Politics and Government

Carol Ruth Silver

Carol Ruth Silver was one of the first two white women to be jailed in the Freedom Rides, an experience that sparked a career in law and politics, fighting for the rights of others.

Janice Goodman

Janice Goodman’s work on civil rights issues drove her to become a lawyer, arguing class action cases for women’s rights.

Lisa Stein

Lisa Stein navigated aircraft in the Cold War and Desert Storm and served as an openly Jewish American officer in Saudi Arabia.

Frances Slanger

One of four nurses to wade ashore at Normandy Beach on D-Day, Frances Slanger was the only nurse to die as a result of enemy action in the European Theater.

Marita Silverman

Marita Silverman used the compassion and strength she learned working as a nurse in a field hospital in Vietnam to fuel her work in civilian life as a pediatric nurse.

Gertrude Shapiro

A nurse who put her patients before herself, Gertrude Shapiro travelled to Hiroshima to treat the injured after the city suffered an atomic blast.

Yetta Moskowitz and Other Flight Nurses, 1944

A pioneer of air evacuation medicine, Yetta Moskowitz received an air medal for flying over 100 hours through combat zones in New Guinea and the Philippines to evacuate wounded soldiers in World War II.

Miriam "Mimi" Miller

Miriam “Mimi” Miller resisted her family’s notions of the proper life for a nice Jewish girl, not only training as a nurse but serving in a combat zone in the Philippines through some of the worst devastation of World War II.

Vicki Lewis

Lieutenant Vicki Lewis struggled with anti-Semitism throughout her time as a weapons trainer in the US Army.

Bonnie Koppell

One of the first women rabbis ordained, Bonnie Koppell became the first woman rabbi to serve as a US military chaplain.

Bebe Koch

Wanting to somehow contribute to the defeat of the Nazis persecuting her fellow Jews, Bebe Koch enlisted at age nineteen and rose through the ranks to become a platoon commander.

Ethel Gladstone

Ethel Gladstone only joined the US Army Nurse Corps at the tail end of World War I, but her service record shows how long a war’s impact can be felt after its official end.

Cindy Gats

Gats served in Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm in the US Marine Corps.

Bernice Sains Freid

Bernice Sains Freid called her time in WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service) during WWII “the happiest days of my life.”

Selma Cronan

Selma Kantor Cronan flew as a pilot both running transport missions during WWII and later as a civilian, winning competitive aerial races.

Charlotte Chaney

Lieutenant Charlotte Ellner Chaney was permanently changed by her work as one of the first army nurses to help survivors of Dachau recover from their ordeal.

Miranda Bloch

Miranda “Randy” Bloch not only served as a Marine during World War II, she was one of the rare women Marines to be issued flight orders, helping pilots and air crew train for radar bombing runs.

Matilda and Bernice Blaustein

While 150,000 women eventually served in the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps in World War II, Matilda Blaustein was remarkable both as one of the first to volunteer and because she was joined in the service by her daughter, Bernice.

Joanna Eckstein

Joanna Eckstein widened the perspective of Seattle residents both with her travel writing and as a patron of the arts who supported individual artists and museums.

Belda Lindenbaum

Belda Lindenbaum was driven by the birth of her daughters to create new opportunities for Jewish women and girls.

Ann Lewis

Ann Lewis served as White House director of communications under Bill Clinton before lending her talents to Hillary Rodham Clinton’s own historic bid for the presidency.

Sonia Pressman Fuentes

Sonia Pressman Fuentes, the first female attorney in the office of the general counsel of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, helped extend the Civil Rights Act’s protections of equal opportunity to all people regardless of gender.

Shifra Bronznick

As president of Advancing Women Professionals and the Jewish Community, Shifra Bronznick led the charge in demanding more women leaders of major Jewish organizations.

Heather Booth

Heather Booth helped transform the American political landscape from her early involvement in both civil rights and abortion rights through her campaign for marriage equality.

Joyce Antler

Using both field research and her own experiences posing as a pregnant woman, Joyce Antler not only helped repeal New York’s laws against abortion, but ensured that women had real access to medical services after the law was repealed.