Politics and Government

Magdalen Flexner

A distinguished lawyer and foreign service officer, Magdalen Flexner succeeded in crossing gender barriers to assume professional positions traditionally reserved for men. Living in a time of social restriction and limited opportunity for women, she defined herself as an independent woman, unfazed by the mold society dictated.

Sarah Feiga Meinkin Foner

Born into a family that encouraged her love of Jewish learning, Sarah Foner asked to learn Hebrew when she was only five years old and published her first novel in her twenties. During her lengthy writing career, Foner’s publications often reflected her interest in Jewish and women’s issues and centered notably independent female characters.

"Textbook on How to Cook and Bake" by Hinde Amchanitzki, circa 1901

Food in the United States

Food and foodways are a critically important area of documenting and deciphering the evolving experience of American Jewish women from the earliest days of immigration to the present. Food is a lens into American Jewish women’s worlds of family, religion, identity, work, political action, entrepreneurship, and more as they have encountered the forces of assimilation, anti-Semitism, systemic racism, sexism, changing consumer economies, and the long women’s movement.

Paulette Weill Oppert Fink

After Paulette Fink’s husband, serving in the French Army, escaped capture, Fink and her family fled to the unoccupied zone of France and joined the Resistance, hiding Jewish children and helping them escape. Despite her husband’s death, Fink continued working with the Resistance and the Jewish Brigade. When the war ended, she continued her work with refugees before settling in Minneapolis.

Janette Fishenfeld

Janette Fishenfeld was a Brazilian author, columnist, and Zionist. In her works, she portrayed a nuanced, complex view of the Brazilian Jewish community and advocated for the Zionist cause.

Ruth First

Ruth First was a prolific writer and her penetrating investigative journalism exposed many of the harsh conditions under which the majority of South Africans lived. As various restrictions prevented her from continuing her work as a journalist Ruth First became more and more involved with the underground movement that was changing its tactics from protest to sabotage.

Ruth E. Fizdale

Ruth E. Fizdale is credited with making modern social work a profession. Fizdale helped transform social work from a charitable volunteer activity to a paid profession, through her development of a fee-for-service, nonprofit counseling firm.

Gisi Fleischmann

Gisi Fleischmann was a steadfast and brave fighter in the underground resistance to Nazism during World War II. Many times, she refused to escape Slovakia to safety and instead chose to stay and fight for her people to the bitter end.

Shulamith Firestone

Shulamith Firestone was one of the founders of radical feminism in the United States. At age 25, she published The Dialectic of Sex: The Case for Feminist Revolution, which brought together the dialectical materialism of Marx and the psychoanalytic insights of Freud in an effort to develop an analysis of women’s oppression that was inclusive of the dimensions of class and race.

Jane Brass Fischel

An outstanding communal leader in New York City’s Orthodox Jewish community in the early twentieth century, Jane Brass Fischel was a generous philanthropist and active participant in Jewish communal activities.

Edith Fisch

With great courage and dogged determination, Edith Lond Fisch became a lawyer, legal writer, and law professor despite severe physical limitations, educational prejudices, and sexual discrimination. Edith Fisch wrote an important book on evidence which became regularly cited by judges and used in law schools throughout New York.

Sylvia Fine

Humorous composer Sylvia Fine created unique and influential music in her partnership with Danny Kaye. Fine wrote over 100 songs for Kaye to perform, including the music for The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, The Inspector General, and On the Riviera. She taught musical comedy at the University of Southern California and Yale and made philanthropic contributions to universities and Jewish organizations.

Sheila Finestone

Senator Sheila Finestone was an important figure in Canadian parliamentary history, founding the Coordinating Committee of Women Parliamentarians for the Inter-Parliamentary Union. She took up issues including human rights and served as president of the Quebec Federation of Women. A cornerstone of Canadian Jewish history, Finestone dedicated her life to advocacy and activism.

Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas in Paris, 1923

Fiction in the United States

Literature by American Jewish women reflects historical trends in American Jewish life and indicates the changing issues facing writers who worked to position themselves as Americans, Jews, and women.

Bobbi Fiedler

When Los Angeles announced plans in 1976 to desegregate schools by busing students, Bobbi Fielder was inspired to enter politics. She served on the Los Angeles Board of Education, where she quickly overturned the busing initiative, and subsequently served three terms in the House of Representatives. After losing a Senate race, Fielder withdrew from politics and became a consultant.

Feminism in the United States

Jewish women participated in and propelled all aspects of the women's rights movement, from suffrage in the nineteenth century to women's liberation in the twentieth. Despite occasional instances of antisemitism in the general feminist movement, Jewish women were passionate advocates of feminist goals.

Ariel Sharon and Michal Modai, December 10, 2001

Feminism in Contemporary Israel

The first Israeli radical women’s movement was established in 1972. The 1973 Yom Kippur War then created an awareness of the meaning of the gendered role division between men and women, and soon after the war, a choir of voices, organizations, and movements began to fight for feminist causes. In the twenty-first century, the feminist landscape expanded, but the feminist field remained highly divided.

Mary Fels

Mary Fels used her wealth and her talents to further the Zionist cause, arguing passionately for a Jewish state and helping create both settlements and industry in Israel. Both Fels and her husband, a successful soap manufacturer, felt their wealth gave them a responsibility to reform capitalism and use their money for philanthropy.

Jessica Feingold

Jessica Feingold devoted more than forty-five years of her life to carrying out the goals of the Jewish Theological Seminary. She edited fifty books that originated at the institution, while also serving in many different administrative positions.

Sandra Feldman

Sandra Feldman dedicated her career to protecting the rights of educators as the first woman president of both New York City’s Union Federation of Teachers (UFT) and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT).

Mary Arbitman Fellman

Mary Arbitman Fellman was the first woman editor of the Omaha Jewish Press, led multiple Jewish organizations, and cofounded the Nebraska Jewish Historical Society. As a historian, a journalist, a community leader, and a matchmaker, she cared for the past, present, and future of the Jewish community in Omaha.

Dianne Feinstein

Dianne Feinstein, former mayor of San Francisco and United States senior senator from California since 1992, was a political pioneer and a long-time U.S. senator. Throughout her career, Feinstein earned a reputation as a leader, reformer, and principal member of the Democratic Party.

Rokhl Faygnberg (Imri)

Rokhl Faygnberg witnessed many of the defining events of modern Jewish history in her life, which took her from her shtetl to Israel. She was one of few women to establish herself as a professional Jewish writer and journalist, first in Yiddish and then in Hebrew, and in so doing was often outspoken, polemical, and controversial.

Sara Rivka Feder-Keyfitz

A childhood friend of Golda Meir, Sara Feder-Keyfitz grew up to be a significant Zionist and feminist leader in her own right. From 1951 to 1955, she served as the national president of Pioneer Women

Ruth Lewis Farkas

Ruth Lewis Farkas’ remarkable and varied career ranged from creating a retail chain that survived the Great Depression, to teaching sociology, to running international education initiatives. Her impressive and full life spanned many occupations: educator, sociologist, businesswoman, philanthropist, inventor, wife, and mother.