Writing
Helen Tanzer
Helen Tanzer was an educator and translator in the early twentieth century. Contributing to the dissemination of classical and archaeological works, Tanzer well fulfilled the rigorous requirements of scholar and teacher.
Helen Brooke Taussig
Helen Brooke Taussig was one of the most celebrated physicians of the twentieth century. Through her research and teaching. she was a leader in the development of the medical specialty of pediatric cardiology, pioneering treatment for infants with congenital cardiac defects.
Meredith Tax
Sydney Taylor
Sydney Taylor as the author of the beloved All-of-a-Kind Family chapter book series, about five memorable and distinctive sisters growing up in a warm and loving Jewish household in early twentieth-century New York.
Yemima Tchernovitz-Avidar
Nechama Tec
Nechama Tec's sociological work, informed by her experience as a Holocaust survivor, addresses the silences and inaccuracies surrounding the Holocaust and reveals untold stories of righteousness and rescue. Her experiences inspired the movie Defiance.
Television in the United States
Jewish women have had a long-standing, complex, often fraught relation to American television. They have had to battle a male-dominated production system and sexist stereotypes, but also have seen significant advances, in front of and behind the screen, resulting from the cable and streaming revolutions and third-wave feminist activism.
Gabriele Tergit
Rising to prominence as a journalist in Weimar-era Berlin, Gabriele Tergit, née Elise Hirschmann (1893–1982), was an important chronicler of German-Jewish life. In her journalistic writings and novels, Tergit wrote biting social satires, sweeping panoramic novels, and lucid, hard-hitting commentaries on current events. A liberal whose writings reveal her strong commitments to social justice, women’s rights, and humanism, Tergit was forced to flee Germany in 1933 and settled permanently in London in 1938.
Savina Teubal
Theater in the United States
For over a hundred years, Jewish women have been involved in the American theater as writers, actors, directors, designers and producers. The vitality of the Yiddish theater, the splendor of Broadway, the rich tapestry of the regional theater, and everything in between, all owe a debt to the Jewish women who have given of their talents, their energy, their drive, and their dreams.
Bessie Thomashefsky
With suffragist spirit and comedic skill, Bessie Thomashefsky adapted great American and British plays for Yiddish-speaking audiences. Thomashefsky performed Yiddish adaptations of plays by Chekov, Wilde, and Shakespeare, as well as modern Yiddish creations at the People’s Theater in New York, playing many strong female characters. From 1915 to 1919, she ran the People’s Theater and renamed it for herself.
Judith Jarvis Thomson
Rivke Bas Me’ir Tiktiner
Tkhines
Tkhines were collections of prayers published in Yiddish, often specifically for women, across Europe from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century. The prayers addressed many themes of domestic and family life, although some also suggested women ought to be allowed into traditionally male spaces.
Ethel Tobach
Mahinarangi Tocker
New Zealand singer-songwriter Mahinaarangi Tocker (1955-2008) was best known as a Maori musician, but her Jewish heritage was an essential component of her identity and her music.
Alice Babette Toklas
Mina Tomkiewicz
Mina Tomkiewicz was a Polish author who wrote two books based on her personal experience growing up in Warsaw, Poland, and her deportation to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.
Rebecca Traister
Sarah Treem
Diana Trilling
Marie Trommer
Marie Trommer was an early twentieth-century writer, poet, artist, art critic, and contributor to American Jewish newspapers. After attending the Cooper Union Art School, Trommer became known for her contributions to Jewish newspapers, her poetry, and her oil and watercolor paintings. She was a member of the Creative Writers Group, Society of Independent Artists, and Art Alliance of America.
Jean Trounstine
Barbara W. Tuchman
Sophie Tucker
Vaudeville legend and Broadway star Sophie Tucker defied convention with her saucy comic banter and music. Tucker became famous internationally for her singing performances and delighted audiences throughout America and Europe with her rendition of “My Yiddishe Momme.” Tucker was proud of her Jewish identity and created the Sophie Tucker Foundation, which supported various actors’ guilds, hospitals, synagogues, and Israeli youth villages.

