Painter, printmaker, teacher, poet, celebrated raconteur, and art activist, Theresa Bernstein was an enduring fixture in the art worlds of New York and the summer colony at Gloucester, Massachusetts, for ninety years. Her paintings and prints are now in museums across the country, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Smithsonian Institution.

A lawyer by training, Vienna-born Clementine Bern-Zernik produced broadcasts for the US Office of War Information in London during the war, served as the director of a Displaced Persons Camp in post-war Germany, and spent the last 50 years of her life as a UN liaison to the New York Public Library. Throughout her life she maintained a strong Austrian identity and was a founding member of the Austrian-American Federation.

Anne Fleischman Bernays is an American editor, novelist, and nonfiction writer. Her literary work is notable for its exploration of Jewish experiences of America, the pressure of assimilation, and the then-taboo subject of sexual harassment.

Libbie Suchoff Berkson was beloved by generations of campers as Aunt Libbie, director of Camp Modin for girls. She helped to establish the Jewish summer camp and ran it for decades, even while living in Israel and working on several other projects, such as a kindergarten and a teahouse.

Cora Berliner was an economist and social scientist who held leadership positions in several major Jewish organizations in Germany between 1910 and 1942. These organizations included the Association of Jewish Youth Organizations in Germany, the Reich Representation of German Jews, and the League of Jewish Women.

A courageous, motivated pioneer in medicine, in the late 1800s Fanny Berlin became one of the first Jewish women to practice surgery in the United States and the respected chief surgeon of a major hospital.

Elisabeth Bergner, born in Austrian Galicia, was one of the most successful and popular stage and screen actresses in pre-World War II Germany, known for her superior artistic skills and wide variety of roles. During the war, she helped actors escape Germany. She was honored with the Schiller Prize of the City of Mannheim, the Ernst Lubitsch Prize, and the Austrian Cross of Merit for Science and Art. 

Helen Bentwich was an active community organizer, activist, and local politician. She and her husband, Norman, aided in helping people escape Nazi persecution and split their time between Palestine and England for many years.

Rahel Yanait Ben-Zvi was the second First Lady of Israel, wife to President Yizhak Ben-Zvi. Before and after Ben-Zvi’s tenure, she was active in the labor movement in Palestine and Israel and in the independence movement, as well as a prolific writer and recorder of her experiences in Erez Israel.

Yehudit Ben-Natan is most known for her time as the head of the Israel Defense Forces’ Women’s Corps, where she waged a fierce campaign against the conservatism that marked everything related to the opening to women of new military occupations. She was particularly active in promoting women serving in the career army and tried to integrate women into combat units.

Mina Ben-Zvi was among the first women to serve in the military in Palestine, first as part of the British Auxiliary Territorial Service, then in local Zionist paramilitary organizations that eventually became the Israeli Defense Forces. She became the first commanding officer of the IDF’s Women’s Corps in 1948.

Born in Latvia before immigrating to Baltimore as a child, Dorothy Jacobs Bellanca was one of America’s most remarkable women’s labor leaders. An outstanding union organizer and a captivating speaker, Bellanca understood the problems of the working class—people of all genders, ages, and backgrounds—and sought to improve conditions for workers.

Netiva Ben Yehuda was a Jewish-Israeli writer, poet, broadcaster, and Palmah officer. Ben Yehuda’s works surround her experiences before, during, and after her service in the Jewish underground Palmah and her dedication to enriching the lexicon of spoken Hebrew.