Exceptional Jewish Women - Part 2
- dianakanter
- 6 days ago
- 3 min read
By Ann E ---Throughout history, there have been amazing Jewish women doing incredible things. Jewish women have been active in a very wide range of fields – art, literature, science, politics, feminism, acting, dancing and even spying. The first part of this article was posted in September.
Deborah Lipstadt
An unsung heroine is Deborah Lipstadt. She struck a major blow against Holocaust deniers when she won a landmark libel case against David Irving. In 1993, she published Denying the Holocaust. Irving, who was named a Holocaust denier in her book, sued her for libel in the British courts where the burden of proof would be on Lipstadt. After five years, the courts ruled in favour of Lipstadt. Irving subsequently served time in an Austrian prison, was banned entry into many countries and has been declared bankrupt. Lipstadt continues to write and speak out against Holocaust denial.
In July 2021, President Joe Biden nominated her to be the United States Special Envoy for Monitoring and Combating Anti-Semitism.[4][5] She served in that position until January 2025. Lipstadt was named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time magazine in 2023.
Maria Altmann
There are many other amazing Jewish women with a war background who made a difference. You may have seen the film "Woman in Gold" starring Helen Mirren. The film depicts the efforts made by Maria Altmann to get back five paintings by Klimt that were stolen from her family by the Nazis. Maria was born in Vienna in 1916 and was the niece of Adele Bloch-Bauer who was a patron of the arts and the subject of the famous painting.
Maria and her husband fled Austria to California leaving behind all their worldly goods. A family member mailed her a cashmere sweater, something unknown at the time in California. Using her considerable determination and business acumen, she immediately took it to a department store where they were snapped up, thus laying the cornerstone for her very successful clothing business.
Maria could have left it at that and enjoyed the fruits of her labour. Instead she set about trying to recover the paintings from the Austrian government. The Austrians were unwilling to return these works of art regarding them as part of their national heritage. After an unsuccessful bid through the Austrian courts, Maria filed a lawsuit in the States which eventually ended up in the Supreme Court. In 2006, an arbitration panel ruled that Austria was legally required to return the art to Altmann and other family heirs. That same year, Austria at last returned the disputed paintings. The famous Woman in Gold was eventually sold to cosmetics heir Ronald Lauder where it is on display in his New York gallery. A share of the money earned through the sale of the remaining pictures was used to found the Maria Altmann Family Foundation, which supports the Los Angeles Holocaust Museum and other public and philanthropic institutions.
Maria Altmann is an example of an exceptional and determined Jewish woman who, despite many setbacks, never gave up.
Judy Feld Carr
Another amazing woman is Canadian Judy Feld Carr who with courage, ingenuity and determination rescued over 3,500 Jews from Syria. For her remarkable accomplishments, in 1995 she was honored by Prime Minister Rabin and awarded the Order of Canada in 2001.
Most of the early pioneers of feminism were Jewish. Just think of Bella Abzug, Gloria Steinem or Betty Frieden. There have also been brilliant actresses and singers, much too numerous to mention, and ballet stars such as the great Russian ballerina Maya Plissetzkaya or Alicia Markover who was invited by Diaghilev to join the Ballets Russes in Monte Carlo at the tender age of 14 and whose real name was Alice Marks.
After all this serious stuff, I would like to end on a lighter note. Did you know that Barbie and Ken are, in fact, Jewish? Ruth Handler and her husband started the Mattel toy company in their garage way back in 1939. Handler created the Barbie doll in 1959 which she named after her daughter soon followed by Ken, named after her son. However, although she has given pleasure to millions of little girls around the world, her most important work is the prosthetics she designed for survivors of breast cancer.
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