Politics and Government

Content type
Collection

Berta Singerman

Berta Singerman (1901-1998) was an Argentine actress and reciter of poetry, famous throughout the Ibero-American cultural world. Born in Russia to a family of traditional singers (chazanim), she immigrated to Buenos Aires, Argentina, when she was four years old.

Bettina Aptheker

Bettina Aptheker is an American feminist, writer, educator, and political activist. She advocated for racial justice, studied and taught African American women’s history, and founded the Feminist Studies department at the University of California at Santa Cruz.

Collage of Belle Winestine on green background

Representing Perspectives in Wisconsin Across Generations

Talia Richmond

I find my work with the local board of education to be an exciting demonstration of one of the most foundational elements of a representative democracy: pluralism.

Collage of Emma Goldman with her signature and name in Yiddish

Education, Activism, and Anarchy: Examining Emma Goldman’s Legacy

Aria Lynn-Skov

Balancing the good with the questionable doesn’t mean we should ignore the harder parts of history, but in the end, it’s important to focus on what we can learn from them.

Collage of landscapes and doves

Nagorno-Karabakh is a Feminist Issue

Sara Weinstein

This political boundary dispute is a feminist issue because the permanent residents of Nagorno Karabakh are disproportionately women and girls with very few resources or basic necessities.

Collage of line drawings of women and Iran on tan patterned background

For Iranian Women Who Break the Laws About Their Dress

Talia Waxman

Could the solidarity that Iranians have shown towards Israelis and that Israeli women have shown towards Iranian women be the beginning of peace between the two nations?

Collage of torn paper forming a stylized American flag

Voting Rights in the U.S., From the Women’s Suffrage Movement to Now

Lucy Targum

As a feminist who cares about voting equality, it is clear to me that current voting rights advocacy is in part descended from the women's suffrage movement.

Collage of outline of Iran and Roya Hakakian

Speaking Out as an Iranian Jewish Woman

Shamim Elyaszadeh

As the daughter of two Iranian immigrants, I am compelled to take advantage of the opportunities and privileges my mother, aunts, and grandmothers were deprived of.

Collage of Jewish Women Who Died in 2023

Jewish Women Whose Memories I’m Carrying into 2024

Judith Rosenbaum

The year 2023 brought the deaths of several powerful and influential Jewish women, whose insights and voices changed the world and are all the more painful to lose in this difficult time. 

Collage of Shulamit Aloni on patterned blue and white background

Is It Possible to Be A Left-Wing Zionist?

Ava Cohen

While it may not be exactly the case right now, there have been many people in Israel’s short history that have gone against the grain to form progressive parties in the government, like Shulamit Aloni.

Topics: Zionism, Activism

Chai Feldblum

Chai Feldblum is a distinguished lawyer and legal scholar known especially for her work advocating for the rights of disabled and LGBTQIA people. She was the lead drafter of the landmark Americans with Disabilities Act, as well as many other important bills affirming the rights of marginalized Americans. In 2009, President Barack Obama appointed her to the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

Ruth Fein

Project
General

Sylvia Greene interviewed Ruth Fein on June 12, 1992, in Brookline, Massachusetts. Ruth discusses her family history, childhood in Washington, DC, and experiences living in Chapel Hill, Washington, DC, and Boston, highlighting her early exposure to politics, encounters with anti-Semitism, education at Goucher College and Johns Hopkins University, as well as her marriage to Rashi Fein and their life in different communities, underscoring the varying levels of political engagement and her extensive volunteer work in Boston and Washington.

Two people holding signs that read "Vote Samantha Perlman"

Q & A with Samantha Perlman, City Councilor and Mayoral Candidate

Zia Saylor

JWA chats with Samantha Perlman, a city councilor and mayoral candidate for Marlborough, Massachusetts about the Jewish women who inspired her to run for office, how she responds to pushback about her age and gender, and showing young people they can be drivers of change.

Moroccan Jewish Women and Politics

Jewish women have been involved in Moroccan politics since at least the nineteenth century. From a Jewish martyr of the early nineteenth century, to a twenty-first century Jewish woman running for parliament, Morocco has been home to remarkable Jewish women participating in political life.

