Journalism

Lia Levi

Lia Levi is an Italian novelist, journalist, and children’s books author. She is best known for her several works of fiction largely dedicated to Jewish themes and for being the editor-in-chief of the monthly Shalom magazine.

Annie Leibovitz

For decades, Annie Leibovitz and her camera have exposed to the public eye subtleties of character that lay beneath the celebrity personae of rock stars, politicians, actors, and literary figures. As chief photographer for Rolling Stone magazine, she fueled the American fascination with rock ’n’ roll dissidents in the 1970s; in the 1980s and 1990s, she captured the essence of the day’s great cultural icons with her work for Vanity Fair.

Ladino (Judeo-Spanish) Press in the United States

The Ladino press of the United States, still largely unexplored, is the most vital source for the multifaceted history of Sephardic women in early twentieth-century America. Though the editors, along with much of the readership, were male, these numerous publications are an important source of information about the social status and activities of Sephardic women, and even more so, illuminate male perception of them.

Ann Landers

For over forty years, the Ann Landers advice column—written by Esther Pauline Friedman Lederer—helped lovelorn teens, confused parents, couples on the brink of divorce, grieving widows, and a myriad of others who were in need of counsel. Translated into over twenty languages, Ann Landers reached millions of readers with her clear, witty and sometimes sarcastic column.

Maxine Kumin

Maxine Kumin is most widely known as a nature poet for her well-crafted descriptions of life on her New Hampshire farm. Yet increasingly her social conscience prompted her also to write “poetry of witness,” protesting torture and other injustices. Her strong Jewish consciousness showed itself in poems about her Jewish ancestors and historic injustices to Jews and in use of sacred Jewish texts to form an environmental message.

Madeleine May Kunin

Madeline Kunin broke ground as the first woman governor of Vermont and the only woman to serve three terms as governor, before making history again as ambassador to Switzerland and facilitating compensation from Swiss banks to Holocaust survivors.

Rose Kushner

With a self-described “streak of stubbornness, and a loud voice as well,” Rose Kushner—journalist, activist, and patient advocate—raised American national consciousness on breast cancer and helped create a national movement around the issue.

Anna Kuliscioff

Born in Russia but educated in Switzerland, Anna Kuliscioff became one of the key figures in Italy’s early socialist movement and was a feminist advocate who concentrated on poor women’s issues. In her later life, she helped publish a socialist periodical and hosted a prominent salon, often with her partner Filippo Turati.

Joyce Kozloff

Joyce Kozloff is an internationally recognized painter, public muralist, and feminist whose long-term passions have been history, culture, and the decorative and popular arts. One of the founders of the pattern and decoration movement, Kozloff is dedicated to creating her own work and giving the folk art of women of color a voice. Kozloff is known as one of America’s more original and engaging artists.

Hanna Krall

Hanna Krall is one of the most important Polish-Jewish writers and reporters. A Holocaust survivor, she portrays in her own extremely concise manner the vicissitudes of other survivors, rescuers, and perpetrators. Krall has been internationally recognized and her works have been translated into fourteen languages.

Judith Krantz

Novelist Judith Krantz began her career as a fashion publicist, writer, and editor for numerous magazines, which would shape the themes of her popular and best-selling novels. Beginning with Scruples in 1978, Krantz’s books were about fashion, beauty, fame, money, and sex, and always featured working women.

Gisela Peiper Konopka

Berlin-born Gisela Konopka built an international reputation as a group social worker and expert on youth issues. Lauded for her involvement in the rebuilding of social services and education in post-war Germany and beloved by her students at the University of Minnesota, Konopka received more than 42 awards in her lifetime.

Beryl Korot

Beryl Korot is an internationally known video artist who has created multimonitor installations which have been shown all over the world. She is best known for her multiple channel works Dachau 1974 and Text and Commentary, 1977, and her two collaborations with her husband, composer Steve Reich, The Cave and Three Tales.

Hedwig Kohn

Born in Breslau, Hedwig Kohn was one of the early woman pioneers in physics. After a narrow escape from Nazi Germany, she went on to teach at Wellesley College and pursue independent research at Duke University in the field of flame spectroscopy, measuring absorption features of atomic species in flames.

Rebekah Bettelheim Kohut

Rebekah Bettelheim Kohut made her mark on the American Jewish community in the areas of education, social welfare, and the organization of Jewish women. Grounded in her Jewish identity as the daughter and wife of rabbis, Kohut had a public career that paralleled the beginnings of Jewish women’s activism in the United States.

Blanche Wolf Knopf

Blanche W. Knopf made the publishing firm she shared with her husband one of the most respected in the world, bringing some of the greatest American and European thinkers of the twentieth century to an American audience.

Sarah Kofman

Sarah Kofman was a French Jewish philosopher and professor who published many books on Freud, Nietzsche, Rousseau, and more.

Melanie Klein

Melanie Klein was a pioneer in the psychoanalysis of children and inventor of the “play technique.” She contributed important insights regarding the treatment of individuals suffering from psychosis and personality disorders. Born to a Jewish family in Vienna at the turn of the century, she later lived and practiced in Budapest, Berlin, and London.

Gerda Weissmann Klein

Holocaust survivor Gerda Weissmann Klein has used her experiences to educate countless people through her books, television appearances, and motivational speaking. Among numerous other awards for her work, Klein was appointed to the United States Holocaust Commission by President Clinton in 1997, and in 2011 she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Obama.

Francine Klagsbrun

Author of more than a dozen books and countless articles in national publications and a regular columnist in two Jewish publications, Francine Klagsbrun is a writer of protean interests who has made an impact on both American and American Jewish culture.

Helene Khatskels

As a member of the General Jewish Workers’ Bund, Helene Khatskels fought to realize socialist ideals about autonomy and liberation. As a Yiddish teacher and writer in Tsarist Russia and later the Soviet Union, she demonstrated a commitment to spreading and inspiring pride in Yiddish culture.

Judith Kaye, Presidential Libraries Conference, Hyde Park, New York

Judith S. Kaye

Judith S. Kaye was the first woman to serve as chief judge of the state of New York and chief judge of the Court of Appeals of the state of New York.

Joyce Jacobson Kaufman

A pioneer in the field of physical chemistry, Joyce Jacobson Kaufman did groundbreaking work in the fields of jet propulsion fuels used in the space program, psychotropic pharmacology, and drug design. Kaufman also discovered a novel strategy for using computers to predict drug reactions and the trajectory of a significant number of carcinogens.

Kashariyot (Couriers) in the Jewish Resistance During the Holocaust

Kashariyot were young women who traveled on illegal missions for the Jewish resistance in German-occupied Eastern Europe during the Holocaust. They smuggled goods, news, and other Jews in and out of the ghettos of Poland, Lithuania, and parts of Russia. While those who fought the Germans within the ghettos are often most celebrated for their heroism, kashariyot were essential in the survival of Jews within ghettos.

Ita Kalish

Ita Kalish was a Zionist activist, Jewish Agency employee, Israeli civil servant, journalist, and memoir writer. Born into the Warka Hasidic dynasty, Kalish rejected her upbringing and went on to write nuanced portrayals and female-centered literature about the Hasidic community. Kalish’s memoirs are a rich source on the inner life of the Hasidic courts of Poland at the turn of the twentieth century and center around her own and her friends’ journey to leave what they considered the stifling atmosphere of the Hasidic world.