Social Work

Judith Montefiore

Often referred to as the “First Lady of Anglo Jewry,” Judith Montefiore embodied all the Victorian virtues of high moral purpose, sense of duty, charity, and public-mindedness and was also a fierce loyalist to her faith and her people, devoted to Jewish causes and the welfare of Jews the world over.

Lina Morgenstern

In the face of formidable anti-Semitic opposition, Lina Morgenstern was a highly successful feminist author, educator, and peace activist who was supported by many, including the Prussian Empress Augusta. In 1896 she organized the first International Congress of Women in Germany, which was attended by feminist leaders from all over the world.

Eva Violet Mond Isaacs, Second Marchioness of Reading

Lady Eva Violet Mond Isaacs, Marchioness of Reading, was born into one remarkable family and married into another. She occupied a unique place in Anglo-Jewry; as Vice President of the World Jewish Congress and President of its British section she was an eloquent and vocal supporter of the Zionist cause and the young state of Israel.

Henriette May

Henriette May was committed to the upbringing of children and care for needy adults. She was active as a board member and editor for Jewish newspaper Jüdischer Frauenbund starting in 1907, established a home for Jewish women teachers in Berlin, and was a prominent member of numerous welfare institutions.

Irma May

During the economic devastation of the 1920s, Irma May traveled throughout Eastern Europe to report directly on the crisis of antisemitism occurring in the region. While she disappeared from public record during the American Great Depression, May’s work over a decade helped avert disaster for Jewish communities throughout Europe.

Emma B. Mandl

Emma B. Mandl immigrated to the United States at age fifteen and helped found the Baron Hirsch Women’s Club, a major Chicago philanthropic organization. Through the club, where she served as president, Mandl created and led vital institutions for Jewish East European immigrants in Chicago, from orphanages to trade schools to tuberculosis wards.

Minnie Dessau Louis

Minnie Dessau Louis was an essayist, journalist, and poet, but she is best known for her philanthropic work in the Jewish community, largely focusing on women and children. She devoted her life to teaching immigrant Jewish women multiple skills through the many and varied schools she ran and her involvement in the founding of the Hebrew Technical School for Girls and the National Council of Jewish Women.

Johanna Loeb

Johanna Loeb’s philanthropic work extended to both Jewish and secular charities, such as the Home for Crippled Children, the Jewish Consumptive Relief Society of Chicago, the Home for the Jewish Friendless, and Chicago’s first Jewish Community Center. Her career not only strengthened the safety net for the disadvantaged throughout Chicago, but also illuminated the limitations and the potential that women’s philanthropic groups had in Jewish American society’s previously male-dominated community organizations.

Sophie Irene Simon Loeb

At a time when widowed mothers often had no way to support their children, Sophie Irene Simon Loeb helped create support systems for needy children and their mothers. Loeb was one of many women to enter the political arena through reform work, using her life experience and a personalized approach.

Fannie Eller Lorber

When her community became a mecca for adults suffering from tuberculosis, Fannie Eller Lorber created a Jewish children’s home for those who had no one else to care for them. Lorber epitomized the volunteer spirit of urban Jewish women in the American West.

Alice Springer Fleisher Liveright

Social worker Alice Springer Fleisher Liveright devoted much of her life to working for equal rights for women and African Americans, and for social welfare for children and poor adults. Passionate in her quest for social justice, she served as president of the Juvenile Aid Society, president of the Philadelphia Conference of Social Work, and as the Pennsylvania State Secretary of Welfare.

Jennie Davidson Levitt

Jennie Davidson Levitt, daughter of Jewish philanthropists Saul and Mary (Cohen) Davidson, continued her family’s tradition of activism and philanthropy with her work for Jewish organizations. She helped rescue Jewish children during the war, and later lobbied for better medical and psychiatric services.

Edith Altschul Lehman

Known to many as the cultured wife of one of New York’s most popular governors and senators, Edith Altschul Lehman was in her own right a passionate social activist and philanthropist. She funded endeavors from building schools in Israel to creating a children’s zoo in Central Park.

Phyllis Lambert

Phyllis Lambert is a Canadian architect and philanthropist. After receiving her M.S. in architecture in 1963, she established herself as a leader in urban conservation and public architecture. She has received many awards and honors, including the Gold Medal from the Royal Architecture Institute of Canada in 1991—Canada’s most prestigious architectural award.

Gisela Peiper Konopka

Berlin-born Gisela Konopka built an international reputation as a group social worker and expert on youth issues. Lauded for her involvement in the rebuilding of social services and education in post-war Germany and beloved by her students at the University of Minnesota, Konopka received more than 42 awards in her lifetime.

Rebekah Bettelheim Kohut

Rebekah Bettelheim Kohut made her mark on the American Jewish community in the areas of education, social welfare, and the organization of Jewish women. Grounded in her Jewish identity as the daughter and wife of rabbis, Kohut had a public career that paralleled the beginnings of Jewish women’s activism in the United States.

C. Marian Kohn

A product of the Progressive Era and conservative Philadelphia German Jewish society, C. Marian Kohn was a social worker and tireless advocate for working women in the early twentieth century.

Esther Loeb Kohn

Esther Loeb Kohn helped bridge the gap between Chicago’s volunteer and professional social workers and spent thirty years running the Hull House settlement whenever founder Jane Addams was away on her frequent travels.

Rhoda Kaufman

Rhoda Kaufman helped create social welfare organizations throughout Georgia and overcame prejudice against her religion and gender to become one of the most respected social reformers in the country.

Hannah Karminski

During the mid-1920s and the 1930s in Germany, Hannah Karminski served as secretary of the League of Jewish Women and, from 1924 to 1938, as editor of its newsletter. After the forced liquidation of the League in 1938, Karminski remained in Germany and continued her work in the Reich Association of Jews in Germany, assisting with the kindertransports and welfare. She was deported to Auschwitz and murdered in 1942.

Dorothy C. Kahn

During the Great Depression, Dorothy C. Kahn helped pioneer social work as a service provided by the government to all who needed it. Kahn developed, implemented, and advocated for social welfare programs and policies whose underlying principles upheld her deepest beliefs about what social welfare could mean in a democracy.

Juedischer Frauenbund (The League of Jewish Women)

Founded in 1904, The League of Jewish Women pursued secular German feminist goals while maintaining a strong sense of Jewish identity. The League supported vulnerable women through practical social reforms while fighting for political power within the German Jewish community. It saw employment opportunities as essential to women’s economic, psychological, and emotional independence.

"The Jewish Woman" Magazine Cover, October 1921

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