptively documented the abandonment of French Jews during the Holocaust and the struggles of assimilated French Jews.

Lise Meitner

Lise Meitner’s influential work concerning radioactivity in the early 20th century made her a target of the Nazis. She fled to Sweden in 1938, and it was there that she discovered the power of the fission reaction. Even though Meitner never worked on nuclear weapons, her 1939 research was essential in the research of nuclear power.

Women Journalists in Israel

Despite social barriers, Jewish women have played an essential role in the creation and propagation of news and journalism in Israel. With the advent of women’s magazines and the popularization of television, women became particularly involved in the news industry. However, while the numbers of female Israeli journalists have increased, women journalists still face gender-based discrimination. In recent years, many have become vocal members of women’s rights movements such as #MeToo and advocates for a more equitable future.

Irma May

During the economic devastation of the 1920s, Irma May traveled throughout Eastern Europe to report directly on the crisis of antisemitism occurring in the region. While she disappeared from public record during the American Great Depression, May’s work over a decade helped avert disaster for Jewish communities throughout Europe.

Judith Marquet-Krause

Judith Marquet-Krause was an archeologist who contributed her talents to early twentieth-century excavations of ancient cities across Palestine, most notably leading the excavation of Ai.

Lilli Marx

Born in Berlin, Lilli Marx emigrated to England as a young adult but returned to Germany, where she helped institute a national Jewish weekly newspaper and worked to create a dialogue between German society and the Jewish community. She contributed to the creation of several Jewish organizations, notably the League of Jewish Women, and continued to work in social work until her death.

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.

Mariamme I The Hasmonean

Mariamme, granddaughter of the last Hasmonean rulers, was the wife of King Herod of the new dynasty. After bearing him five children, she was executed by the king in 27 B.C.E.

Ada Maimon (Fishman)

One of the “spiritual mothers” of Jewish feminism in Israel, Ada Maimon founded the women's labor organization, Mo'ezet Ha-Po'a lot, and served in the first Knesset. In each of her many positions, she viewed her role as being a religious and spiritual one.

Johanna Löwenherz

Johanna Löwenherz traveled widely on behalf of Germany’s socialist women’s movement, raising consciousness and lecturing on the social, economic, and legal equality of women. She became one of the most active representatives of the SDP in the Neuwied region, elected as a delegate to three regional party conferences.

Zivia Lubetkin

Zivia Lubetkin was an important member of the underground resistance movement in Poland during World War II, and later an active member of the United Kibbutz Movement in Palestine.

Hildegard Löwy

Born in 1922, Hildegard Löwy was the youngest member of the Baum Gruppe, a mainly Jewish resistance group against the Nazis. She had firm Zionist and pacifist principles and believed communism was the best way for Jews to obtain equal rights. Arrested in April 1942, Löwy tried to escape from prison but was ultimately convicted of Communist treason and executed in a Berlin prison.

Marceline Loridan-Ivens

Marceline Loridan-Ivens, a French activist of the heart, was a writer, filmmaker, producer and actress whose experience of the Shoah, as a fourteen-year-old girl in Birkenau, marked the rest of her extraordinary life and work. As one of the most eloquent advocates for humanity and the power of memory, her reflection on identity as a Jewish woman is everywhere, from her committed documentary work with Jean Rouch and with her husband Joris Ivens, to her sensitive and moving writing of philosophical memoirs, to her writing and direction of what has become a classic of Jewish cinema, La Petite Prairie aux Bouleaux.

Deborah Lipstadt

Deborah D. Lipstadt is an American Jewish historian of issues surrounding understanding the Holocaust, ranging from reception of news of the extermination of European Jews to denial of the existence of the Holocaust. Lipstadt achieved renown for her defense against libel brought by David Irving, a British Holocaust denier. Her dramatic trial was transformed into a film starring Rachel Weisz.

Sarah Lishansky

A politically active nurse and midwife, Sarah Lishansky used her career to treat and care for workers in the Yishuv during the Second Aliyah.

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