Non-Fiction

Tikva Frymer-Kensky, 1943 - 2006

As a scholar, Dr. Frymer-Kensky challenged her students to study deeply and obtain mastery of their subjects; any less was insufficient. In her writing, she modeled both rigor and relevance…. She wrote in order to bring us the ancient and to create a more just present.

Betty Friedan at ERA March in Washington, DC, July 9, 1978

Betty Friedan, 1921 - 2006

If there was any one woman who could be called the mother of feminism, it was Betty Friedan. Though "second-wave" feminism was a collective endeavor that had many founders, Friedan was the spark plug whose furious indictment of "the problem that had no name" – the false consciousness of "happy housewifery" – set off a revolution more potent than many of the other social and cultural upheavals of the 1960s. The impact of this social movement is still being felt around the world.

"International Encyclopedia of Dance" Front Cover, Edited by Selma Jeanne Cohen

Selma Jeanne Cohen, 1920 - 2005

Despite the difficulty of translating the evanescent nature of dance into words, Selma Jeanne Cohen believed that dance, as much as painting, music and literature, deserved a history of its own. She spent a lifetime creating the structures necessary to making the recording of that history possible….

Sally Cherniavsky Fox, 1929 - 2006

Sally Fox's passion was to gather and share the history of women through visual images. Sometimes this meant finding images of women doing conventional work, but often it meant seeking images of women doing the unexpected…. Her goal was to challenge conventional notions of how women lived their lives in the past.

Ruth Wisse Receives National Humanities Medal

National Humanities Medal awarded to Ruth Wisse

November 15, 2007

Ruth Wisse grew up speaking Yiddish with her family and would make a career of preserving the language’s legacy and literature.

October 2, 2009

Sages and sex therapists - Dr. Ruth's "Heavenly Sex"

Leah Berkenwald

Last Thursday I went to see pioneering sex therapist Dr. Ruth Westheimer talk about her book Heavenly Sex: Sexuality in the Jewish Tradition at Temple Israel in Boston, a program by the New Center for Arts and Culture. This was my first time seeing the legendary Dr. Ruth in person, and as predicted, I was in awe of this teeny-tiny bubbe and her stylish glasses. I was excited to be there with my friends from the Jewish Women's Archive, community partner of the NCAC for this event.

Topics: Psychology and Psychiatry, Non-Fiction

July 14, 2009

Still Jewish: An interview with Keren McGinity

Judith Rosenbaum

Recently, JWA hosted a fascinating webinar with Dr.Keren McGinity on "Gender Matters: a New Framework for Understanding Jewish Intermarriage Over Time." Keren is the author of Still Jewish: A History of Women and Intermarriage in America, and is the Mandell L. Berman Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Contemporary American Jewish Life at the University of Michigan's Frankel Center for Judaic Studies.

Topics: Feminism, Jewish Studies, Social Science, Non-Fiction

April 28, 2009

Podcast: Rita Arditti on Being Invisible in Argentina

Jordan Namerow

As April comes to a close and as we kick off Jewish American Heritage Month in May, we're featuring an oral history clip of Rita Arditti as our podcast of the month. With her lilting Spanish-accented English, Arditti's voice is striking, as her journey is unique - perhaps one that many of us don't immediately associate with Jewish American heritage.

Topics: Activism, Non-Fiction