Impact Of Women On Jewish History/Prof. L. Jackson

In this week's Torah portion, within the majesty and mystery of creation, the woman emerges in three successive stages.

How can one fathom the depths of a mother’s pain upon the brutal loss of her child? Sherri Mendell’s first-born son was viciously murdered near their home on May 8, 2001. How does a mother cope with the news that her spirited thirteen-year-old, while hiking in the neighborhood, was bludgeoned to death by rock-yielding Arabs?

Miriam Scheinsohn was born on April 26, 1918, in Vitebsk (Belorussia), the youngest of eight children (she had three sisters and four brothers). Soon after Miriam’s birth the family moved to Kovno (Kaunas) in Lithuania, where her parents owned a textile factory.

Her family descended from Portuguese Marranos who had sought asylum in England in the eighteenth century. Grace Aguilar was born there at the onset of the nineteenth century (1816), and her remarkable work would exercise an impact on the historiography of Jewish life in the ensuing three decades of that century.

TV producer and author Yael Nitzan’s decades’ old dream is becoming a reality. Through the generosity of the Haifa municipality, an empty 200-year-old palace, once owned by an Arab sheikh, will be turned into “The Museum of Israeli Women.” Although in other countries there are museums documenting the accomplishments of women, Israel, with the world’s highest ratio of museums per person, has none dedicated to the women who contributed to the founding of the State of Israel and to its development.

Who is Anastasia Michal Michaelevski Samuelson? Fashion model, electronics engineer, Beauty Queen, Knesset Member, devoted mother of eight, champion of the underdog, passionate Israeli, committed Jew? Would you believe that she is all of the above – and more?

"I felt here that I was at home," remarks Agnes Keleti about her arrival in Israel in 1957. An Israeli emissary had invited this leading Hungarian Jewish female athlete to participate in the fifth Maccabiah Games that year, and that’s when she discovered that Israel was “home.”

“I think the Holocaust is possible again. I didn’t think so before I came to the United Nations, but I think so now.” “Diplomacy regarding the Arab-Israeli conflict at the U.N. has nothing to do with peace, but is quite simply a continuation of war against Israel by other means.”

Shoshana Bluth’s telephone number is a help hotline for mothers and wives of Israeli soldiers – a hotline of faith, emunah in Hebrew.

The lecturer, a soft-spoken woman radiating sincerity and warmth was especially impressive. And so was her topic: “Proper nutrition as a bridge to health and longevity.”

The Middle Ages boasted a number of outstanding Jewish women. The most remarkable among them was Dulcea of Worms, wife of Rabi Eleazar Rokeach. We learn out about her remarkable character and capabilities from an elegy her loving husband composed in the form of an alphabetic acrostic fashioned after King Solomon’s “Woman of Valor" in Proverbs 31. Dulcea of Worms, however, rose above the stature of the Biblical “Eishet Chayil” both in capabilities and character.

When I first saw Hilda Pistiner I believed she was a German tourist. Later, when I met her personally and found out she was an Israeli born in Bukovina, I labored under a second mistaken assumption: I believed she had been a pioneer in pre-State Israel, her fresh youthful blond looks untouched by the Holocaust. How wrong have I been!

It’s fascinating to realize that the People of Israel growing into a mighty nation in Egypt was a reward for the heroism of the Hebrew midwives.

This year International Agunah Day was observed on March 7th, the Jewish calendar date of Taanit Esther, the Fast of Esther. The date was determined by ICAR - The International Coalition for Agunah Rights. ICAR is a coalition of 27 organizations working together to abolish defiance in granting a “get” (Jewish divorce) and extortion in the divorce process within the framework of Jewish Law.

The heading of this article is the title of Angelita Valdes’ biography written by her husband, Dr. Robert Dublin. Dr. Dublin was the physician who treated and nursed the young Filipina dancer and TV starlet back to life when she became ill with tuberculosis meningitis - a life threatening disease. Angelita Valdes’ biography is an astonishing story of an amazing woman’s life.

Hadassa Dubrofsky, a lovely twelve-year old girl from Toronto, Canada decided to forgo bat-mitzvah presents and replace them with something even more meaningful and exciting – an act of chesed (charitable kindness).

Last year Viera Rybarova, professor of English language and literature in Bratislava, Slovakia, undertook a formidable task. Having read my Holocaust memoirs, she decided to translate one of the books into Slovak, where there is still a shortage of literature on the tragic fate of the Jews seventy years ago.

Sister Rose's Passion is a documentary film on the life of Sister Rose Thering, a life that stood for love of Jews, for fighting prejudice, anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial.

Nearly eighty-five years have passed since Sarah Aaronson shot herself in the head, putting an end to the torture her Turkish interrogators inflicted upon her for refusing to disclose information about her associates in the NILI, an anti-Turkish spying organization that supplied the British with intelligence.

“Women are obligated to participate in kindling the Chanukah lights,” instructs the Kitzur Shulchan Aruch, a nineteenth century commentary on the Shulchan Aruch, the basic Jewish legal text. And, surprisingly, even more: “A woman can light the candles for all the members of her family.”

This week’s parsha, Vayislach, relates a shocking episode that causes genuine outrage in the Israelite camp -- the Canaanite Prince Shechem’s brutal assault of Yaakov’s daughter Dinah.

The Women's Leadership Award was created in 2007 by the European Athletics Development Committee to raise awareness of the issues related to women and leadership in athletics.

Our first matriarch’s original name, Sarai, meant “Princess to Her People.” When her name was changed to Sarah, its meaning took on a universal connotation: “Princess to Mankind.”

“In all the years that I have been involved with helping Avi Mekonen, I could never look at his face directly because of how badly disfigured he was. I always found a way to avoid looking at him straight in the face.

Judith Feld Carr clearly remembers the initial impetus for her extraordinary activities in the rescue of Syrian Jewry: "When I was 10 years old, Sophie told me, you have to do something so that this never happens again to the Jewish people.' I never forgot it."

"The last living link to the Holocaust is quite a responsibility."

Last March I received an invitation to the 65th anniversary of the liberation of the Dachau concentration camp. It was signed: KZ-Gedenkstätte Dachau."

Rarely does a week pass without my encountering brilliant commentary from Melanie Philips in the international media on a variety of subjects, among them human rights, anti-Semitism, human evolution, science, multiculturalism, freedom of speech and political responsibility. The primary target of her keen eye however, is Islam - Islamic terrorism, shariya law, Islamic education and methods of indoctrination.

"My mother will be buried at the Yarkon Cemetary, Geula Hall, on Wednesday, March 17, at 11:30." The terse message from Eli Lato delivered a stunning, unexpected blow. Does "will be buried," mean that Theresa Lato is no more? Is Theresa Lato, the frail, soft-spoken lady who was like a one-woman armada fighting simultaneously on multiple fronts -silenced forever?

I recently attended a very interesting lecture at Netanya's Laniado Hospital. The venue for the lecture may give you an erroneous impression: it had nothing to do with disease; on the contrary, it had much to do with the delights of good health.