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Emma Goldman

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Alix Kates Shulman

Alix Kates Shulman is a radical feminist writer and activist and a leader in the second-wave feminist movement of the 1960s through 1980s.  She is best known as the author of “The Marriage Agreement” (1970) and the best-selling Memoirs of an Ex-Prom Queen (1972), which was heralded as the “first important novel of the Women’s Liberation movement.” She was honored with a Clara Lemlich Award for a lifetime of social activism in 2018.

Margaret Sanger and Fania Mindell on courthouse steps, 1917

Suffrage and the Fight for Reproductive Justice

Nina Henry

Many Jewish suffragists (and anti-suffragists) also belonged to the nascent birth control movement.

Emma Goldman with Noam Green

My Friend Crush on Emma Goldman

Noam Green

There is a certain type of girl our parents always told us to stay away from when we were younger; she was often described as bad news, or as bound to corrupt our innocent souls. Always getting herself into trouble, she's the type of girl who the adults detest and the kids idolize.

Emma Goldman, 1886

Trying To Be The Iconoclast

Sophie Edelhart

It is telling that the when you Google “anarchy”, two definitions come up: one that calls it a “state of disorder” and the other, “a political ideal.” But in my mind, to paraphrase Ellen Willis, anarchy is not a violent rebellion but an overhaul of societal consciousness. I find it more compelling now to be a critic, of everything, because to live critically is to live truthfully.

Women of Valor: Jewish Heroes Across Time

Learn about the lives of three trailblazing women and get some practical ideas for how to bring their stories into your community in creative ways.

Another Emma "Makes Trouble"

Deborah Fineblum Raub

Pregnant women take note: There’s something about the name “Emma” that turns a girl into a prizefighter swinging her fists for human––often specifically women’s––rights, or, as we like to say here at the Jewish Women's Archive, a “troublemaker” in the best sense of the word.

Secret Classified Document

The Feminist Papers--LEAKED!

Gabrielle Orcha

“The Feminist Papers,” a highly classified document that up until now has only been rumored to exist, was (accidentally?) leaked last night at 11:15pm.

Topics: Activism, Feminism
Miriam Rosenberg Roček as Steampunk Emma Goldman, Cropped

JWA's Greatest Hits: Meet Steampunk Emma Goldman

Kate Rafey

One of my favorite aspects about being Jewish is mixing tradition with the present.

Rachel Berry from Glee

Why Rachel Berry deserves our compassion

Leah Berkenwald

Recently in The Forward, Jay Michaelson compared four characters from “Glee” to the “Four Children” from the Passover seder tradition. What I loved about the piece was Michaelson’s point that for young Jews, Jewish identity is one variable in a multi-variable identity that youth will embrace, when and if they find it meaningful. What bothered me about the piece was the language Michaelson used describing Rachel Berry, the analogous “Wise Child,” as an “irritating control freak” and “intolerable.” It was particularly difficult to read this because, well, I used to be Rachel Berry.

Emma Goldman Mug Shot, 1901

Henrietta Szold and Emma Goldman: Star-crossed "Women of Valor"

Leah Berkenwald

December 21st is the winter solstice and this year it was also the date of a lunar eclipse. December 21st, however, is also a big day for two important "stars": Henrietta Szold and Emma Goldman, two very important women in JWA's online Women of Valor exhibit.

Emma Goldman

Emma Goldman dedicated her life to the creation of a radically new social order. Convinced that the political and economic organization of modern society was fundamentally unjust, she embraced anarchism for the vision it offered of liberty, harmony and true social justice. For decades, she struggled tirelessly against widespread inequality, repression and exploitation.

Deportation of Emma Goldman as a radical "alien"

December 21, 1919

On December 21, 1919, Emma Goldman, along with 248 other radical "aliens," was deported to the Soviet Union on the S.S. Buford under the 1918 Alien Act, which allowed for the expulsion of any alien found to be an anarchist.

Emma Goldman, born in Kovno, Lithuania (then Russia) in 1869, came to the United States in 1885 at age 16.

Emma Goldman Released from Jail and Then Reimprisoned

September 27, 1919

Emma Goldman was released from a two-year prison term, on September 27, 1919, only to be immediately reimprisoned.

Emma Goldman's "What I Believe"

July 19, 1908

"It is too bad that we no longer live in the times when witches were burned at the stake or tortured to drive the evil spirit out of them. For, indeed, Emma Goldman is a witch!

Rose Pesotta

Rose Pesotta was an iconic labor organizer and president of the International Ladies' Garment Workers Union (ILGWU) in the early twentieth century. Pesotta saw her union organizing as an opportunity to fulfill the anarchist mandate “to be among the people and teach them our ideal in practice.”

Nursing in the United States

Early in the twentieth century, trained nursing was not considered a suitable profession for a young Jewish woman. Jewish quotas on admission to nursing school were maintained well into the twentieth century, and nursing education continued be characterized by Christian underpinnings as late as the 1950s, stunting the prominence of Jewish nurses.

Poland: Women Leaders in the Jewish Underground During the Holocaust

There were prominent female leaders in nearly every Jewish underground in the Polish ghettos during WWII. Women often took on the role of delegate to central leadership, moving between ghettos. Jewish fighting organizations relied on these delegates to deliver arms, forged documents, and military instructions between ghettos.

Charlotte Lipsky

Charlotte Schacht Lipsky found an unusual balance between activism and pragmatism: on one hand, a follower of the revolutionary Emma Goldman, on the other, the owner of a successful interior decorating business. In her later years, she was involved in Hadassah and the Women’s American ORT, an organization that taught trade skills to Jews around the world.

Leadership and Authority

The concepts of leadership and authority have evolved over time. From biblical leaders elected by God to contemporary makers of social change, women have been leading the Jewish people for centuries.

Lucy Fox Robins Lang

A committed anarchist by age fifteen, Lucy Fox Robins Lang contributed greatly to both the labor movement and the anarchist movement as aide and confidante to major figures like Emma Goldman and Samuel Gompers, though her work was largely uncredited and behind the scenes.

Vivian Gornick

Vivian Gornick is an American essayist, memoirist, and noted second-wave feminist. She is known for bringing a personal lens to political and critical writing.

Emma Goldman

Emma Goldman was a potent voice of anarchism in North America and Europe in the early twentieth century, and her controversial beliefs made her many powerful enemies. Yet even after enduring many contentious interactions with law enforcement, Goldman continued to speak, write, and teach on freedom and individual rights, inspiring her followers to question authority at every turn.

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