Education

Content type
Collection

Naomi Cherny

Project
Women Whose Lives Span the Century

In interviews conducted on June 17 and June 21, 1999, Donna Joftis interviewed Naomi Cherny about her experiences growing up during the Depression and World War II, pursuing education and professional work despite gender expectations, building Jewish community institutions in Lexington and Arlington, working in counseling and equal employment at Hanscom Air Force Base, officiating interfaith marriages as a justice of the peace, and her reflections on family, volunteerism, nutrition, exercise, and social change.

historical black and white photograph of a woman in a white blouse and long dark skirt and a man wearing a dark suit with a long jacket

Gella Sänger

Gella Sänger (née Hirsch) was a Neo-Orthodox author, editor, and bookseller living in Fürth in Bayern, Germany. She was the first woman affiliated with (Neo-)Orthodoxy to write a guide to Jewish law and practice for women and girls. 

Sylvia Schatz

Project
Women Whose Lives Span the Century

In this oral history interview, Sylvia Schatz reflects on her upbringing in Philadelphia, her family’s immigrant history, education, religious life, experiences during World War II, marriage and motherhood, professional aspirations, and evolving views on gender, aging, family, and Jewish identity across generations.

Paula Doress-Worters

Paula Brown Doress-Worters

Working with Paula was always a joy. She was witty, hard-working, playful, and always so thoughtful. I continue to admire how she helped so many better understand the injustices we all face by drawing from her own and others’ lived experiences. 

Pearl Brown

Project
Jewish Experience at Harvard

Pearl Brown reflects on her Jewish student life and education at Radcliffe and Harvard, describing the intellectual, social, and cultural experiences that shaped her lifelong friendships, community involvement, and enduring attachment to Cambridge and its academic environment.

Helen Fine

Project
Women Whose Lives Span the Century

Helen Fine recounts her upbringing in an immigrant Jewish family in Roxbury, her decades-long career teaching in Boston public schools and Hebrew education at Temple Israel, and how her teaching methods, community life, and personal experiences led her to create influential Jewish educational plays and books.

Eva Bitsberger

Project
Jewish Experience at Harvard

On June 17, 1986, as part of the Harvard Semitic Museum Oral History Project documenting the Harvard Radcliffe Jewish experience, Eva Friedman Bitsberger, Radcliffe College, Class of 1953, was interviewed about her years at Radcliffe, her Jewish identity, marriage and life in Japan and New York, experiences with feminism and antisemitism, and her later career as Director of Financial Aid at the New England Conservatory.

Ruth Abrams

Project
Jewish Experience at Harvard

In this oral history interview, the Honorable Ruth Abrams reflects on her family’s Russian Jewish immigrant roots in Boston, her education in Newton and at Radcliffe and Harvard Law School, and her trailblazing legal career from assistant district attorney to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court while discussing gender discrimination in the legal profession, Jewish identity, civic life, and social change in twentieth-century Massachusetts.

Susie Tanchel

Project
Ga’avah: LGBTQ+ Jews

Mitchell Israel interviewed Dr. Susie Tanchel on November 19, 2021, for the Ga’avah: LGBTQ+ Jews project, in which she reflects on her South African upbringing, formative experiences at Brandeis University, career in Jewish education, and leadership and advocacy for LGBTQ inclusion within Jewish educational institutions.

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.

Carol and Lucy Targum
May 6, 2025

L’dor Vador: A Legacy of Love

Carol Targum

A grandmother reflects on the joy, responsibility, and sacred beauty of nurturing Jewish identity across generations.

Topics: Spirituality and Religious Life, Ritual, Jewish Education

Elaine Showalter

Elaine Showalter is a pioneer of feminist criticism. She is best known for inventing the term “gynocriticism,” a new theoretical framework that argued that that women had been using the language of men for far too long and that they needed to develop a new critical approach to better understand the female subcultures that operate within male-dominated power structures. 

