Women’s and Gender Studies

Content type
Collection
Sharon Freed and Lottie Nilsen at JWA’s Institute for Educators
August 9, 2011

Sharing stories, inspiring change: Lessons from the Institute

Etta King Heisler

Ask any one of my friends or family members: in the weeks leading up to JWA’s Institute for Educators, I was a mess. As the dishes piled up on my desk at the office and my eyeballs crossed from looking at spreadsheet after spreadsheet of catering orders and flight information, a battle between stress and excitement raged in my mind.

Topics: Education, Jewish Education, Teachers, Women’s and Gender Studies, Jewish History, Organizations and Institutions
Ellyn Polsky and George Kelley at JWA's 2011 Summer Institute for Educators
July 21, 2011

JWA's Institute for Educators: Making it all about the learning

George Kelley

Last week I was able to spend a week learning from the wonderful people at the Jewish Women's Archive as they were teaching us how to use their online archive in our schools, especially the Living the Legacy curriculum. The curriculum teaches about the role of Jewish women and men in the civil rights movement, an event that changed the world we live in.

Topics: Education, Jewish Education, Women’s and Gender Studies, Organizations and Institutions, Spirituality and Religious Life
Lillian Rappaport at the JWA Institute for Educators, 2011
July 12, 2011

Update from JWA's Institute for Educators

Ellen K. Rothman

On Sunday afternoon, 23 women and one [brave] man arrived in suburban Boston to spend four days at JWA’s 2011 summer Institute for Educators.

Topics: Education, Jewish Studies, Women’s and Gender Studies
Gail T. Reimer and Judith Kates at Hebrew College Commencement, 2011
June 10, 2011

Gail T. Reimer receives Benjamin J. Shevach Memorial Award for leadership in Jewish education

Leah Berkenwald

On Sunday, June 5, 2011 JWA's Executive Director Gail T. Reimer was honored at the Hebrew College Commencement with the Benjamin J. Shevach Memorial Award. The award was presented by Dr. Judith Kates, Hebrew College Professor of Jewish Women’s Studies. She said:

Topics: Education, Jewish Studies, Women’s and Gender Studies, Organizations and Institutions
jwapedia Hashtag
June 7, 2011

Some #jwapedia favorites

Leah Berkenwald

Last month we celebrated Jewish American Heritage Month with #jwapedia, a campaign to tweet JWA's Encyclopedia.

Topics: Jewish Studies, Women’s and Gender Studies, Organizations and Institutions
jwapedia Hashtag
May 31, 2011

The final day of #jwapedia

Leah Berkenwald

Today is the final day of May, which also makes it the final day of Jewish American Heritage Month and the final day of our #jwapedia campaign to tweet the Encyclopedia.

Topics: Community Organizing, Jewish Studies, Women’s and Gender Studies, Organizations and Institutions
"Half You Half Me" Girls in Trouble Album Cover, 2011
May 27, 2011

Girls in Trouble: Telling women’s stories in a ‘language’ I understand

Etta King Heisler

“The world is woven through us/I swear I wont forget/how her fingers hold the thread.” This is the final line of the song “Rubies,” off the amazing sophomore album "Half You Half Me" by the group Girls in Trouble, released on JDUB records earlier this month.

Topics: Women’s and Gender Studies, Music, Music, Spirituality and Religious Life
May 19, 2011

Summer internship opportunities at JWA

Leah Berkenwald

Do you know someone looking for an engaging internship experience this summer? The Jewish Women's Archive has openings for several unpaid interns, 10–20 hours per week, beginning June 13, 2011 for both undergraduates and graduates. Academic year positions may also be available. 

Topics: Jewish Studies, Women’s and Gender Studies, Organizations and Institutions
jwapedia Hashtag
May 10, 2011

Tweeting the Encyclopedia of Jewish Women

Renee Ghert-Zand

“Big Hats and bigger opinions, she knew ‘This woman’s place is in the House—the House of Representatives,’” Rabbi Ruth Abusch-Magder tweeted on May 2, the launch day for Jewish Women’s Archive’s “#jwapedia: Tweeting the Encyclopedia” project. By doing so, she sent a link to the article about Bella Abzug in the online “Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia” hurtling out into cyberspace to be clicked on, opened and read by her many Twitter followers.

Topics: Community Organizing, Jewish Studies, Women’s and Gender Studies, Rabbis
jwapedia Hashtag
May 3, 2011

#jwapedia: Tweeting the Encyclopedia!

Leah Berkenwald

In honor of Jewish American Heritage Month, the Jewish Women’s Archive is launching a campaign to tweet our online Encyclopedia of Jewish women’s history. The project poses an intriguing and entertaining challenge: to summarize a scholarly article in no more than 140 characters.

