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Education

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Dr. Ruth Westheimer

Episode 115: Dr. Ruth's Radical Legacy

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The iconic Dr. Ruth Westheimer died earlier this year at the age of 96. Dr. Ruth was a trailblazer for her candid and joyful talk about sex, regularly using words like "masturbate" and "vibrator" on the air, and talking about sexual pleasure— including women's sexual pleasure—at a time when few others did. In this episode of Can We Talk?, we remember and celebrate Dr. Ruth. Historian and author Rebecca Davis explores Dr. Ruth's radical legacy and actress Tovah Feldshuh reflects on their friendship. Plus, archival tape of Dr. Ruth herself dishing out sex advice to her devoted listeners.

Headshot of Rabbi Analía Bortz

Analía Bortz

Analía Bortz is the first Latin American woman ordained as a Conservative rabbi. Her approach to spirituality and religion combines with her medical training. As a doctor specializing in bioethics, she has also helped women and couples with fertility issues. 

Angèle Guéron

Angèle Guéron was an educator in Edirne, once an important city in the late Ottoman Empire, now a border town in northwestern Turkey. The eloquent journal she kept during the Balkan Wars (1912-1913) provides a rare glimpse of life in a besieged Ottoman city and the struggles of a Sephardi Jewish woman against a conservative communal patriarchy. 

Collage with star of David, trees, and summer camp cabin
May 15, 2024

The Magic of Inclusion at Jewish Summer Camp

Roz Larsen

With programming that addresses and affirms our identities, we can make camp a relaxing and nurturing place for all.

Topics: Education
Collage for Ladino podcast episode

Episode 111: Ladino Makes a Comeback

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Segun el tiempo, se abolta la vela. That’s a Ladino saying that means, “According to the weather, shift your sail.” And it's an apt way of describing Ladino's recent comeback. Ladino—or Judeo-Spanish—the language spoken by Sephardic Jews in Turkey, Greece and North Africa, saw a major decline after the Holocaust destroyed communities of native speakers. But like a sailboat shifting course when the wind changes direction, Ladino has adapted to the times. In this episode of Can We Talk, you’ll hear how from Naomi Spector and Nesi Altaras, two Ladino enthusiasts, and from Hannah Pressman, one of the people spearheading Ladino’s resurgence.

Rose Clubok cropped
May 14, 2024

Where Are They Now? RVF Alum Rose Clubok

Sarah Biskowitz

JWA talks to Rising Voices Fellowship alum Rose Clubok for our series marking the 10th anniversary of the fellowship.

Topics: Non-Fiction, Ritual, Feminism, Jewish Education
Shahanna McKinney-Baldon and Michal Avera Samuel
April 16, 2024

A Curriculum That Celebrates Jewish Diversity

Shoshana McKinney Kirya-Ziraba

The project's creators hope it will change the way Jewish kids see themselves and each other. 

Topics: Jewish Education, Children
Image from JIMENA Sephardi and Mizrahi Toolkit
March 21, 2024

JIMENA's New Sephardi and Mizrahi Education Toolkit

Lizzy Danon

JWA talks to Sarah Levin, executive director for Jews Indigenous to the Middle East and North Africa (JIMENA) about its new Sephardi and Mizrahi Education Toolkit. 

Topics: Holocaust, World War II, Jewish Education
Headshot of Emma Mair with shoulder-length light brown hair and tortoiseshell glasses, posing in front of trees
February 29, 2024

Where Are They Now? RVF Alum Emma Mair

Sarah Biskowitz

JWA talks to Rising Voices Fellowship alum Emma Mair for our series marking the 10th anniversary of the fellowship.

Topics: Non-Fiction, Feminism, Jewish Education
Bettina Aptheker, 2017

Bettina Aptheker

Bettina Aptheker is an American feminist, writer, educator, and political activist. She advocated for racial justice, studied and taught African American women’s history, and founded the Feminist Studies department at the University of California at Santa Cruz.

Collage of Jewish Women Who Died in 2023
January 2, 2024

Jewish Women Whose Memories I’m Carrying into 2024

Judith Rosenbaum

The year 2023 brought the deaths of several powerful and influential Jewish women, whose insights and voices changed the world and are all the more painful to lose in this difficult time. 

Topics: Civil Rights, Disability Rights, Feminism, Women's Rights, Israel, Zionism, Poetry, Holocaust, Women’s and Gender Studies, Physics
Collage of flowers and Jewish objects on a variety of orange torn papers
November 1, 2023

Learning to Lead Prayers, and My Community

Talia Waxman

I wanted my bat mitzvah to be a very public statement of my commitment to gender equality within Orthodox Judaism.

Topics: Judaism-Orthodox, Summer Camps
Elsie Simonofsky Chomsky’s Teacher’s Institute class of 1922

Elsie Chomsky

Elsie Chomsky, one of the many young Jewish educators influenced by reformer Samson Benderly, taught Modern Hebrew and organized arts activities for many years at Gratz College in Philadelphia. She trained and supervised student teachers who taught in local Reform and Conservative Hebrew schools.  

