Browse by Category | Jewish Women's Archive

Estelle Joan Sommers

Estelle Joan Sommers was a designer, entrepreneur, and executive who made her career in retail dancewear, introducing innovative designs for Capezio’s dance and exercise clothing.

Rosa Sonneschein created and edited the American Jewess, the first English-language magazine for Jewish women in the United States, where she advocated for the expansion of women’s roles in the synagogue and the Jewish community and expressed her strong support for Zionism.

Susan Sontag

Susan Sontag was one of the most prominent American writers of the twentieth century. Her work across cultural criticism, fiction, drama, and film, as well as her public persona, made her an icon of the New York intelligentsia whose writing on photography, illness, and art continually inspire engagement and debate.

Eva Sopher

Eva Sopher was a Brazilian-Jewish theater manager and cultural entrepreneur in Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, where she worked for 41 years. Sopher is recognized for her leadership in the renovation of the world-renowned São Pedro Theatre and her contributions to Brazilian theater, art, and culture.

Sotah

Required of women who are suspected of committing adultery, sotah is a ritual involving a priest to confirm whether the act occurred or not; a woman who has been unfaithful is made infertile. There are few records of sotah actually taking place, although the ritual is described at length in some post-Biblical literature.

Sotah, Tractate

The Mishnaic Tractate Sotah deals mainly with the trial by ordeal undergone in the Temple by a sotah, a woman whose husband suspected her of adultery. Compared to that described in the Bible, the Mishnaic trial is much harsher and transforms the ritual into a judgement on immoral behavior, not just marital infidelity. Furthermore, the Mishnaic sotah was unusually stringent for its time and is rarely mentioned after the Mishnah.

Alice Hyneman Sotheran

Alice Hyneman Sotheran, author, lecturer, and reviewer for a variety of magazines in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, wrote about women’s work and women’s issues.

Gil Marcus, Nelson Mandela, and Michael Katz, December 1990

South Africa

Over time, Jewish women’s status and achievements have risen within the South African Jewish community and the wider society. White Jewish women used their historically privileged position (unprecedented for Jews) to assist those suffering from the oppressions of apartheid, notwithstanding democratization since 1994. Women have been prominent in more recent innovations and initiatives, so that even in the face of demographic decline, the community exhibits paradoxical vitality and resilience.

Medieval Spain

Written histories of Jews in medieval Spain rarely include women, so one must seek alternate sources. Marital status was the frequent topic of rabbinic responsa. Some Jewish women made their own income as merchants and moneylenders. Inheritance laws were problematic for Jewish women – disputes were settled in both Jewish and non-Jewish courts.

Muriel Spark

Muriel Spark was a Scottish-Jewish novelist, short story writer, literary critic, poet, editor, and essayist. While many critics marginalize Spark as a “Catholic writer,” it is clear that the wit, intelligence and subversiveness of her fiction are driven not by an unchanging morality but by a radical singularity.

Bertha Kaplan Spector

Born in a Russian shtetl, Bertha Kaplan Spector became a bacteriologist whose authoritative research helped to control an epidemic of amebic dysentery during the Chicago Century of Progress World’s Fair. Her work contributed to a better understanding of the disease, as well as to new standards of hygiene.

Johanna Spector

Johanna Spector was an influential ethnomusicologist whose writings, recordings, and film projects documented the music of little-studied Jewish communities from around the world. After surviving the Holocaust, Spector earned her doctorate, founded the ethnomusicology department at the Jewish Theological Seminary, established the Society for the Preservation of Samaritan Culture, and served as president of the Asian Music Society.

Regina Spektor

With her surreal lyrics and experimental vocalizations, Regina Spektor carved a place for herself in the anti-folk music scene and went on to conquer the pop charts.

Gladys Noon Spellman

During her five years in Congress, Gladys Noon Spellman was a voice for fiscal reform. Elected in 1975, Spellman served on the Committee on Banking, Currency and Housing, the Democratic Steering and Policy Committee, and the Committee on Post Office and Civil Service. Her service coincided with a period of American politics in which Jews were becoming increasingly visible, both as voters and as elected officials.

Ruth Sperling

Ruth Sperling is an esteemed Israeli scientist. Her work with her husband included a revolutionary discovery of the 3-D structure of spliceosomes, the cell's "machinery" for chopping up and re-attaching pieces of DNA to create its requisite assortment of functional proteins.

Laura Spero

In Nepal, where oral decay is the most prevalent childhood illness and adults fully expect to lose all their teeth as they age, Laura Spero established Jevaia Oral Health Care to provide sustainable, community-based rural dental care.

Nancy Spero

Nancy Spero was a figurative artist concerned with difference and the representation of the body. Rejecting postwar trends towards Pop art and abstract impressionism, Spero co-founded the AIR (Artists in Residence) Gallery in 1972, the first cooperative gallery of women artists. Spero also created a mosaic for the Lincoln Center subway station called “Artemis, Acrobats, Divas, and Dancers.”

Bella Spewack

Bella Spewack, in collaboration with her husband Sam, is known for writing some of the most memorable works of musical theater history, including Leave It to Me (1938) and Kiss Me Kate (1948). The Spewacks also wrote screenplays for several 1940s Hollywood hits, such as Weekend at the Waldorf. The couple contributed to many Jewish organizations and founded the Spewack Sports Club for the Handicapped in Ramat Gan, Israel.

Dora Spiegel

Dora Spiegel served in many fields, including education, the organization of league sisterhoods, and publications stimulating women’s loyalty to the synagogue and the Jewish home. She helped found the Women’s Institute of Jewish Studies at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, influencing the lives of countless Jewish women and children.

Marcia Cohn Spiegel

Marcia Cohn Spiegel was one of the first to speak out about alcoholism and domestic violence in the Jewish community, using her own experience to help others.

Flora Langerman Spiegelberg

Flora Langerman Spiegelberg made substantial innovative contributions to civic welfare and Jewish life. She was a nineteenth-century settler of New Mexico and a twentieth-century progressive reformer in New York City who fought for public sanitation regulations and better working conditions for garbage collectors.

Sabina Spielrein

Sabina Spielrein, a pioneer in the early years of psychoanalysis who made significant contributions to the field, was the first person to propose the thesis about instinctual life, which Freud later adapted. Until recently, Spielrein’s accomplishments and contributions were overlooked and forgotten.

Phyllis Spira

As a young dancer at the Royal Ballet School in London, Phyllis Spira was on the brink of a successful career abroad, but in 1965 she returned to her home in South Africa and became the country's prima ballerina. Spira was awarded the Nederburg Prize for ballet in 1972 and 1979. Her most notable achievement was perhaps leading “Dance For All,” a program to provide disadvantaged students opportunities to dance.

Miriam Spira-Luria

Although little is known of her life, legends of Miriam Spira-Luria’s scholarship offer tantalizing hints of an intelligent, accomplished woman almost completely erased from history.

Spirituality in the United States

Jewish women’s spirituality developed historically within the confines of a patriarchal tradition. Over time, feminists have developed rituals and created spaces that honor the unique experiences of women.

Sharing Stories
Inspiring Change

The Shalvi/Hyman Encyclopedia of Jewish Women