Non-Fiction

Content type
Collection

Jaclyn Friedman

Jaclyn Friedman voiced new possibilities for sex-positive feminism and a rejection of rape culture as editor of Yes Means Yes: Visions of Female Sexual Power and a World Without Rape.

Birth of novelist Jacqueline Susann

August 20, 1921

Jacqueline Susann was the first writer to have three consecutive novels hit #1 on the New York Times bestseller list.

Death of film critic Judith Crist

August 7, 2012

“The critics who love are the severe ones. We know our relationship must be based on honesty.” - Movie critic Judith Crist

Birth of Esther Broner, co-creator of "The Women’s Haggadah"

July 8, 1927

Esther Broner "made room for us at the table by creating a whole new one—a Seder table at which women’s voices were heard.”

Sandy Sasso

Sandy Eisenberg Sasso was the first woman rabbi ordained by the Reconstructionist movement, which was one of many firsts in her career.

Birth of Cancer Patient Advocate Rose Kushner

June 22, 1929

"We women should be free, knowledgeable, and completely conscious when the time comes for a decision, so that we can make it for ourselves." Cancer patient advocate Rose Kushner

Deborah Dash Moore receives the Jewish Cultural Achievement Award

June 10, 2013

"No area offered greater freedom and challenge than American Jewish history… It has been a great voyage.” - Deborah Dash Moore

Alice Bailes

Alice Bailes joined the resurgence of natural childbirth in America both as a midwife and as coeditor of The Handbook on Home Birth.

Dorothy Miller Zellner

As co-editor of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee’s newsletter, the Student Voice, Dorothy Miller Zellner helped craft the organization’s message and report on stories suppressed by the mainstream media.

Debra L. Schultz

Debra Schultz served as an advisor to the Jewish Women’s Archive in creating the Living the Legacy curriculum based on research she had done on the history of Jewish women in the civil rights movement.

Faith Holsaert

Faith Holsaert was one of the first white women field workers for the civil rights movement in the south, volunteering for voter registration in one of the worst counties in Georgia.

Naomi Weisstein

Naomi Weisstein’s career ran the gamut from feminist rock musician to groundbreaking psychologist to stand-up comedian.

Savina Teubal

Savina Teubal created space for Jewish women to participate in holidays and rituals, and created a powerful new tradition to recognize her own rite of passage from adult to elder.

Meredith Tax

Meredith Tax used her writing both to highlight the tremendous upheaval of her own times and to reimagine the struggles of suffragists and union organizers.

Sheryl Baron Nestel

Sheryl Baron Nestel’s activism in the childbirth reform movement led to her investigation of how race and racism affect healthcare.

Loolwa Khazzoom

A pioneer of the Jewish multicultural movement, Loolwa Khazoom helped promote Sephardic and Mizrahi culture and priorities within the larger Jewish community.

Evelyn Fox Keller

Evelyn Fox Keller’s work in gender, biology, and the history of science led her to question the gendered metaphors and assumptions of biologists and sociologists, which often blinded them to basic scientific facts.

Susannah Heschel

As a scholar and author, Susannah Heschel has explored issues of Jewish feminism and 19th and 20th century German Jewish history.

Nancy Miriam Hawley

Nancy Miriam Hawley helped found the Boston Women's Health Book Collective, Inc., the organization responsible for writing the best seller Our Bodies, Ourselves, which empowered women to take control of their own health care.

Rivka Haut

An Orthodox Jewish feminist, Rivka Haut advocated on behalf of agunot (chained wives) and wrote feminist prayers for Orthodox Jews.

Lynn Gottlieb

One of the first ten women rabbis, Lynn Gottlieb became a voice for peace between Jews and Muslims.

V

Eve Ensler’s massively successful play The Vagina Monologues gave her a platform to launch V-Day, a campaign to end violence against women and girls.

Ophira Edut

At the age of nineteen, Ophira Edut helped launch HUES, a magazine that embraced diversity and depicted young women as strong, smart, stylish, and playful.

Ellen DuBois

Feminist historian Ellen DuBois’s explorations of the history of feminism offered Second Wave feminists ways to talk about women’s sexuality beyond exploitation and banning pornography.

Nina Beth Cardin

Part of the first class of women ordained as Conservative rabbis, Nina Beth Cardin embraced the unconventional path of a “community pulpit” by founding healing centers and creating new ways to approach miscarriage and loss.

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