Raffi Freedman-Gurspan becomes first openly transgender person to work as a White House staffer

August 15, 2015

On August 18, 2015, Raffi Freedman-Gurspan, hired by Barack Obama, became the first openly transgender person to be a White House staffer when she began work as Outreach and Recruitment Director in the Presidential Personnel Office at the White House.  

Stack of books against collage of the Ukrainian and Russian flags

The Enemy is Putin, Not Pushkin: Literature and Free Expression during the Russian Invasion of Ukraine

Nora Auburn

Masha Gessen’s departure from PEN is about artist versus art institution, colonial power versus subject, and the paradoxical notion of uplifting some voices by silencing others.

Susan Maze-Rothstein

Project
Women Who Dared

Judith Rosenbaum interviewed Susan Maze-Rothstein on January 25, 2002, in Brookline, Massachusetts, for the Women Who Dared Oral History Project. Maze-Rothstein reflects on her family background, experiences with Judaism, activism in addressing diversity and anti-racist education, challenges of being an outsider in both the Jewish and African-American communities, her commitment to social justice as a lawyer and judge, and her inspiration from influential figures like Martin Luther King Jr. and Maya Angelou.

Gertrude Webb

Project
Women Who Dared

Judith Rosenbaum interviewed Gertrude (Goldie) Mikel Webb on January 15, 2002, in Waltham, Massachusetts, for the Women Who Dared Oral History Project. Webb, a Boston educator, discusses her Jewish upbringing, a career in teaching students with learning disabilities, and ongoing commitment to helping others influenced by her Jewish heritage.

Donald and Fran Putnoi

Project
Soviet Jewry

Gabriel Weinstein, Tamar Shachaf Schneider, and Aaron Hersh interviewed Donald and Fran Putnoi in Massachusetts, as part of the Soviet Jewry Oral History Project. Fran and Dr. Donald Putnoi share their involvement with Action for Soviet Jewry, discussing their experiences with Rabbi Mehlman, missions to the USSR, treating patients, and their efforts in supporting Soviet Jews resettling in the United States.

Judith Wolf

Project
Women Who Dared

Julie Johnson interviewed Judith Wolf on February 23, 2005, in Boston, Massachusetts, as part of the Women Who Dared Oral History Project. Wolf reflects on her Jewish upbringing, volunteer work, religious schooling, and efforts to establish educational resources for disabled children in Ukraine, emphasizing the role of women and Jewish values in her life.

Flora Benenson Solomon

Flora Benenson Solomon’s deep commitments to welfare and Zionism traversed geographical boundaries and social groups. From her efforts to improve the lives of Jewish and Arab communities in Palestine to the her work on behalf of garment workers in England, Solomon maintained an unwavering commitment to Zionism, which acted as a sustainer of Jewish identity in England.  

Aliza Parker

Project
General

Jayne Guberman interviewed Aliza Parker on February 13 and March 28, 2008, in Brookline, Massachusetts, as part of the Jewish Women's Archive's general oral history project. Parker discusses her family history, upbringing in Brooklyn, involvement in Zionist youth movements, experiences in Israel, teaching career, participation in a Jewish study group, and reflections on her marriage, children, and the evolving world and Israel.

Gold line drawings of woman, mask, and tambourine on blue and gold background

The Megillah's Two Models of Leadership

Maya Viswanathan

Megillat Esther reminds us of a different way to lead, a different way to change the world.

Rebecca Young

Project
Women Who Dared

Judith Rosenbaum interviewed Rebecca Young on January 29, 2002, in Boston, Massachusetts, as part of the Women Who Dared Oral History Project. Young reflects on her upbringing in poverty, the loss of her mother, the reconnection to her Jewish identity, her activism in prison reform and prisoners' rights, and her involvement in various social causes including women's rights, anti-poverty, and anti-apartheid.

Sara Dalkowitz Kaplan

Project
Weaving Women's Words

Roz Bornstein interviewed Sara Kaplan on December 4, 2002, in Seattle, Washington, as part of the Weaving Women's Words Oral History Project. Kaplan discusses her Jewish upbringing, experiences as the only Jewish kid in her town, involvement in debate and Hillel, meeting her husband, moving to Seattle, working in the Democratic Party, fighting antisemitism, teaching, and support for Israel.

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