Topics: Community Organizing, Jewish Studies, Women’s and Gender Studies, Organizations and Institutions
Beverly Pepper and Carol Gilligan
April 22, 2011

Women who frame our world

Elizabeth Stone

Who are the women who frame our world? A small gathering of about 100 women met in San Francisco last week to hear from an array of leaders in the creative arts.

Topics: Sculpture, Women’s and Gender Studies, Dance, Spirituality and Religious Life, Psychology and Psychiatry, Writing, Poetry
Joyce Antler
April 11, 2011

Q&A: Joyce Antler on "Women's Liberation and Jewish Identity"

Chanel Dubofsky

I first read the Joyce Antler’s book The Journey Home: How Jewish Women Shaped Modern America as an undergraduate, deep in the thrall of Jewish feminist academia.

Topics: Feminism, Jewish Studies, Teachers, Women’s and Gender Studies, Writing, Plays
Miriam Friedlander

Miriam Friedlander, 1914 - 2009

She was an inspiration to many of us as an activist and someone who challenged the powers that be ... And I think many of us saw her as a role model: There weren't a lot of women in office – she was there and she had a great fighting spirit.

Tikva Frymer-Kensky

Tikva Frymer-Kensky, 1943 - 2006

As a scholar, Dr. Frymer-Kensky challenged her students to study deeply and obtain mastery of their subjects; any less was insufficient. In her writing, she modeled both rigor and relevance…. She wrote in order to bring us the ancient and to create a more just present.

Betty Friedan at ERA March in Washington, DC, July 9, 1978

Betty Friedan, 1921 - 2006

If there was any one woman who could be called the mother of feminism, it was Betty Friedan. Though "second-wave" feminism was a collective endeavor that had many founders, Friedan was the spark plug whose furious indictment of "the problem that had no name" – the false consciousness of "happy housewifery" – set off a revolution more potent than many of the other social and cultural upheavals of the 1960s. The impact of this social movement is still being felt around the world.

Sally Fox, Cropped

Sally Cherniavsky Fox, 1929 - 2006

Sally Fox's passion was to gather and share the history of women through visual images. Sometimes this meant finding images of women doing conventional work, but often it meant seeking images of women doing the unexpected…. Her goal was to challenge conventional notions of how women lived their lives in the past.

Institute for Educators 2008

Join the Jewish Women's Archive for four days of intensive professional development designed to enrich your teaching with the compelling stories of American Jewish lives, past and present. The 2010 Institute will focus on the role of Jews in the Civil Rights Movement in America.

May 1, 2009

This is news?

Judith Rosenbaum

This is one of the strangest articles I've read in a long time. Apparently, the New York Times thinks it's breaking news that gender studies (a field that has existed for about 30 years now) is actually relevant to society at large! Turns out it matters, and not just to those crazy feminists!

Topics: Women’s and Gender Studies

Celebrating 350 years of Jewish women in America

October 18, 2004

The Jewish Women's Archive joined with National Women's Philanthropy of the United Jewish Communities for an historic celebration of 350 years of American

Steve Benson on the Launch of JWA's Virtual Archive Thumbnail

Launch of the Jewish Women's Archive's Virtual Archive

August 28, 1997

On August 28, 1997 Boston's Jewish Advocate ran a story entitled "Jewish Women's Archive (JWA) set for launch into cyberspace," which outlined JWA's origin, mission, and work, and announce

Gerda Lerner

Pioneering women's history summer institute

July 18, 1979

In the summer of 1979, a fifteen-day conference (July 13-29), co-sponsored by Sarah Lawrence, the Women's Action Alliance and the Smithsonian Institution, was held at Sarah Lawrence College.

Thumbnail of Rachel King on the Publication of Carol Gilligan's In a Different Voice, 2015

Carol Gilligan publishes "In a Different Voice"

May 24, 1982

Carol Gilligan has built a career out of challenging the mainstream.

April 23, 2009

Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, z"l

Judith Rosenbaum

Writing a blog post about a feminist theorist as sharp and influential as Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick is an intimidating prospect, which is why it's taken me more than a week to get to this post in memory of Sedgwick, who died on April 12.

Topics: LGBTQIA Rights, Jewish Studies, Women’s and Gender Studies
Amy Swerdlow

Amy Swerdlow

Amy Swerdlow (1923-2012), child of a Communist household in the Bronx, shared her parents’ dedication to making a better world but developed her own political agenda. She became a leader of the global women’s peace movement, a pioneer in the field of women’s history, and a professor of history and women’s studies at Sarah Lawrence College in Yonkers, New York.

Barbara Miller Solomon

Barbara Miller Solomon was not only an educator but a pioneer in the field of women's history. Named the first female dean of Harvard College in 1970, she laid the groundwork for the formal establishment women’s studies there. Her scholarship on the history of immigration and women's history remains influential today.

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