Education

Charlotte Wolf (later Wardi), in her classroom in the by Rina Viers, in her classroom in the Lycée Edmond de Rothschild A.I.U. (Alliance Israélite Universelle) in Haifa, 1956.

Charlotte Wardi

Charlotte Wardi (1928-2018) was one of the first significant scholars of the representation of the Jews and the Holocaust in French and other fiction. A young survivor of Auschwitz who grew up and was educated in France, she taught for three decades at the University of Haifa and continued to be active in her retirement.

Elga Ruth Wasserman

Chemist Elga Wasserman – a recipient of a Ph.D. in organic chemistry from Harvard in 1949 and a J.D. from Yale in 1976 – is best known for overseeing the entrance of the first coeducational class at Yale College in 1969.

Käte Wallach

Käte Wallach was a German lawyer who, due to her being Jewish, was unable to practice law in her country. After migrating to the United States in 1935, Wallach re-enrolled in law school, during which she was enthralled by library science and became a prominent scholar in both fields.

Salome Gluecksohn Waelsch

Salome Gluecksohn Waelsch combined embryology and genetics to form a new discipline, developmental genetics, a science that investigates the genetic mechanisms of development. For over sixty years, Waelsch made fundamental discoveries in mammalian development and cancer research.

Rosa Zimmern Van Vort

Rosa Zimmern Van Vort was a member of Virginia’s first generation of trained nurses. She devoted her career to the training and education of nurses.

Turkey: Ottoman and Post Ottoman

The Jewish population of Turkey navigated far-reaching changes in the political, social, and geopolitical spheres in the late nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries, as the Ottoman Empire pursued reform and collapsed and the Turkish Republic that took its place imposed a process of “Turkification” on its residents. During this period, Jewish women partook in traditional customs relating to religion, family, and the home, while also accessing new opportunities in the public sphere through education and political engagement.

Chava Turniansky

Chava Turniansky is a leading scholar of Old Yiddish, which she views not just as the vernacular of fourteenth to eighteenth century Jewish society but as a vehicle for understanding the literary, philological, historical and sociological mores of the period.

Rokhl Korn, Kadya Molodowsky, and Ida Maze

Malka Heifetz Tussman

Malka Heifetz Tussman introduced into Yiddish poetry one of the most rigid verse forms, the triolet, and mastered another, the sonnet corona. A teacher of Yiddish language and literature in the Midwest and the West, Tussman was awarded the Itzik Manger Prize for Yiddish poetry in Tel Aviv in 1981.

Jennie Tourel

Opera singer Jennie Tourel’s subtle and expressive performances made each song she sang into a miniature tone drama that she shaped as closely as possible to the composer’s intention.

Zelda Nisanilevich Treger

Zelda Treger was born in Vilna, Lithuania, which was occupied by the Germans beginning in June 1941. Treger soon joined the United Partisan Organization (FPO) and was tasked with smuggling groups of residents and supplies out of the ghetto and labor camp. Escaping capture several times, she aided in the liberation of Vilna and ultimately settled in Tel Aviv, where she remained until her death.

Judith Jarvis Thomson

Judith Jarvis Thomson was a twentieth-century American philosopher who made major contributions to ethical discussions both within and beyond the walls of the university. In her four-decade career, Thomson published important papers in ethics, metaphysics, and the philosophy of law, including the widely anthologized essays “A Defense of Abortion” (1971) and “The Trolley Problem” (1985), both of which apply the techniques of analytic philosophy to questions of morality.

Anna Ticho

From the moment she arrived in the city in 1912 until the day she died in 1980, Anna Ticho lovingly portrayed Jerusalem in paint, pen and ink, charcoal, pastel, and pencil. Her works have been shown around Israel and abroad, and she has received numerous honorary titles and awards. She bequeathed her home, Ticho House, to the Israel Museum to be used as a site for exhibitions and cultural events.

Sarah Thon

Sarah Thon was born in Lvov, Galicia. She married Yaakov Thon and they settled in Ottoman Palestine at the end of 1907. She became the representative of the Women’s Association for Cultural Work in Palestine and established five workshops for girls. She was also influential in the establishment of the girls’ farm at Kinneret and in the fight for Jewish women’s suffrage.

Ethel Tobach

Born in the Ukraine, Ethel Tobach spent most of her life in New York City as a professor, museum curator, and above all, a prolific researcher. She also held several leadership positions in prominent scientific associations, often combining her scientific abilities with her passion for social activism. However, her accomplishments are often overlooked by the psychological community.

Yemima Tchernovitz-Avidar

Yemima Tchernovitz-Avidar was a passionate educator and author of Hebrew literature. Her creative works became classics of modern Hebrew children’s literature, and she has been awarded numerous accolades for her contributions to Jewish literature.

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.

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.

Olga Taussky-Todd

A self-proclaimed “torchbearer for matrix theory,” Olga Taussky-Todd made the previously little-known field essential for scientists and mathematicians.

Hasya Sukenik-Feinsod

Hasya Sukenik Feinsod served as director of the Hebrew Kindergarten Teachers College. In 1919 Feinsod was appointed by the Education Committee to serve as superintendent of kindergartens in Jerusalem. She headed the Association of Kindergarten Teachers, and she was the first and only female representative on the Education Committee.

Rachel Hays Sulzberger

Rachel Hays Sulzberger maintained an active volunteer career in public service, in both Jewish and secular organizations. She is best remembered as the second president of the New York section of the National Council of Jewish Women.

Celia Strakosch

Celia Strakosch spent her career in social work in New York City and was involved in several organizations, including the Emanu-El Employment Bureau for Jewish Girls and the National Council of Jewish Women; in both institutions, she held leadership positions. During her decades of service, Strakosch focused especially on alleviating poverty among Jewish girls.

Tova Strasberg-Cohen

During her tenure as a justice on the Israeli Supreme Court, Tova Strasberg-Cohen became known for her groundbreaking decisions regarding civil law and women's equality.

Rahel Straus

Rahel Goitein Straus, a pioneering woman medical doctor trained in Germany, was a model “New Jewish Woman” of the early-20th century. Successfully combining a career as a physician with marriage and motherhood, she committed herself to Jewish and feminist causes and organizations throughout her life, while also embracing Zionist ideals.

Eva Michaelis Stern

Eva Michaelis Stern was co-founder and director of the fundraising arm of the Youth Aliyah in Germany, and later the director of the Youth Aliyah office in London. Over the course of WWII, she helped more than 1000 children from countries all over Europe immigrate to Palestine.