Browse by Category | Jewish Women's Archive

photograph of a woman with glasses with a loose hat as a head covering, smiling at the camera

Yoatzot Halacha

In 1997, Nishmat, a women’s seminary in Jerusalem, began training Orthodox women to become Yoatzot Halacha, or Jewish legal advisors. Yoatzot Halacha receive extensive training in Jewish legal texts and medical and behavioral sciences; after training, a Yoetzet Halacha might answer questions through a hotline or website or serve in a community in the US, the UK, or Israel. Yoatzot Halacha are one of a number of innovations in the field of Orthodox women’s leadership and literacy.

Suzy Yogev

Suzy Yogev is a retired Brigadier-General in the Israel Defense Forces best known for her work in the IDF’s Women’s Corps and for her role as Adviser to the Chief of Staff on Women’s Issues in the early 2000s. During her time in the military, Yogev played an integral role in successfully integrating women throughout the various bodies of the IDF when the Women’s Corps disincorporated as a separated military unit in the 2000s.

Jane Yolen

Jane Yolen is a Jewish-American children’s author, poet, and young adult novelist. Yolen has written more than 400 books for children and adults, including the children’s book series How Do Dinosaurs Say Goodnight? and the young adult Holocaust novella The Devil’s Arithmetic.

Rabbi Ovadiah Yosef

Rabbi Ovadiah Yosef was the Sephardi chief rabbi of Israel and the leader of the Shas political movement.

Young Women's Hebrew Association

The Young Women’s Hebrew Association was established in New York in 1902, with the primary aim of providing social recreational activities for Jewish working girls. As a communal agency run entirely by and for women, the YMHA provided an important political arena for Jewish women in the early twentieth century.

Rebecca Young

Rebecca Young’s focus on prisoners’ rights led her to create programs to improve the juvenile justice system and monitor and report prisoner abuse.

Yudica

Yudica, the pseudonym of Yehudit Zik, was a Canadian-Jewish poet and activist whose reputation in Yiddish literature was largely developed during her three decades in North America. Yudica contributed greatly to the “proletarian” literature genre of Canadian Yiddish writing.

A group of Yugoslav Partisan women in uniform.

Yugoslavia

The Jewish community of Yugoslavia was small, vibrant, and diverse, with waves of immigrants arriving from the 16th through the 19th centuries. Like many Jewish communities in Europe, the Yugoslav community was decimated by the Nazis, and only a few Jews remain in Yugoslavia today.

The Shalvi/Hyman Encyclopedia of Jewish Women