In honor of Women’s History Month, I would like to offer some guidance to those who are seeking to discover and share the stories of their elusive female ancestors. One of the most common “brick walls” that genealogy researchers face when tracing the family history of a female ancestor is that their family doesn’t know her maiden name. For centuries in much of the…
Image: Signed First Edition of How to Make it in a Man’s World from the library of The American Jewish Historical Society By Melanie J. Meyers, M.S., Senior Librarian for Special Collections, Reference, and Instruction, Lillian Goldman Reading Room, Center For Jewish History Before Sheryl Sandberg told women to Lean In, Letty Cottin Pogrebin (Born June 9, 1939) was giving women the scoop on…
“The First Jewish Feminist:” Ernestine Rose By Jackie Brettschneider, Research Intern, Center for Jewish History Ernestine Rose is popularly known as the first Jewish feminist. It didn’t take her long to realize that women weren’t treated the same way as men. Her views were extremely progressive even from a young age, and she stated that, “I was a rebel at the age of five.”….
By Jackie Brettschneider, Research Intern, Center for Jewish History Jewish women have played an important role in improving the rights of women in both the secular and Jewish communities. Some Jewish feminists chose to work for the rights of all women and some chose to work exclusively for women’s rights within the Jewish religion. This created a divide between the broader feminist movement that…
Have you ever been surprised that Wikipedia doesn’t cover a particular Jewish woman of note? Maybe you’ve been tempted to improve existing Wikipedia articles about Jewish women, or you’re curious about Wikipedia in general. Perhaps you’d like to check out some of the resources the Center’s partners hold on Jewish women. The Center for Jewish History invites you to join us, either on-site in New…
Women in HistoryNobel Prize Winnersby David P. Rosenberg, M.P.A., Reference Services Research Coordinator, Center for Jewish History I recently researched women with Jewish roots who have won the Nobel Prize. Seven people hold the distinction in a range of topics from medicine to chemistry to literature: Gerty Cori was the third woman, and the first American woman, to win the prize when she won for…