Jacqueline Levine
Jacqueline Levine lent her voice to a stunning array of social justice causes, from civil rights to ending hunger to women’s leadership in the Jewish community. Levine joined the American Jewish Congress in 1954, protesting Joseph McCarthy. She then participated in various marches in the civil rights movement. In 1969 she became national president of the Council of Jewish Federations Women’s Division. In 1980, she became the first female national chair of the AJC’s governing council. From 1986 to 1987 Levine served as national chair of the Mobilization for Soviet Jewry, bringing 250,000 Jews to Washington to protest Soviet policies. She was a founding member of the Jewish Fund for Justice and MAZON: A Jewish Response to Hunger and served on the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee.
Family and Education
Jacqueline Levine is an outstanding example of female activist leadership in American Jewish life. In over five decades of service to the Jewish community, she combined her powerfully deep liberal political beliefs and activities, which benefit the poor and disadvantaged, with her concern for the vast needs of specific Jewish communities.
Levine was born on January 28, 1926, into a highly educated Jewish family. In the 1920s, her mother, Theresa (Shulhin) Koldin, received her MA and studied toward her PhD at Columbia University. Her father, Harry Koldin, received his MA in history and worked as a dress manufacturer. They were socialist, antireligious, antifascist, deeply committed secular Jews living in Manhattan Beach, New York. Her younger sister is Nina Solarz, wife of former congressman Steven Solarz, who represented Brooklyn for many years.
After completing her studies at Abraham Lincoln High School, Jacqueline attended Bryn Mawr College, graduating in the war class of 1942. She received a BA studying psychology and political science. She later served on Bryn Mawr College’s board of trustees.
On January 5, 1949, Jacqueline married Howard Levine. They spent their first year of marriage in Puerto Rico, where Howard Levine was a professor of sociology at the university. During that year, Jacqueline Levine studied various disciplines. In 1950, they moved to New Jersey, where she worked in a department store and he began his business career. They had three children: Ellen (b. 1951), Stephen (b. 1953), and Ned (b. 1958).
Career
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Levine, Jacqueline. Interview with author.
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