Politics and Government

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Collection

Esther Herlitz

Esther Herlitz was a feminist trailblazer in Israeli politics and diplomacy. She was the first official female Israeli ambassador, among six female Labor Party members who served in the eighth and ninth Knessets, and the first woman to serve on the Committee for Foreign Affairs and Defense. She also helped formulate and ensure the passage of a liberal abortion law in 1977.

Florence Heller

An important benefactress of Brandeis University, Florence Grunsfeld Heller made her mark as one of the first women to run a general Jewish organization, the Jewish Welfare Board. She also founded the Florence Heller Graduate School for Advanced Studies in Social Welfare at Brandeis in 1959.

Ellen Phyllis Hellmann

Delving into the appalling disparities and conditions of Black South Africans through her anthropological research as a student, Ellen Phyllis Hellmann dedicated her life to South African racial justice causes, playing a crucial role in the work of the South African Institute of Race Relations. Her opposition to the apartheid regime led her into politics, where she was a founding member of the liberal Progressive Party.

Judith Hendel

For over fifty years, Israeli author Yehudit Hendel succeeded brilliantly in making a presence of her bold, independent, “other” voice, bringing us face to face, in her own way, with the fragilities of an Israeliness in search of itself.

Lina Frank Hecht

Lina Frank Hecht was a prominent figure in the Jewish philanthropic community in late nineteenth-century Boston. Known for the creation of a Jewish Sunday school for new immigrants, Hecht influenced generations of children through her leadership and generosity.

Hebrew Song, 1880-2020

Hebrew song as a whole, including songs of Erez Israel and the State of Israel, is a unique socio-cultural phenomenon that has developed over time. The dawning of Hebrew song can be traced to the period between 1880 and 1903, and it has grown to reflect the diverse aspects of Israeli society since then. The contribution of women to Hebrew songs, in general, has risen steadily over the years. 

Bela Ya’ari Hazan

On the outbreak of World War II, Bela Hazan escaped her hometown of Rozyszcze, Poland, for Vilna, where she worked as a smuggler for the Dror movement. She was arrested by the Gestapo in 1942 and sent to Auschwitz, where she served as a nurse, then to Ravensbruck, and finally to Leipzig, from which she was liberated. She immigrated to Israel, where she died in 2004.

Hebrew Drama: Representation of Women

Prior to the 1980s, there was an almost total absence of women-related topics and women’s voices in Hebrew theater, but many talented women have fought for their voices to be heard on the Hebrew stage. Today, active women playwrights whose plays are presented in mainstage and fringe theaters have a significant impact on Hebrew theater.

Hasidic Women in the United States

Hasidic women belong to various sects of Judaism’s most religiously observant and traditional communities. Postwar Hasidism took root and thrived in many U.S. cities; while women remain dedicated to domestic responsibilities, with large family sizes and a high birth rate, many also work outside the home and/or are college-educated religious activists. .

Rita Eleanor Hauser

Rita E. Hauser’s was a trailblazer for women in law, politics, and foreign affairs at a time when few women entered the legal profession or achieved top-level positions in business and politics. Her dual background in politics and international law led to her key role in persuading Yasser Arafat and the Palestine Liberation Organization to recognize Israel and renounce terrorism.

Sylvia Hassenfeld

One of the most important American Jewish communal leaders and philanthropists of the twentieth century, Sylvia Hassenfeld led the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) through the humanitarian crisis of the Soviet Union’s collapse and the massive airlift of Ethiopian Jews to Israel.

Hasidism

Hasidism is a spiritual revival movement associated with the founding figure of Israel Ba’al Shem Tov (Besht, c. 1700–1760). Although some have depicted the movement as nothing less than a “feminist” revolution in early modern Judaism, in actuality the Hasidic movement of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries conceptualized gender in conventional terms drawn unquestioningly from the classical rabbinic, philosophical, and kabbalistic sources.

Zena Harman

Zena Harman, diplomat, parliamentarian and social innovator, helped lay the foundation for Israel's advanced network of social services, became one of Israel's foremost diplomats in Israel's formative years, and helped to establish a series of civil society organizations concerned with protecting children's rights, empowering women, and promoting greater civic engagement in public life in Israel.

Janet Harris

Janet Simons Harris shepherded the National Council of Jewish Women through one of the most divisive times in its history and led both national and international efforts for women’s rights. The organization grew during her tenure, and she continued to do national and international volunteer work with multiple other organizations until her retirement.

Reina Hartmann

Reina Goldstein Hartmann focused her career on improving the lives of Jewish women in her native Chicago, serving as the leader of the Mothers Aid of the Chicago Lying-In Hospital and Dispensary as well as other organizations.

Marion Hartog

Marion Hartog and her sister Celia published influential poetry and books on Jewish themes, including works that were among the first fictions ever published by Jewish women anywhere in the world. Hartog later created and edited the first Jewish women’s periodical in history, The Jewish Sabbath Journal.

Julia Horn Hamburger

A long-time volunteer, Julia Horn Hamburger was founding president of the New York Children’s Welfare League, which offered health and education services to immigrant children, the founding vice president of the Jewish Theater for Children and founding president of Ivriah, the women’s division of the Jewish Education Association. During WWII she shifted her focus to aiding the American Jewish Committee and the Anti-Nazi League.

Hadassah: Yishuv to the Present Day

Hadassah, the Women’s Zionist Organization of America (HWZOA) has a lengthy history of activity in the Yishuv and Israel, going back to 1913, about a year after it was founded in New York, and continuing to this day. This activity, outstanding in its scope, continuity, stability, and diversity, encompasses efforts in the sphere of health and medical services and in the welfare of children and youth.

Hadassah School of Nursing: First Graduating Class

Nursing was not recognized as a profession in Israel until 1918, when the American Zionist Medical Unit, which later became the Hadassah Medical Organization, opened a nursing school. The first graduates were the leaders and pioneers of the nursing profession in Israel.

Bracha Habas

Bracha Habas was an educator and one of the first professional women journalists in Erez Israel. She was a member of Davar’s editorial board and the co-founder of its children’s newspaper, Davar le-Yeladim. Enumerating on Habas’s 48 publications, Rahel Adir described her as “the recorder of Yishuv history.”

Habsburg Monarchy: Nineteenth to Twentieth Centuries

Jewish women in the Habsburg Monarchy experienced the stresses and strains of nineteenth- and twentieth-century Jewish life as Jews, as women of their particular social classes, and as inhabitants of the different regions of the Monarchy. In some regions, they modernized and acculturated, but the overwhelming majority remained deeply pious, traditional Jews.

Marjorie Guthrie

First a dancer, then a teacher, Marjorie Guthrie founded the Woody Guthrie Children’s Fund and Archive in 1956 to preserve her husband’s works for future audiences. By the end of her life, she was a national activist for Huntington’s Disease and other genetic and neurological diseases.

Rivka Guber

Through her work as a soldier, writer, teacher, and volunteer supporting immigrants, Rivka Guber exhibited selflessness for her neighbors and for the young State of Israel as a whole, earning her the title “Mother of the Sons” and the respect of the nation.

Ida Espen Guggenheimer

Ida Espen Guggenheimer, a woman with a deeply ingrained sense of social awareness, was an early twentieth-century Zionist, a feminist, and a civil rights activist.

Sidonie Matsner Gruenberg

As director of the Child Study Association of America, Sidonie Matsner Gruenberg blended the best research on child development and her own experience as a mother of four, publishing numerous books and articles on parenting. She was a leader and publicist in the parent education movement and an authority in the field of child study.

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