2010: The Year in Review

Last year, as we closed out the first decade of the new millennium, I put together a massive link roundup of the milestones made by Jewish women over the past 10 years, the decade in Jewish women's history. True to form, Jewish women made 2010 their own, kicking off the second decade of the millennium by making headlines, breaking ceilings, and making their voices heard.

The best known milestones are featured in JWA's list of the Top 10 Moments for Jewish Women in 2010, but there are a lot more stories to remember and celebrate. Here is a more complete list of Jewish women's history made in 2010. Please help round out the list by adding other milestones in the comments.

January

• The national Jewish community organized and raised money for disaster relief in Haiti.
• Sarah Hurwitz adopts the title of "Rabba"  

February

• Hasia Diner's We Remember with Reverence and Love won the Celebrate 350 Award in American Jewish Studies
• Laura Spector made her Olympic debut in Vancouver, competing in the women's biathlon 
• We celebrated modern dance pioneer Anna Sokolow's 100th birthday across the nation

March

• Rosalie Silberman Abella spoke on "Identity, Diversity, and Human Rights" at Harvard
• Congress passed the historical Healthcare Reform bill, which honors the legacy of a number of Jewish woman leading the fight for health care (see a list of these women here).
• JWA launches "On the Map" - a user-generated map that showcases significant places in Jewish women’s history

April

• Sarah Silverman publishes her memoir: The Bedwetter: Stories of Courage, Redemption, and Pee
• In honor of Earth Day, nine women were added to JWA's feature on Jewish women in environmental activism.
• We celebrated Gerda Lerner, the mother of Women's Studies, on her 90th birthday 

May

• David Isay of StoryCorps interviewed JWA’s former Director of Oral History, Jayne Kravetz Guberman, and Millie Kravetz, who is both Jayne’s mother-in-law and her stepmother, at a special event called "Listen to Your Mother"
• Jennifer Gorovitz became first female CEO of a major Jewish federation
• Women were front and center at the first ever White House reception marking Jewish American Heritage Month, including JWA's own Gail Reimer.
• Joan Rivers is "rediscovered" as Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work, a biographical documentary, is viewed across the nation and Rivers is featured in New York Magazine and roasted on Comedy Central

June

• Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz tells it like it is, and refutes the claim that 2010 is the "year of the woman" 
• Loren Galler Rabinowitz crowned “Miss Massachusetts”
• Twenty-one women visionaries get the recognition they deserve in the New York Jewish Week's "36 Under 36" 

July

• Elena Kagan's chutzpah and "Jewishness" were on display during her confirmation hearings
• Hawaii Governor Linda Lingle vetoes civil union bill, comparing homosexuality to incest
• JWA hosted the Summer Institute for Educators, a four-day conference for educators to explore ways of incorporating Jewish women’s history into their curricula. This year's focus was on Living the Legacy, JWA's online curriculum about Jews in the civil rights movement. 
• Women of the Wall leader, Anat Hoffman, is arrested 
• Congress passed the most significant financial reform legislation since the Great Depression, thanks, in part, to the work of Heather Booth, Director of Americans for Financial Reform.
• In the midst of a national obsession with vampires, we celebrated the 120th birthday of Theda Bara, the original "vamp"
• America's most influential women rabbis were recognized in The Sisterhood 50 

August

• Elena Kagan is confirmed as the second Jewish woman Supreme Court Justice 
• We marked the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, interviewing NOLA residents Carol Wise and her granddaughter Zoe Oreck. JWA shared images from its Katrina's Jewish Voices collecting project on Flickr.

September

• We watched Esther Petrack, a self-identified Modern Orthodox Jew, compete on America's Next Top Model

October

• Nancy Kaufman was named the new CEO of the National Council for Jewish Women (NCJW)
• We stood with Keshet and pledged to end homophobic bullying in the Jewish community
• The first Torah commissioned to be scribed entirely by women is read in Seattle.
• We wondered why all five of the Jewish Community Heroes finalists were men
• Jewish blogs debated the significance of the Jewish actresses of Glee participating in a sexy photospread in GQ magazine

November

• JWA launched Living the Legacy: Jews in the Civil Rights Movement, the first module of our social justice curriculum 
• Jewish women congresswomen held their own in the midterm elections 
• Hannah Block is honored in North Carolina 
• Jaimy Gordon received the 2010 National Book Award for Fiction for Lord of Misrule
• We were shocked to hear that the Wendy Wasserstein Prize was not awarded
• JWA made known the story of Judith in a celebrated Hanukkah video   

December

• We celebrated the "first lights" of women rabbis  
• The Jewish community is outraged by data revealing that the wage gap for Jewish professionals is worse than national average
• We celebrated the 21st anniversary of Lesléa Newman’s groundbreaking children's book, Heather Has Two Mommies