Honorees

Lillian Wald was a pioneer in the field of public health nursing, choosing to focus on helping Eastern European Jewish immigrants who were crowded into New York’s Lower East Side. Known as the “Angel of Henry Street,” she dedicated her life to creating a more just society, to ensure that women and immigrants, people in […]

Sheryl Sandberg is the chief operating officer of Facebook and founder of the Lean In and Option B Foundations. She is co-author of best-selling books Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead and Option B: Facing Adversity, Building Resilience, and Finding Joy. Sheryl Kara Sandberg was born in 1969 in Washington D.C., the daughter of Adele Einhorn,

Gloria Steinem is a ground-breaking pioneer for women’s rights. She worked as a journalist, writer and activist in the 1960’s and 70’s and was a prominent leader of the second-wave feminist movement (first-wave feminism was the suffragette movement). Steinem cofounded Ms. Magazine, a publication dedicated to women’s rights and concerns and continues today to work

Glückl of Hameln (also spelled Gluckel, Glueckel, or Glikl of Hamelin; also known as Glikl bas Judah Leib) (1646 – September 19, 1724) was an extraordinary Jewish businesswoman and diarist, whose account of life provides scholars with an intimate picture of German Jewish communal life in the late-17th-early 18th century. Glückl was born in Hamburg in 1645

Ruth Westheimer was born Karola Ruth Siegel in 1928 Wiesenfeld, Germany and raised in an Orthodox home in Frankfurt. She was the only child of Irma Hanauer, a housekeeper, and Julius Siegel, a notions wholesaler. When her father was deported to a detention camp after Kristallnacht, her mother and grandmother sent Ruth at age 10

Edith Windsor, called Edie, was born in 1929, the youngest of three children, to James and Celia Schlain in Philadelphia. Her parents were immigrants from Russia who owned and lived above a candy and ice cream store, both lost during the depression. Despite hard times, her parents valued their children’s education, making financial sacrifices to