Politics and Government

Rosa Luxemburg

Rosa Luxemburg was a socialist revolutionary known for her critical perspective. Born in Poland, Luxemburg had become an important figure in the world socialist movement by 1913. She argued against Lenin’s hierarchal conception of party organization, and against revisionism. Luxemburg was internationalist in orientation and unflinchingly dedicated to a radical democratic vision.

Sadie Loewith

Sadie Loewith was an early twentieth-century teacher, businesswoman, active Republican Party worker, chairperson, organizer, and politician of high repute.

Johanna Loeb

Johanna Loeb’s philanthropic work extended to both Jewish and secular charities, such as the Home for Crippled Children, the Jewish Consumptive Relief Society of Chicago, the Home for the Jewish Friendless, and Chicago’s first Jewish Community Center. Her career not only strengthened the safety net for the disadvantaged throughout Chicago, but also illuminated the limitations and the potential that women’s philanthropic groups had in Jewish American society’s previously male-dominated community organizations.

Fannie Eller Lorber

When her community became a mecca for adults suffering from tuberculosis, Fannie Eller Lorber created a Jewish children’s home for those who had no one else to care for them. Lorber epitomized the volunteer spirit of urban Jewish women in the American West.

Sophie Irene Simon Loeb

At a time when widowed mothers often had no way to support their children, Sophie Irene Simon Loeb helped create support systems for needy children and their mothers. Loeb was one of many women to enter the political arena through reform work, using her life experience and a personalized approach.

Frieda Lorber

Frieda Levin Lorber made a name for herself as a prominent lawyer in the mid twentieth century and helped other women rise in the profession in New York and worldwide.

Hildegard Löwy

Born in 1922, Hildegard Löwy was the youngest member of the Baum Gruppe, a mainly Jewish resistance group against the Nazis. She had firm Zionist and pacifist principles and believed communism was the best way for Jews to obtain equal rights. Arrested in April 1942, Löwy tried to escape from prison but was ultimately convicted of Communist treason and executed in a Berlin prison.

Linda Lingle

Linda Lingle was only the second Jewish woman to be elected a United States governor when she became governor of Hawaii in 2002. Previously serving on the Maui County Council and as Maui’s mayor, Lingle became Hawaii’s first woman and Jewish governor when she was elected.

Charlotte Lipsky

Charlotte Schacht Lipsky found an unusual balance between activism and pragmatism: on one hand, a follower of the revolutionary Emma Goldman, on the other, the owner of a successful interior decorating business. In her later years, she was involved in Hadassah and the Women’s American ORT, an organization that taught trade skills to Jews around the world.

Alice Springer Fleisher Liveright

Social worker Alice Springer Fleisher Liveright devoted much of her life to working for equal rights for women and African Americans, and for social welfare for children and poor adults. Passionate in her quest for social justice, she served as president of the Juvenile Aid Society, president of the Philadelphia Conference of Social Work, and as the Pennsylvania State Secretary of Welfare.

Irma Levy Lindheim

Irma Levy Lindheim was a colorful American Zionist millionaire, fund-raiser, and educator. Called “the grandmother” of the kibbutz for helping found and sustain multiple kibbutzim, Irma Levy Lindheim also made phenomenal contributions to fundraising and organizational efforts to create and maintain the fledgling State of Israel.

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.

Mischket Liebermann

Mischket Liebermann was an actress who was an active member of the KPD (Communist Party of Germany). Known for her roles in Scholem Asch’s Bronx Express and Ernst Toller’s Hoppla, Liebermann performed throughout Germany and the Soviet Union. After 1945, she participated in the cultural reconstruction of East Germany.

Batia Lichansky

Batia Lichansky, Israel’s first woman sculptor, famously expressed the pioneer Zionist spirit during the formative years of the State of Israel through her portrait sculptures, reliefs, and memorials sculpted in stone, wood, and bronze. After studying across Europe, Lichansky became a prominent Israeli artist and won the Tel Aviv-Jaffa Dizengoff Prize twice, in 1944 and 1957.

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.

Adele Rosenwald Levy

Adele Rosenwald Levy used her affluence to promote public-spirited philanthropy and Jewish causes in the years surrounding World War II.

Florence Nightingale Levy

Florence Nightingale Levy’s most significant achievement was the founding of the American Art Annual in 1898. A comprehensive directory of the American art world, the Annual catalogued schools, associations, exhibitions, and artists nationwide. Levy went on to perform invaluable editing, organizing, and educational roles in the American art world for the next fifty years.

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.

Stella Levy

Stella Levy was an early leader of the Women’s Corps of the Israel Defense Forces, serving as commanding officer from 1964 to 1970.

Melba Levin-Rubin

Melba Levin-Rubin was an accomplished early-twentieth-century lawyer who was active in both professional and Jewish communal organizations.

Jennie Davidson Levitt

Jennie Davidson Levitt, daughter of Jewish philanthropists Saul and Mary (Cohen) Davidson, continued her family’s tradition of activism and philanthropy with her work for Jewish organizations. She helped rescue Jewish children during the war, and later lobbied for better medical and psychiatric services.