Philanthropy

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.

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.

Hannah Greenebaum Solomon

Hannah Greenebaum Solomon was the founder and first president of the National Council of Jewish Women. In creating the first national association for Jewish women, she redefined the roles they could play in American society.

Caroline Klein Simon

Attorney Caroline Klein Simon’s long career included state office and judicial posts. She was a fierce advocate for gender and racial equality and made the first laws against real estate brokers using “blockbusting” tactics to force sales of homes.

Joan Rivers

In revues, nightclub acts, concert halls, and on television, Joan Rivers popularized and perfected a genre of comedy that challenged reigning social conventions. After breaking into Chicago’s comedy scene in 1961 at Second City, Rivers became known for her comedic routines, books, and the talk show for which she won an Emmy for in 1990.

Freda Resnikoff

Freda Resnikoff was a founder and dedicated leader of the Mizrachi Women’s Organization and mother, mother-in-law, and grandmother-in-law of three of its national presidents.

Rosalie Solomons Phillips

Between her family ties to the American Revolution, her political work, and her efforts as a founding member of Hadassah, Rosalie Solomons Phillips showed her deep concern for both preserving the past and creating a future for the Jewish people.

Philanthropy in the United States

In the United States, Jewish women’s philanthropy generally occurred through three main types of organizations: autonomous women’s organizations, women’s organizations that included some men, and women’s auxiliaries of male-dominated groups. In recent decades, changes in Jewish philanthropy and in gender roles have influenced contemporary styles of Jewish women’s philanthropy.

Rosanna Dyer Osterman

Rosanna Dyer Osterman’s supplies helped travelers explore the western frontier, but it was her life-saving efforts as a nurse for which she was best remembered.

Hebrew Benevolent and Orphan Asylum Society Report, 1893

Orphanages in the United States

In the mid-nineteenth century, Jewish philanthropists founded many orphanages in cities with significant Jewish populations, aiming to provide elementary education, vocational training, and religious instruction for dependent children they feared would be raised in non-Jewish asylums. Women were often at the forefront of these institutions as founders, managers, and staff members.

Lucy Goldschmidt Moses

Lucy Moses combined philanthropy on a grand scale with volunteer social work over a long life. She left a legacy in the worlds of medicine, music, and the university, and devoted herself to improving recreational facilities in her home city, New York.

Florence Zacks Melton

A philanthropist and visionary innovator and a lay leader for over fifty years, Florence Zacks Melton helped build institutions that improved the quality and broadened the scope of Jewish education throughout North America.

Regina Margareten

Regina Margareten was hailed as the “Matzah Queen” and the “matriarch of the kosher food industry” for both her business sense and her innovations to improve the quality of her products.

Minnie Low

Known as the “Jane Addams of the Jews,” Minnie Low was a leader in the Jewish social service community. At a time when social work usually meant wealthy people donating to the poor, Low pushed for new kinds of aid such as vocational training and loans that made the needy self–sufficient.

Fanny E. Holtzmann

Fanny E. Holtzmann made waves as a lawyer for stars of Broadway and Hollywood as well as luminaries of world politics such as the Romanoffs.

Ruth Mosko Handler

Best known as the inventor of the Barbie doll, Ruth Mosko Handler combined her marketing genius with her husband Elliot Handler’s creative designs to form the toy company Mattel, Inc., in 1939. Her battles with cancer later in her career led her to create the company Nearly Me, which developed prosthetics for breast cancer survivors.

Louise Waterman Wise

Although most historians view Louise Waterman Wise as simply the wife of Stephen S. Wise, her influence as a tireless advocate for the care and protection of children, the development of communal health care, refugee resettlement, and the establishment of the State of Israel was unparalleled.

Henrietta Scheuer Wimpfheimer

An extraordinarily active woman who lived to be 103, Henrietta Scheuer Wimpfheimer was representative of many nineteenth-century urban Jewish women. Wimpfheimer was widowed young and filled the remaining half of her life with a plethora of social work, including the United Order of True Sisters and the New York Guild for the Blind.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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