Philosophy

Louise Glück

Louise Glück, American poet, essayist, and educator, was the recipient of the 2020 Nobel Prize in Literature, as well as numerous other awards for her writing; she also served as poet laureate of the United States from 2003 to 2004. One finds the personal, the mythological, and the Biblical woven intricately throughout Glück’s oeuvre.

Grandmother coloring on paper with her grandchildren. They sit on and around a red couch.

November 6, 2019

My Time on the Line

Neima Fax

ENFP. Extraversion, intuition, feeling, perception. Four words that, according to the Myers-Briggs personality test, define me as a person.

Topics: Summer Camps, Family, Philosophy

Composite Image of the Book of Miriam by Ellen Frankel

April 4, 2018

The Five Books of Miriam

Justine Orlovsky-Schnitzler

At the root of The Five Books of Miriam is our great cultural urge as Jewish people—a desire to question, to be in a constant dialogue with God, with ourselves, and with each other.

Topics: Passover, Midrash and Aggadah, Philosophy, Fiction

December 18, 2017

Two Jews, Many Opinions

Emma Mair

In the 12th century the great Jewish philosopher Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon, commonly referred to as Maimonides, put together the Thirteen Principles of Judaism. The Thirteen Principles serve as the fundamental truths of the Jewish religion, and in many congregations it’s customary to say “Ani Maamin” (I believe) when reciting them.

Topics: Philosophy, Talmud

Henny Wenkart

Through her creation of the Jewish Women’s Poetry Workshop, Henny Wenkart created much-needed community and resources for Jewish women writers.

Marla Brettschneider

As a political philosopher, Marla Brettschneider examined issues of feminist, queer, class-based, and Jewish political theory and activism.

Maralee Gordon

‘How can we include you in the circle?’ replaced the boundary line keeping the ‘abnormal’ out.

Ayn Rand delivers manuscript of "The Fountainhead" to her publisher

December 31, 1942

Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead (delivered to her publisher on December 31, 1942), was the first of Rand's novels to win a wide following for the p

Hannah Arendt at the University of Maryland, 1965

Hannah Arendt's "Eichmann in Jerusalem" appears in "The New Yorker"

February 16, 1963

When Hannah Arendt published her first article about Adolf Eichmann's war crimes trial in The New Yorker in its February 16, 1963 issue, s

Susan Sontag

Susan Sontag was one of the most prominent American writers of the twentieth century. Her work across cultural criticism, fiction, drama, and film, as well as her public persona, made her an icon of the New York intelligentsia whose writing on photography, illness, and art continually inspire engagement and debate.

Sabbateanism

Sabbateanism—a messianic movement of unprecedented duration and scope—was centered on the charismatic personality of Shabbetai Zevi, who was believed by many to be the ultimate redeemer and an incarnate aspect of the kabbalistic godhead. Uniquely in the history of rabbinic Judaism, Sabbateanism displayed a particular interest in women and was especially attractive to them.

Ayn Rand

Ayn Rand was a Russian-American Jewish author and philosopher. Her most famous novels, The Fountainhead (1943) and Atlas Shrugged (1957), promote her philosophy of ethics called “Objectivism.”

Judith Jarvis Thomson

Judith Jarvis Thomson was a twentieth-century American philosopher who made major contributions to ethical discussions both within and beyond the walls of the university. In her four-decade career, Thomson published important papers in ethics, metaphysics, and the philosophy of law, including the widely anthologized essays “A Defense of Abortion” (1971) and “The Trolley Problem” (1985), both of which apply the techniques of analytic philosophy to questions of morality.

Ruth Barcan Marcus

Ruth Barcan Marcus was a prominent twentieth-century American logician and philosopher who made pioneering contributions to modal logic and metaphysics. She taught at Yale university for more than two decades and was a key figure in American philosophical debates during the second half of the twentieth century.

Tehilla Lichtenstein

Tehilla Lichtenstein co-founded the Society of Jewish Science with her husband as an alternative to Christian Science, creating a small but passionate following and carving a place for herself as a congregational leader.

Sarah Kofman

Sarah Kofman was a French Jewish philosopher and professor who published many books on Freud, Nietzsche, Rousseau, and more.

Margarete Kahn

German mathematician Margarete Kahn worked with fellow Jewish woman Klara Löbenstein and their essential contribution to a famed problem was cited in the publications of several others. Despite earning her doctorate and having a significant impact in her field, Kahn was unable to earn a post-doctoral degree due to discrimination against women, and she worked as a teacher until she was deported by the Nazis.

Dore Jacobs

Dore Jacobs developed her own pedagogy, which viewed physical education as a holistic project, out of which came her own unique method of gymnastics. In 1923 she founded her School for Physical Education and Rhythmic Development; she was also a founding member of the German socialist organization called the Bund-Gemeinschaft für Sozialistisches Leben.

A portrait of Miriam Markel Mosessohn, wearing a dress with a frilled collar

Haskalah Attitudes Toward Women

Just as the many well-known thinkers of the Enlightenment debated the proper role of women in society, so did the maskilim, the men of intellect who burst upon Ashkenazi Jewish society in the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century revolution known as Haskalah. Dominated by men, the movement critiqued Jewish tradition and encouraged modernity among Jews, but simultaneously met Jewish women’s pursuit of modernity with ambivalence.

Käte Hamburger

Käte Hamburger was a German literary scholar and philosopher who developed a philosophical theory of literature.

Hélène Cixous

Jewish-Algerian-French writer Hélène Cixous published her first book in 1967 and approximately her eighty-seventh in February 2021. This “life writing” comprises poetic fiction and autobiography, literary and feminist theory, art criticism, and theatrical works. Cixous explores the myriad contradictions and consequences of loss and exile, of “being Jewish” and “being a woman.”

Carry Van Bruggen

Fighting the constraints of her Orthodox upbringing and expectations of her role as a wife and mother, novelist Carry van Bruggen wrote movingly of both the need for freedom and the isolation it could bring.

May Brodbeck

May Brodbeck, whose career in the sciences ran the gamut from teaching high school chemistry to exploring fundamental philosophical questions about the nature of human consciousness, was among the foremost American-born philosophers of science.

Elisabeth Badinter

Elisabeth Badinter is one of France’s most prominent and controversial philosophers. Among her most important contributions figure her numerous writings about feminism and gender relations, which emphasize the importance of “equality through resemblance,” as well as her historical works on the Enlightenment.

Hannah Arendt

Brilliant and controversial, Hannah Arendt was a German-trained political theorist whose books exerted a major impact on political theory in North America and Europe. The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951) made her an intellectual celebrity in the early years of the Cold War. She was the first woman to become a full professor at Princeton University.

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