Stella Moussa Salmon and Sephardi House Fellows - faces
April 29, 2025

How Sephardi House Became My Sephardi Home

Stella Moussa Salmon

The Sephardi House Fellowship offered more than community—it gave me a voice and a mission.

Topics: Antisemitism, Jewish Education
image of a woman with short brown hair in a black suit

Dalia Itzik

Dalia Itzik is a former politician and was the first woman to serve as the Speaker of the Knesset. She also was the first woman to serve as the acting President of Israel. 

photograph of a woman with gray hair wearing a red dress

Political scientist Elinor Ostrom wins Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences

December 10, 2009

On December 10, 2009, political scientist Elinor Ostrom became the first woman to receive the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. Her research focused on economic governance and “the commons” (natural resources accessible to all). She studied the relationship between people and their ecosystems, to prove that finite resources can be used by local communities in ways that prevent their depletion. 

Canoeing at Camp Bechol Lashon
March 20, 2025

Creating Belonging for Black Jews

Shoshana McKinney Kirya-Ziraba

Institutions created by and for Jews of color are fostering community, resilience, and belonging in ways that mainstream Jewish spaces often fail to.

Topics: Civil Rights, Summer Camps, Jewish Education, Synagogues/Temples
photograph of a woman with short curly red hair

Hanna Herzog

Professor Hanna Herzog is a key advocate for feminism in Israel. Herzog combines academic achievement and social activism, emphasizing the importance of listening to diverse voices and critically examining marginalized people. Her journey into sociology was influenced by her own experiences of marginalization, starting from her time at Reali High School in Haifa, which ultimately led to her interest in research and the pursuit of knowledge.

"An Unfinished Symphony," art piece by Judy Robkin
January 30, 2025

The Power of Visual Storytelling

Jen Richler

JWA chats with Barbara Rosenblit and Sheila Miller, the creators of Artful Disclosure, a program that honors the ordinary and extraordinary lives of Jewish women through visual storytelling. 

Topics: Crafts, Feminism, Jewish Education
Girls who were part of first transport of Jews to Auschwitz
January 23, 2025

Q & A with Heather Dune Macadam, Director of "999: The Forgotten Girls"

Jen Richler

JWA talks with Heather Dune Macadam, director of 999: The Forgotten Girls, a new documentary that tells the story of the young women who made up the first transport of Jews to Auschwitz.

Topics: Holocaust, Film, Jewish Education
black and white photograph of a woman with short dark hair wearing a checked dress

Judith Lax

Dr. Judith H. Lax (1924-2022) was a trailblazing lay leader in the Conservative movement. In 1971 Lax became the first female president of a Conservative congregation. She went on to hold numerous positions in the United Synagogue of America that were previously held exclusively by men. Through her many firsts, Lax quietly laid the groundwork for women’s equality and helped change the face of Conservative Judaism. 

Marilyn Safir

Marilyn Safir

Marilyn Safir is an Israeli-American psychologist who played a critical role as a feminist activist in sparking the Israeli women’s movement and in establishing the academic field of women’s studies in Israel. Her academic career has focused on sex, sexuality, and gender. 

Yvonne at the Campbell Library in Palm Beach

Yvonne Campbell

Yvonne was a lifelong educator. After retiring from teaching nursery school, Yvonne continued to educate as a speaker in middle and high school classrooms, sharing her Holocaust story through the organization Facing History & Ourselves. She was a gifted storyteller, and used her talent whenever she could to spread the message of “Never Again.”

Charlotte Charlaque

Charlotte Charlaque

Charlotte Charlaque was a transgender trailblazer, actress, and translator in Weimer Berlin and post-Shoah New York City. 

color photograph of a two women speaking

Judith Laikin Elkin

The historian Judith Laikin Elkin Is best known as the founder of the Latin American Jewish Studies Association (LAJSA). She was the author of the foundational text The Jews of Latin America as well as research guides and two memoirs.

Alice Shalvi and Sally Gottesman

Alice Shalvi

This was essential Alice—kind, appreciative, loving (and missing) those whom she adored, always inquisitive and expanding my questions, always wanting to know more. 

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