Browse by Category | Jewish Women's Archive

Civil War in the United States

During the Civil War, Jewish women performed a range of classic responsibilities brought on by wartime exigencies. Their efforts tended to generate little in the way of documentation, and thus historians studying the involvement of Jewish women in the Civil War and the impact of the war on Jewish women have a sparse body of primary sources upon which to draw.

Hélène Cixous

Jewish-Algerian-French writer Hélène Cixous published her first book in 1967 and approximately her eighty-seventh in February 2021. This “life writing” comprises poetic fiction and autobiography, literary and feminist theory, art criticism, and theatrical works. Cixous explores the myriad contradictions and consequences of loss and exile, of “being Jewish” and “being a woman.”

Clara De Hirsch Home for Working Girls

The Clara de Hirsch Home for Working Girls was established in May 1897 to provide housing, occupational training, and community to mostly poor and immigrant young women in New York City.

Ruth Clarke

In the spirit of tikkun olam, Ruth Clarke chose to repair the world by transforming her neighborhood.

Club Movement in the United States

In the last decade of the nineteenth century, Jewish women shifted from benevolent work to social and personal reform, often through aiding immigrants and young, vulnerable women. They facilitated educational opportunities to learn about Jewish history and ethics, which in turn helped inform their aid work. These efforts created a space specifically for women in American Jewish society.

Women from the Cochin Jewish community perform on stage during a culture event at Bar-Ilan University. Photo by Victor Yitzhak, Cochin Jewish Heritage Center.

Cochin: Jewish Women's Music

For many centuries, Cochin Jewish women have sung Jewish songs, both in Hebrew and in the Malayalam language of Kerala, their ancient homeland on the tropical southwest coast of India. Kerala Jews are unusual among halakhically observant communities in the complex intertwining of female and male knowledge and performance throughout their musical repertoire.

Regine Freund Cohane

A dedicated lawyer who fought sexism and anti-Semitism, Regine Freund Cohane also had the unique distinction of being half of the first married couple to try a case before the US Supreme Court.

Abby Joseph Cohen

A leading voice in the United States investment banking and finance industry, Abby Joseph Cohen worked in the Goldman Sachs investment research division for over three decades. She rose to prominence in the 1990s with her accurate predictions of a prolonged economic expanding and durable bull market and has remained one of the top names in the investment industry.

Audrey Cohen

Audrey Cohen was the founder and president of Audrey Cohen College in New York City, which emphasized a purpose-oriented understanding of education. In 1964 she founded the earliest iteration of Audrey Cohen College, Women’s Talent Corps, which combined study with on-the-job training and greatly benefited low-income women.

Barbara Cohen

When Barbara Cohen died, she left behind an exceptional body of children’s literature. Cohen was adventurous, seldom repeating herself, always trying new ideas, settings and themes. In her books, she confronted taboo subjects of assimilation, racism, and cancer with both sensitivity and remarkable honesty.

Elaine Lustig Cohen

With her modernist combinations of typography and photomontage, Elaine Lustig Cohen was a pioneer of graphic design and marketing. Her designs were featured on many book covers and architectural signage throughout the 1950s and 1960s, and her paintings have been widely exhibited.

Elisheva Cohen

Elisheva Cohen was a successful curator, known for her work with the Israel Museum. She was a thorough, modest, and knowledgeable worker and person.

Elizabeth D. A. Cohen

Called a midwife and a “doctoress,” Elizabeth D.A. Cohen fought for the respect of her colleagues. She was the first woman doctor recognized by the state of Louisiana and battled to save patients from two epidemics of yellow fever.

Flossie Cohen

Flossie Cohen pushed the boundaries of pediatric medicine throughout her career, from providing bone marrow transplants to creating a pediatric AIDS center.

Geulah Cohen

A perennial firebrand of the Israeli Right, Geulah Cohen was a major fixture in Israeli politics from the pre-state era through to the twenty-first century. She was a Lehi-affiliated member of the Jewish Underground in British Mandatory Palestine, served in five Knessets from 1974 to 1992, and was one of the first prominent female Israeli politicians of Mizrahi origin.

Painting of Hannah Floretta wearing a poufy white dress

Hannah Floretta Cohen

Hannah Floretta Cohen was the first woman president of Britain’s traditionally male Jewish Board of Guardians for Jewish Poor Relief. She also promoted many other Jewish and non-Jewish charitable organizations to promote women's education, to benefit the sick and the elderly, and to encourage investment in the Palestine Mandate, through her public speaking, financial expertise, and administrative skills.

Helen Louise Cohen

Helen Louise Cohen, an educator and author, made the study of drama more accessible and vibrant to countless high school students in the first half of the twentieth century. Although Judaism seemed to play only a small role in her adult life, it is Jewish culture and values that contributed to her regard for education and helped to shape her life’s work.

Jessica Cohen

Jessie Cohen served as editor of the Jewish Review and Observer for most of her life, maintaining an important resource for Jews in the city of Cleveland. She ran the Jewish Review and Observer for decades, finally retiring due to ill health, and remained editor emeritus until her death in 1945.

Katherine M. Cohen

Katherine M. Cohen was a sculptor and artist dedicated to advocating for equality for women in the arts. Comfortably situated in the community of Philadelphia’s Jewish elite, Cohen created many commissions for the community reflecting Jewish themes and illustrated a Jewish children’s book. Cohen made a speech at the Chicago World’s Fair advocating for the support of artists, and specifically female artists.

Naomi W. Cohen

One of the first women scholars in the new field of Jewish studies, Naomi W. Cohen earned a reputation as one of the foremost historians of American Jewry. A graduate of Columbia University, Cohen worked as a professor at several institutions and wrote many books, two of which were honored with the National Jewish Book Award.

Natalie Cohen

Natalie Cohen was a twentieth-century athlete, umpire, journalist, and civil servant who earned the Presidential Sports Award from President Gerald Ford.

Nina Morais Cohen

Nina Morais Cohen organized the Jewish women’s community of Minneapolis, where she was a force for women’s suffrage, community service, and scholarship.

Pamela Cohen

Called “the general of a fighting army” by jailed dissident Natan Sharansky, Pamela Cohen rescued countless refuseniks from Soviet Russia with her grassroots efforts.

Rosalie Cohen

A lifelong Zionist, Rosalie Cohen worked to promote Jewish culture and education both on a national level and locally in New Orleans. Cohen’s talents as a leader and organizer, as well as her gracious southern manners, were key assets in overcoming the obstacles she faced as a Zionist in a southern city and as a woman in a predominantly male Jewish national arena.

Rose Gollup Cohen

In her short life, Rose Gollup Cohen was a unionized factory worker and a domestic servant, was helped through an illness by Lillian Wald, became educated, and wrote short stories. Her moving 1918 autobiography Out of the Shadow offers a vivid account of her life as an immigrant Jewish woman in the sweatshops of New York.

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Inspiring Change

The Shalvi/Hyman Encyclopedia of Jewish Women