The Journey Home: Jewish Women and the American CenturyIn recent decades, prominent American Jewish women like Bella Abzug and Betty Friedan have made headlines and history, challenging the constraints facing women in American public life. Few realize that these women embody a hundred-year legacy of remarkable activism. From suffrage to birth control, from trade unionism to higher education, from civil rights to feminism to every aspect of popular culture, Jewish women have been in the vanguard, leading key social movements and shaping cultural consciousness. Anarchists and Zionists, "sob sister" writers and Supreme Court justices, rabbis and reformers, personalities as diverse as Emma Goldman, Sophie Tucker and Gertrude Stein have left their indelible mark on the American century. Joyce Antler profiles these women leaders in The Journey Home, interweaving social history with brilliant portraiture. In a fresh and lively narrative, she examines the political conflicts and personal tensions that animated their lives as they redefined the landscapes of American culture and society. To change their nation they battled class and gender prejudice, anti-Semitism, and anti-immigrant fervor. They drew sustenance from Jewish tradition but always took independent stands. |
Contents
On the Edge of the Twentieth Century | 1 |
The Paradox of Immigration | 17 |
Uptown Women and Social and Spiritual Reform | 40 |
Copyright | |
12 other sections not shown
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
activist Alice Selisberg American Jewish Archives American Jewish Women American Women Annie Nathan Meyer anti-Semitism Antin Anzia Yezierska autobiography became Bella Abzug Berkman Betty Friedan Cecilia Razovsky Central Zionist Archives cited College Council of Jewish culture daughter Edna Ferber Emma Goldman Emma Lazarus Ethel ethnic Fannie Hurst Fanny Holtzmann father female feminism friends gender Gertrude Berg Ginsburg girls Goldberg Hadassah Hadassah Archives Hebrew Henrietta Szold Henrietta Szold Papers Ibid identity immigrant interview with author Israel Jessie Sampter Jewish feminist Judaism Justine Wise Polier Kleinbaum Kohut labor leaders Lerner lives Maud Nathan Molly mother Muriel Rukeyser National NCJW novel Oral History organization Ozick Palestine Pesotta Pioneer political Rabbi radical Reform refugees religious role Rose Pastor Stokes Rosenberg sister social Sophie Tucker Speaking Heart spiritual story Studies suffrage synagogue tion tradition University Press Wise Polier Papers woman workers writing wrote Yiddish York