Education

Henriette May

Henriette May was committed to the upbringing of children and care for needy adults. She was active as a board member and editor for Jewish newspaper Jüdischer Frauenbund starting in 1907, established a home for Jewish women teachers in Berlin, and was a prominent member of numerous welfare institutions.

Jessie Marmorston

Jessie Marmorston was a professor of experimental medicine, researching a stunning range of medical disciplines including immunology, endocrinology, psychoanalysis, and cardiology. Her research into hormone secretion led to breakthroughs in our understanding of the ways stress can contribute to heart attacks and certain cancers.

Judith Marquet-Krause

Judith Marquet-Krause was an archeologist who contributed her talents to early twentieth-century excavations of ancient cities across Palestine, most notably leading the excavation of Ai.

Ruth Barcan Marcus

Ruth Barcan Marcus was a prominent twentieth-century American logician and philosopher who made pioneering contributions to modal logic and metaphysics. She taught at Yale university for more than two decades and was a key figure in American philosophical debates during the second half of the twentieth century.

Alicia Markova

Dame Alicia Markova, Britain’s first and the first Jewish prima ballerina, combined amazing technique and personal strength with tremendous artistry to become one of the finest classical dancers of her generation. Through her touring and early recognition of the power of mass media, she was also one of ballet’s greatest ambassadors in the mid-twentieth century. Markova extended her legacy through choreography, teaching, and commitment to coaching the next generation of dancers.

Miriam Markel-Mosessohn

Miriam Markel-Mosessohn was a Hebrew writer. She was most admired by Judah Leib Gordon, the foremost poet of the Haskalah, with whom she maintained a regular correspondence. Through her translations, her brief journalistic career, and her influence on Gordon, Markel-Mosessohn played a key role in the Hebrew literary revival.

Selma Mair

Selma Mair was a German-born registered nurse who brought her education and devotion to the role of head nurse at the Sha’arei Zedek hospital in Jerusalem.

Judith Pinta Mandelbaum

Judith Pinta Mandelbaum was an important part of the Mizrachi Women’s Organization of America (American Mizrachi Women) from the 1930s until shortly before her death in 1977, by which time the organization was known as AMIT. She also achieved professional acclaim as an outstanding teacher and is remembered fondly as a woman with a wonderful sense of humor and a rich family life.

Minnie Dessau Louis

Minnie Dessau Louis was an essayist, journalist, and poet, but she is best known for her philanthropic work in the Jewish community, largely focusing on women and children. She devoted her life to teaching immigrant Jewish women multiple skills through the many and varied schools she ran and her involvement in the founding of the Hebrew Technical School for Girls and the National Council of Jewish Women.

Esther Lowenthal

Esther Lowenthal’s long career teaching economics at Smith explored subjects from government spending and taxation to the theories of socialist economists.

Myra Cohn Livingston

Both through her poetry and her teaching, Myra Cohn Livingston inspired children to explore the music of language. She eventually wrote more than twenty collections of as well as several books on writing poetry, serving as an inspiration for students to enjoy poetry.

Deborah Lipstadt

Deborah D. Lipstadt is an American Jewish historian of issues surrounding understanding the Holocaust, ranging from reception of news of the extermination of European Jews to denial of the existence of the Holocaust. Lipstadt achieved renown for her defense against libel brought by David Irving, a British Holocaust denier. Her dramatic trial was transformed into a film starring Rachel Weisz.

Literature Scholars in the United States

Jewish women have been among the key figures in literary scholarship in the United States in the postwar period. Those entering the profession in the 1950s faced more difficulties as women than they did as Jews. Today, Jewish women are found in all corners of the profession, from feminist and queer theory to administration, critical race studies, and beyond.

Judith Berlin Lieberman

As dean of the Shulamith School for Girls, Judith Berlin Lieberman emphasized the importance of Jewish girls getting the same rigorous education in Judaic studies as boys did.

Rivka Kuper Liebeskind

Rivka Liebeskind joined the Akiva Zionist movement as a teenager, becoming a leader in her local chapter and encouraging members to continue their activities after the German occupation began. When the movement transitioned to resistance activities in 1942, she aided young people escaping the Krakow ghetto. Liebeskind survived her deportation to Birkneau and moved to Israel after the war.

Estelle Liebling

Estelle Liebling was a talented opera singer who performed at the Dresden Royal Opera House and the Metropolitan Opera and toured through the United States and Europe. She trained popular and Metropolitan Opera singers at her studio in New York for fifty years and wrote books on vocal training and compositions for piano and voice.

Lillian R. Lieber

Frustrated with the way math is taught in schools, Lillian R. Lieber created unconventional, popular books to excite young readers and incite their curiosity.

Librarians in the United States

Jewish women had trouble finding positions in libraries until the 1940s and 1950s. Beginning in the 1950s, individual women librarians began to lay the foundation for cooperation in librarianship in synagogue, school, and center environments, as well as in specialized research libraries.

Tehilla Lichtenstein

Tehilla Lichtenstein co-founded the Society of Jewish Science with her husband as an alternative to Christian Science, creating a small but passionate following and carving a place for herself as a congregational leader.

Ruth Lewinson

Born in 1895, Ruth Lewinson was one of the earliest female Jewish lawyers in the United States. In addition to her own private practice, she was active on multiple boards and committees as well as other organizations including charitable work.

Bella Lewitzky

Bella Lewitzky, a maverick in the world of modern dance, distinguished herself as a preeminent performer, choreographer, artistic director, educator, public speaker, and civic activist. Defying norms that posited New York City as the center of American dance, she maintained the Lewitzky Dance Company in Los Angeles. She was known for two highly publicized encounters with the federal government and risking professional ostracism to stand upon principle.

Margaret Seligman Lewisohn

Margaret Seligman Lewisohn—education advocate, philanthropist, art collector, and college trustee—did not just give generously to education causes. As the head of the Public Education Association, Lewisohn helped make the community as passionate about education as she was.

Rosina Lhévinne

Rosina Lhévinne was one the most noted pianists of the last century, though she dedicated the majority of her career to teaching and supporting the career of her husband. One of the last artists in the nineteenth-century Russian pianistic tradition, she taught some of the most famous musicians of the 20th century at The Julliard School in New York.

Emma Levine-Talmi

Politician and writer, Emma Levine-Talmi, grew up in a liberal Jewish home in Warsaw before immigrating alone to Palestine in 1924 at the age of nineteen. She was active in Kibbutz life before becoming a member of Knesset for the Mapam party. During her time in the Knesset, she engaged in social issues, including, equal rights for women.

Elma Ehrlich Levinger

Early twentieth-century author and educator Elma Ehrlich Levinger wrote over thirty books for children and several for adults—all of which emphasize the importance of maintaining Jewish identity in America.