Performing Arts
Israeli Folk Dance Pioneers in North America
Dance has been an integral element of the Jewish community since biblical times. An intense desire to share the joy of dance, coupled with a strong identification with both Israel and their Jewish roots, spurred a group of influential women to create a flourishing movement of Israeli folk dance in North America. Today, Israeli folk dance enjoys a wider popularity than ever.
Shulamit Izen
Abbi Jacobson
Irina Jacobson
Jazz Jennings
Jewish Women and Ballet in the United States
While fewer Jewish women went into ballet than into modern dance, those interested in ballet studied with gentile classical teacher-choreographers, such as Mikhai Fokine, Michael Mordkin, and Adolf Bolm. They performed in the main ballet companies, including the American Ballet Theatre, the Metropolitan Opera Ballet, George Balanchine’s New York City Ballet, and even Radio City Music Hall’s ballet company.
Jewish Women and Comedy
This article looks at the place of American Jewish women in comedy. It chronicles the reasons comedy has been a difficult field for women and looks at the careers of several remarkable women who found success in different eras and forms of comedy.
Jewish Women and Contemporary Dance in Argentina
In a period during which Argentinian culture was devastated by political instability and violence, Jewish women created art through contemporary dance. Jewish choreographers Ana Itelman, Renata Schottelius, and Ana Kamien braved political repression and challenged the boundaries of the discipline, making pioneering contributions to the world of contemporary dance in Argentina.
Women, Music, and Judaism in America
Jewish Women Dance Educators and Writers
As in modern dance performance, a disproportionate number of American Jewish women have specialized in dance education and writers, with a longstanding interest in analyzing dance and establishing its place within academic artistic disciplines.
Jewish Women in Contemporary Popular Music: 1950 to Present
Since 1950, Jewish women musicians have moved with the times, performing with bands, as solo acts, and as songwriters. They have included mainstream pop performers and rock, punk, and Riot Grrrl musicians. Some Israeli artists have reached international audiences, often via the Europvision Song Contest.
Jewish Women in Jazz
Jewish women have been involved the world of jazz from its beginnings, as instrumentalists, vocalists, and businesspeople. The degree to which Jewishness overtly affects their music varied, and these musicians’ identities as Jews intersect in interesting ways with other facets of their selves, most notably their femaleness. Beginning in the 1960s and 1970s, Jewish women in jazz took up a wider variety of instruments, and as jazz became more international, Jewish female jazz musicians from around the globe began to come to prominence.
Jewish Women's Archive
Tziporah H. Jochsberger
Having escaped the Holocaust on the strength of her musical talents, Tziporah H. Jochsberger went on to use music to instill Jewish pride in her students. In the 1950s, she began teaching and studying music in New York. In addition to her teaching and administrative roles, Jochsberger found time for an active career as a composer.
Lydia Joel
Anna Maria Jokl
Author, psychoanalyst, and scriptwriter Anna Maria Jokl was greatly influenced by the many places she lived: Vienna, Berlin, Prague, London, Zurich, and Jerusalem. Forced to flee countries twice because of Nazism, Jokl is best known for her German children’s books. Her prolific career includes accomplishments in radio broadcasting, psychoanalytic writing, and autobiographical prose.
Rashida Jones
Helen Joseph
An internationally renowned puppeteer and author on marionettes, Helen Haiman Joseph made a career entertaining and educating audiences of all ages with the performance of puppetry. She created the Pinocchio Players in 1924, writing and producing plays for clubs, schools, and hospitals. Joseph also wrote several children’s books.
JWRC: Eleanor Leff Jewish Women's Resource Center
Hagar Kadima
Composer and visual artist Hagar Kadima was the first Israeli woman composer to earn a PhD in composition. She was also the founder and first chair of the Israeli Women Composers Forum.
Gurit Kadman
Jenette Kahn
Madeline Kahn
Miriam Kainy
Miriam Kainy, Israel’s first established woman playwright, won the Israel Prime Minister’s Literary Prize in 1997. All sixteen of her plays were written in Hebrew and produced by Israel’s established theater companies. Kainy has also written manuscripts for radio and television and adapted dramas from English and Yiddish into Hebrew.
Bertha Kalich
Known for her majestic bearing, great beauty, and fine diction, Bertha Kalich was the first female actor to make the transition from the Yiddish to the English stage. Kalich performed 125 roles in seven languages and was a star of Yiddish theater in Europe before immigrating to the United States and rising to fame in American Yiddish theater and mainstream films, plays, and radio shows.
