For two and half decades, former New York family court Judge Judith Sheindlin has riveted daytime viewers, racked up awards, and sold thousands of books to people hungry for the tough love of a tough Jewish mother. Millions of viewers who watch Judge Judy every day are treated to many Yiddish words and wisdom the jurist uses on a parade of deserving participants who enter her TV studio courtroom.

Australian lawyer Joan Rosanove was the first woman in Victoria to work specifically as a courtroom lawyer. Flamboyant and feisty, she was an outspoken champion of women’s rights and battled, with grace and characteristic good humor, the sexist attitudes that inevitably laid obstacles across her path.

Convicted of stealing lace from a London store in 1786, Esther Abrahams was transported to Australia for seven years’ penal servitude and arrived there with her baby daughter in 1788. She is an iconic figure in Australian history, having almost immediately become the lover, and much later the wife, of a Scottish marine officer who rose to be one of the wealthiest and most powerful man in New South Wales.

Before Edie Windsor became an LGBT activist, she was a computer programmer at IBM in the 1960s and a mentor to women in the field. When her joyous 44-year relationship with Thea Spyer ended with Thea’s death, Edie sued the federal government to recognize their marriage. She took her case all the way to the Supreme Court, winning recognition for the marriages of all same-sex couples in the U.S.

Advancing Women Professionals and the Jewish Community (AWP) was founded by Shifra Bronznick in 2001 as an intervention “to advance Jewish women into leadership, stimulate new models of shared leadership, and promote policies for healthy, effective workplaces.” Over fifteen years, AWP conducted groundbreaking research and adapted strategies from other sectors that engaged women and men in decisive, systems-based change.

Meyera Oberndorf blazed trails in Virginia politics as the first woman and first Jewish mayor of Virginia Beach, the largest city in the Commonwealth. From 1988 to 2008, she stood up to a long-ingrained good old boy network and led the city through difficult issues including racial unrest, all while staying closely connected to her citizens as “the people’s mayor.”

Bessie Margolin was raised in New Orleans’s Jewish orphanage, where she learned powerful lessons in social justice that propelled her trailblazing legal career through the New Deal and Nazi War Crimes Trials to the United State Supreme Court, where she championed the rights of millions of American workers. A reluctant feminist who became the nation’s top fighter for equal pay for women and a co-founder of NOW, Margolin used intellect and charm to open courtroom doors for countless women who have followed.

Sally Gottesman, born 1962 in New Jersey and residing in New York, is a non-profit entrepreneur whose leadership and philanthropy have had a major impact on the Jewish feminist and justice landscape.

Karen Gerson Sarhon, founder and vocalist of the Sephardic music group Los Pasharos Sefaradis, is coordinator of the Sephardic Culture Research Center in Istanbul, Turkey, and chief editor of El Amaneser, the world's only newspaper wholly in Judeo-Spanish/Ladino. She continues to produce innovative projects for the preservation and promotion of Sephardic culture and language.

Miriam “Miri” Regev is a former Brigadier-General in the Israel Defense Forces Spokesperson’s Unit and a current member of the Knesset in the Likud party. As a member of the Knesset, Regev has held government postings as Minister of Culture and Sport and Minister of Transportation and Road Safety.

A perennial firebrand of the Israeli Right, Geulah Cohen was a major fixture in Israeli politics from the pre-state era through to the twenty-first century. She was a Lehi-affiliated member of the Jewish Underground in British Mandatory Palestine, served in five Knessets from 1974 to 1992, and was one of the first prominent female Israeli politicians of Mizrahi origin.

Tzipi Livni is a politician, lawyer, and diplomat who has held the more government roles than any other woman in Israeli history. Widely respected for being judicious and resolute, Livni is most known for her long tenure in the Israeli Knesset with the Likud, Kadima, Hatunah, and Zionist Union parties, for her role as a leader in Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations, and for her longstanding commitment to advancing international diplomacy.

Cecylia Klaften, a pedagogue and a civic activist from Lvov (Galicia/Eastern Lesser Poland), implemented social reform projects and especially promoted the founding of vocational schools for women in interwar Poland. In the 1920s she was one of the founders of the Jewish Women’s Association and the WIZO Jewish Women’s Organization for Pro-Palestinian Work in Lvov. In the 1930s she was politically active for Lvov’s City Council.

Róża Pomeranc Melcer was a social reformer, feminist, and Zionist active in Galicia and later in Eastern Lesser Poland. She was the first and only Jewish Member of Parliament in the Second Polish Republic (1918-1939) and championed the goals of modern Zionist women's politics.

Leslie Feinberg was a self-described “anti-racist white, working-class, secular Jewish, transgender, lesbian, female, revolutionary communist.” She worked at the nexus of trans, feminist, lesbian, critical race, Jewish, and class politics. A speaker and author, Feinberg was a gifted activist and political organizer.