Jewish History

Content type
Collection

Roz Garber

Project
Women Who Dared

Judith Rosenbaum interviewed Roz Garber on July 26th, 2000, in Brookline, Massachusetts, as part of the Women Who Dared project. Garber, a Canadian, shares her journey from choosing to study in the United States and embracing Conservative Judaism, to her work in the Soviet Union, educating and supporting Refuseniks, and her subsequent activism within the Jewish community, recognizing the importance of fighting injustice both at home and abroad.

Barbara Gaffin

Project
Women Who Dared

Judith Rosenbaum interviewed Barbara Gaffin in Boston, Massachusetts on July 11, 2000, as part of the Women Who Dared Oral History Project. Gaffin, raised in a Jewish community, recounts her career in Jewish organizations, her perspective on the relationship between American Jews and Israel, her work in Ethiopia, and the prejudice and contradictions she encountered while helping others.

Heroines, Rescuers, Rabbis, Spies

Q&A with Sarah Silberstein Swartz, Author of "Heroines, Rescuers, Rabbis, Spies: Unsung Women of the Holocaust"

Emma Breitman

JWA sat down with Sarah to discuss her new book, Heroines, Rescuers, Rabbis, Spies: Unsung Women of the Holocaust and the importance of continued Holocaust education.

Topics: Holocaust, Feminism

Diana Shklyarov

Project
Soviet Jewry

Gabriel Weinstein and Aaron Hersh interviewed Diana Shklyarov on November 10, 2016, in Boston, Massachusetts, as part of the Soviet Jewry Oral History Project. Shklyarov discusses her desire to leave the USSR, her family's struggles with denied exit visas, her Jewish identity, experiences with antisemitism, her arrival in the United States, and the importance of Jewish identity in her life now.

Collage of Stars of David and pens on dark blue background

We Need Better Holocaust Education

Sam Mezrich

If non-Jews had more understanding of what our people went through, it would take a lot of emotional labor off the shoulders of Jewish kids.

Rachel Finkelstein's The Herstory shows images of the artist, her daughter, her grandmother, and her great grandmother superimposed onto an identification card.

Rachel Finkelstein's Queer Feminist Holocaust Art

Emily-Rose Baker

Through its exploration of gender, sexuality, nationality, and intergenerational trauma, the work of artist Rachel Finkelstein is a reminder of the power that art holds as a form of activism.

Episode 83: Fighting for Israel's "Chained Women"

In Israel, marriage and divorce are governed by Jewish law and controlled by the ultra-Orthodox rabbinical courts. If a Jewish woman wants a divorce, she has to get permission from her husband—and he can refuse. That's exactly what happens to about 1 in 5 Jewish women in Israel who want a divorce, according to a recent survey. In this episode of 'Can We Talk?,' we speak with Kylie Eisman-Lifschitz, board chair of Mavoi Satum, about how rabbinical control over the divorce process in Israel harms Jewish women, and about how organizations like Mavoi Satum are taking on the problem, by working with women one-on-one, but also by fighting for systemic change. 

Letter from Nāzuk bat Yosef

A Millennium of Jewish Women’s Voices

Sarah Bunin Benor
Abby Graham

HUC-JIR's Jewish Language Project shares their recent exhibit highlighting Jewish women’s voices throughout history in twenty Diaspora Jewish languages.

Episode 82: When Jewish Women Talked to the Dead

In this season of ghosts and haunted houses, we’re taking you back to a time when communicating with the dead was a popular way to spend an evening. Séances were the main practice of the spiritualist movement, which is based on the belief that when people die, they survive as spirits, and that we can talk to these spirits with the help of a medium. The movement had its heyday in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and Jews all over the world, from London to Brooklyn to Cairo, were at the forefront. Scholar Sam Glauber-Zimra explains why spiritualism had such appeal among Jews, what rabbis had to say about it, and why Jewish women were prominent as mediums. 

Jeremy Morrison

Project
Soviet Jewry

Tamar Shachaf Schneider interviewed Rabbi Jeremy Morrison on November 8, 2016, in Brookline, Massachusetts, as part of the Soviet Jewry Oral History Project. Rabbi Morrison recounts his involvement with the Reform Youth Federation of Temple Israel (RYFTI), collecting furniture for Joseph Gilbo's apartment and his experiences with Russian customs, as well as delivering a film on behalf of the Charneys in their bugged apartment in Moscow and a visit to Riga.

Photo of wall covered in hamsas, on a yellow patterned background.

Unity through Symbolism: The Hamsa

Leila Nuri

As a teen with a Muslim-Palestinian father and a Jewish-American mother, the hamsa has always meant a lot to me.

Topics: Crafts, Family, Palestine
Mental Maps—Involuntary Memory by Penny Hes Yassour

From the Archive: Penny Yassour, "Mental Maps—Involuntary Memory"

Deborah Dash Moore
Mimi Jessica Brown Wooten

The Posen Library shares Penny Hes Yassour's depiction of a 1938 German railway map.

Ronne Friedman

Project
Soviet Jewry

Gabriel Weinstein, Tamar Shachaf Schneider, and Aaron Hirsch interviewed Ronne Friedman on November 15, 2016, in Brookline, Massachusetts, as part of the Soviet Jewry Oral History Project. Rabbi Friedman discusses Temple Israel's involvement in the Soviet Jewry movement, missions to the USSR, a tense encounter with customs agents, reconnecting with the Charney family, outreach efforts by Temple Israel, and a meaningful encounter in St. Petersburg.

