Encyclopedia Categories | 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.

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.

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.

Sports in the United States

Historians of American sport and of American Jewish history have generally neglected the study of sports by and for Jewish American women. As sport increasingly played a significant role in American society in the twentieth century, it also became part of Jewish women’s experiences in American life.

Laura Stachel

Stunned by the poor conditions in which Nigerian doctors were working, Laura Stachel created We Care Solar to offer hospitals “Solar Suitcases” that fuel reliable lights.

Brooke Stern

After witnessing a number of failed philanthropic projects in Uganda, Brooke Stern created Supporting Opportunities for Ugandans to Learn (S.O.U.L.), empowering Ugandans to lift themselves out of grinding poverty and providing self-sustainable solutions in education, healthcare, and business entrepreneurship opportunities.

Edith Rosenwald Stern

Edith Rosewald Stern used her family’s wealth for her community’s good. In New Orleans, she helped fund schools to offer her children and their peers a progressive education. Stern also fought to clean up voting rights in the city, organizing voter registration, auditing voter rolls, and bringing voting machines into high schools to educate future voters.

Donna Sternberg

A passionate supporter of Israel with decades of experience in fundraising for others, Donna Sternberg helped raise almost half a million dollars in aid to help her own community recover from Hurricane Katrina.

Nancy Schwartz Sternoff

Nancy Schwartz Sternoff dedicated her career to advancing women, non-profits, and the Jewish community.

Sara Stone

Sara Stone helped New Orleans weather hard times from the Great Depression through Hurricane Katrina.

Sarah Lavanburg Straus

With the support of philanthropist Baroness Clara de Hirsch, Sarah Lavanburg Straus helped to establish two homes for immigrant girls in New York City early in the twentieth century.

Barbra Streisand

From her Oscar winning performance in Funny Girl to her Golden Globe-winning direction in Yentl, Barbra Streisand has consistently made history in the entertainment industry. One of the most successful performers of the twentieth century, she also directs and produces movies. She also funds multiple charities through the Streisand Foundation.

Hilda Weil Stroock

Hilda Weil Stroock was a sponsor of the first Women’s Conference on Jewish Affairs held in 1938 at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America. This pioneering event reflected her lifelong interest in the welfare of women and children and the condition of the Jewish community.

Regina D. Stroock

Born in New York City in 1875 to a life of privilege, Regina Stroock parlayed her talents and wealth into a career of philanthropy and civic leadership. Active in both Jewish and New York City philanthropy, Stroock involved herself with many charitable organizations related to child welfare and other social issues of the time.

Iphigene Ochs Sulzberger

Iphigene Ochs Sulzberger was the daughter, wife, mother, or grandmother of four publishers of the New York Times and herself served as a trustee of the paper. She also helped strengthen the schools and parks of New York.

Marcy Syms

Marcy Syms became one of the youngest female presidents of a New York Stock Exchange-traded company when her family’s business, Syms Corp., went public in 1983.

Nicki Newman Tanner

As part of her lifelong devotion to Wellesley College, Nicki Newman Tanner chaired a record-breaking capital campaign for the college in 1993, raising $168 million from alumnae and disproving the assumption that women give less than men.

Faige Teitelbaum

When Faige Teitelbaum married Satmar rebbe Rabbi Joel Teitelbaum in 1936, she became the Satmar rebbetzin, in which capacity she was very active in charitable activities. After her husband’s death, she became the only woman in the Hasidic world to function as a de facto rebbe and leader.

Sophie Tucker

Vaudeville legend and Broadway star Sophie Tucker defied convention with her saucy comic banter and music. Tucker became famous internationally for her singing performances and delighted audiences throughout America and Europe with her rendition of “My Yiddishe Momme.” Tucker was proud of her Jewish identity and created the Sophie Tucker Foundation, which supported various actors’ guilds, hospitals, synagogues, and Israeli youth villages.

Joy Ungerleider-Mayerson

Joy Ungerleider-Mayerson rescued the faltering Jewish Museum in New York. She shifted the museum’s focus from avant-garde art back to Judaica, launched exhibitions of art rescued from the Holocaust, and restored the struggling institution’s financial stability. She also created the Dorot Foundaiton, launching some of the finest non-denominational Jewish study programs worldwide.

Lillian Vernon

In 1987, Lillian Vernon took her mail-order company public, making it the first company founded by a woman and traded on the New York Stock Exchange.

Diane Von Furstenberg

Designer Diane von Furstenberg made her mark on the fashion world in 1974 with the invention of the wrap dress.

Julia Waldbaum

In addition to being a well-known philanthropist, Julia Waldbaum owned a chain of grocery stores that she started with her husband. Over the course of her career, Waldbaum’s franchise expanded to as many as 140 locations in New York, Connecticut, and Massachusetts.

Frieda Schiff Warburg

Frieda Schiff Warburg’s determination to carry on her father’s philanthropic traditions led her to support and shape major Jewish institutions in America and Israel. Warburg became a director of the Young Women’s Hebrew Association (YWHA) and later its president.

Esther Ziskind Weltman

Trustee and philanthropist Esther Ziskind Weltman was instrumental in giving shape and focus to Jewish philanthropy in the United States in the post–World War II years.

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The Shalvi/Hyman Encyclopedia of Jewish Women

Philanthropy and Volunteerism: Philanthropy