Collage of open book on top of red and pink patterned and torn papers
October 25, 2023

How I Became An Intersectional Feminist

Lucy Targum

Reading A Brief History of Feminism with my camp friends acted almost as a shared secret or understanding between us. All of us were realizing together that this was a movement we cared deeply about.

Topics: Feminism, Summer Camps
Afrikaans literary advocate Sarah Goldblatt

Sarah Goldblatt

Sarah Goldblatt was a staunch advocate of the Afrikaans language of South Africa. Despite learning the language later in life, she devoted herself to her adopted tongue, publishing multiple books in Afrikaans and serving on the editorial board of an Afrikaans newspaper. Trained as a teacher, she also taught the language to students around the country.

Collage of book pages
October 20, 2023

Feminist Books Save Lives

Sara Weinstein

Across the country, efforts to ban books have been increasing in number and effectiveness, hitting school and public libraries especially hard. These are the places that made me who I am, so it's been an emotional experience, to say the least, to see books taken off the shelves.  

Topics: Libraries
Artist Gluck

Gluck (b. Hannah Gluckstein)

A self-proclaimed individualist, Gluck painted outside abstract contemporary trends. Instead, Gluck naturalistically painted subjects reflecting her personal life and social circle, making her a unique character in the modern British art scene. Gluck was also proud of her queer, androgynous identity, which she infused into her artwork.

Zoe Benjamin

Zoe Benjamin

Zoe Benjamin was a twentieth-century Australian teacher who pioneered liberal ideas in early child education, child rearing, and child psychology. She wrote and lectured, both in person and over the radio, in depth on these topics. Her work gained such distinction that she was known overseas in England as well as Australia.

Sue Wolf-Fordham

Project
Women Who Dared

Julie Johnson interviewed with Sue Wolf-Fordham on March 4, 2005 in Massachusetts for the Women Who Dared Oral History Project. Wolf-Fordham explores her early exposure to social activism through her mother's engagement in the Boston Jewish community, which led her to create adaptive tools for Ukrainian children with disabilities and establish an Educational Resource Center, and her dedication to passing on these values to her children.

Susan Maze-Rothstein, January 25, 2002

Susan Maze-Rothstein

Project
Women Who Dared

Judith Rosenbaum interviewed Susan Maze-Rothstein on January 25, 2002, in Brookline, Massachusetts, for the Women Who Dared Oral History Project. Maze-Rothstein reflects on her family background, experiences with Judaism, activism in addressing diversity and anti-racist education, challenges of being an outsider in both the Jewish and African-American communities, her commitment to social justice as a lawyer and judge, and her inspiration from influential figures like Martin Luther King Jr. and Maya Angelou.

Gertrude Webb in her office at the Webb International Center for Dyslexia, January 15, 2002

Gertrude Webb

Project
Women Who Dared

Judith Rosenbaum interviewed Gertrude (Goldie) Mikel Webb on January 15, 2002, in Waltham, Massachusetts, for the Women Who Dared Oral History Project. Webb, a Boston educator, discusses her Jewish upbringing, a career in teaching students with learning disabilities, and ongoing commitment to helping others influenced by her Jewish heritage.

Judy Frieze Wright, July 2000

Judith Wright

Project
Women Who Dared

Judith Rosenbaum interviewed Judith Wright on July 25, 2000, in Gloucester, Massachusetts, as part of the Women Who Dared Oral History Project, Wright discusses her family, Jewish identity, political activism, involvement in the Civil Rights Movement, incarceration during the Freedom Rides, and her continued engagement in various causes, including women's rights and antiwar activities.

Freyda Sanders

Freyda Sanders

Project
Women Who Dared

Judith Rosenbaum interviewed Freyda Sanders on July 12, 2000, in Brookline, MA, for the Women Who Dared Oral History Project. Sanders shares her upbringing in a politically active household, her diverse career path, her involvement with Hadassah and its impact on her Jewish identity, her trip to Russia, and the influence of her mother's socialist beliefs on her life.

Anna Charny

Anna Charny

Project
Soviet Jewry

Gabriel Weinstein Tamar interviewed Anna Charny in Massachusetts as part of the Soviet Jewry Oral History Project. Charny shares her experiences growing up in Moscow, encountering antisemitism, becoming a refusenik, and eventually immigrating to the United States, highlighting her family's Jewish identity, her activism, and the challenges of assimilating into a new country.

Judy Wolf

Judith Wolf

Project
Women Who Dared

Julie Johnson interviewed Judith Wolf on February 23, 2005, in Boston, Massachusetts, as part of the Women Who Dared Oral History Project. Wolf reflects on her Jewish upbringing, volunteer work, religious schooling, and efforts to establish educational resources for disabled children in Ukraine, emphasizing the role of women and Jewish values in her life.

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