Sara Schlosser

Project
DAVAR: Vermont Jewish Women's History Project

Sandy Gartner and Ann Buffum interviewed Sara Schlosser on January 19, 2008, in Wolcott, Vermont, as part of DAVAR's Vermont Jewish Women's Oral History Project. Schlosser discusses her family history, childhood, and journey to becoming a vegetarian, her experiences growing up in New Jersey, eventually starting her own family farm, and celebrating Jewish traditions with the local community.

June Salander

Project
DAVAR: Vermont Jewish Women's History Project

Ann Zinn Buffum and Sandra Stillman Gartner interviewed June Salander on June 29, 2005, in Rutland, Vermont, as part of DAVAR’s Vermont Jewish Women’s Oral History Project. Salander recalls her immigration to the United States from Poland as a young girl, settling in Harlem, attending Hebrew School, and her active life as a Red Cross volunteer, Hebrew School teacher, real estate broker, and baker, culminating in her Bat Mitzvah at age 89.

Ilona Friedman

Project
General

Isadora Kianovsky interviewed Ilona Friedman on July 30, 2022, in Tampa, Florida, as part of the Jewish Women’s Archive General Oral History Project. Friedman discusses her childhood in Budapest, her family's experiences during World War II, immigration to the United States, her education and career in the medical field, her relationship to Judaism and music, her travels to Israel and Russia, and recent volunteer work.

Dr. Nigist Mengesha awarded prestigious Rothberg Prize for Jewish Education

June 6, 2010

On June 6, 2010, Ethiopian-Israeli social activist Dr. Nigist Mengesha was awarded the Samuel Rothberg Prize for Jewish Education by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She was selected in recognition of her broad contributions in the field of education in Israel. Dr. Mengesha said that she was “honored to receive the Rothberg Prize,” asserting, “Education is the key to success. But our work is far from over."

Ruth Emmerman Peizer

Project
Weaving Women's Words

Pamela Brown Lavitt interviewed Ruth Emmerman Peizer on June 18 and August 6, 2001, in West Seattle, Washington, as part of the Weaving Women's Words Oral History Project. Peizer discusses her Yiddish upbringing, her parents' immigration, education, work, connection to Yiddishkeit, struggles during the Korean War, motherhood, volunteer work, teaching Yiddish, and volunteering in Latvia.

Joan Nathan

Project
Washington D.C. Stories

Deborah Ross interviewed Joan Nathan on July 12, 2011, in Washington, DC, as part of the Washington D.C. Stories Oral History Project. Nathan reflects on the significance of food to Jewish life, as she recounts her career as a cookbook author, cultural historian, and food writer who combines recipes with stories to educate about Jewish life, tradition, and history.

Blanche Narodick

Project
Weaving Women's Words

Pamela Brown Lavitt interviewed Blanche Narodick on June 6, 2001, in Seattle, Washington for the Weaving Women's Words Oral History Project. Narodick reflects on her childhood, education, professional life in Chicago, marriage, involvement with Jewish organizations, experiences during World War Two, work with the American Red Cross, friendships, and personal philosophy on life.

Anne Levy

Project
Katrina's Jewish Voices

Rosalind Hinton interviewed Anne Levy on November 14, 2006, in New Orleans, Louisiana, as part of the Katrina's Jewish Voices Oral History Project. Levy shares her journey from surviving the Holocaust to settling in New Orleans, her experiences during Hurricane Katrina, the devastation of the city, and her enduring connection to Judaism, family, and New Orleans.

Minna Shavitz

Project
Weaving Women's Words

Marcie Cohen Ferris interviewed Minna Shavitz on March 22, 2001, in Baltimore, Maryland, for the Weaving Women's Words series. Shavitz details her upbringing in the South, encountering antisemitism, her family dynamics, college life, marriage, owning a deli, and the challenges and joys of her personal and professional life.

Marthe Cohn, Holocaust survivor who spied on the Nazis, publishes her memoir

March 28, 2006

After keeping her story secret for years, thinking nobody would believe her, French Holocaust survivor Marthe (Hoffnung) Cohn published her memoir Behind Enemy Lines: The True Story of a French Jewish Spy in Nazi Germany, on March 28, 2006.

Julia Phillips Cohen and Sarah Abrevaya Stein win a National Jewish Book Award for “Sephardi Lives: A Documentary History”

January 14, 2014

On January 14, 2014, Julia Phillips Cohen and Sarah Abrevaya Stein won the National Jewish Book Awards’ Sephardic Culture Mimi S. Frank Award in Memory of Becky Levy for their book Sephardi Lives; A Documentary History, 1700-1950. The National Jewish Book Awards are the longest-running Jewish literature awards in North America.

Madeleine Kunin

Project
DAVAR: Vermont Jewish Women's History Project

Ann Zinn Buffum and Sandra Stillman Gartner interviewed Madeleine Kunin on May 1, 2006, in Burlington, Vermont, as part of DAVAR's Oral History Project. Kunin shares her journey from Switzerland to the United States, her career in journalism, her involvement in Vermont politics as the first woman governor, and her role in education under the Clinton administration.

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