The theme of The CJN's 2010 Rosh Hashanah supplement will be "Which Jewish Women Top The List?"
It will be highlighting the lives and contributions of 16 Jewish women, all of them prominent, but not all of them well-known today - who have made significant contributions to Jewish life and Jewish history.
The list of 16 will sweep across the wide swath of Jewish history over the last 500 years.
The women selected will have left marks in the world on the Arts, Literature, Academia, Scholarship, Politics and Social Action. This supplement will aim to inform and instruct The CJN's readers about the lives of these women and hopefully inspire readers through the awareness of the rich, resplendent history of which readers may only have scant knowledge.
We here at The Shmooze invite you, our dedicated followers and all CJN readers, to submit your Top 4 picks in our comments section below.
Thank you and we look forward to comparing and contrasting your picks with ours.
The CJShmooze Team
Friday, July 23, 2010
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
4 comments:
Grasia Nasi, 1510-1569. One of the greatest Jewish women, philanthropist, saved many Jews from the Inquisition, Spain-Portugal-Turkey-Israel......
Here are my four nominees for the most influential Jewish women of the past 500 years. Their influence has been felt by both Jews and non-Jews. All of them where in their prime in the late 20th century figures. Unfortunately the opportunities for Jewish women (or non Jewish women for that matter)to be highly influential before that were very limited.
Academia: Hanna Arendt. She made the Holocaust fathomable as a historical event: an out growth of Totalitarianism, the victory of ideology over humanity. This, and her idea of The Banality of Evil, have given universal meaning to the slogan Never Again.
Social Activism: Gloria Steinem. She, more than anyone else, symbolized and promoted modern Western Feminism, which has changed forever the lives of women - Jews and non Jews - as well as the men who live along side them.
Arts: Barbara Streisand. She made it respectable to be a publicly Jewish star, and her status broke the stereo type that said successful women had cute little noses.
Politics: Golda Meir. The most famous female Jewish politician ever, and possibly the worst Prime Minister Israel ever had. Under her watch, Israel ignored various Arab peace overtures, began the settlements in the occupied territories, and grew fat and arrogant, so much so that Israel almost lost the Yom Kippur War. By the end, she had been so ineffective that she effectively drove the last nail into the Labour Party's hegemony over Israeli politics. Her negative influence is still with us and will likely be so for many many years to come.
Dr. Rosalyn Yalow (NYC): when she won the Nobel in medicine in 1977, it was just the second time the Nobel in medicine had been awarded to a woman.
Rabbe Lily Montagu and Rabbi Anat Hoffman
Post a Comment