Winner of the 2019 National Jewish Book Award - Everett Family Foundation Book of the Year
A groundbreaking history of how Jewish women maintained their identity and influenced social activism as they wrote themselves into American history.
A great storyteller, Nadell brings these women to life on the page…testimony to decades of pioneering scholarship in American Jewish women’s history, of which the author’s works are leading exemplars.” American Historical Review
Pamela Nadell’s America’s Jewish Women: A History From Colonial Times to Today uncovers what it has meant to be a Jewish woman in America by weaving together the stories of remarkable individuals—from the colonial matron Grace Mendes Seixas Nathan and her great-granddaughter, the poet Emma Lazarus, to labor activist Bessie Hillman, nurse and advocate Lillian Wald, feminist writer Betty Friedan and Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. In this groundbreaking history, we see how they and the scores of women—the wives, mothers, activists, and workers who appear in these pages—both little-known and world-renowned, maintained their Jewish identities as they wrote themselves into American history. Defined by a strong sense of self, a resolute commitment to making the world a better place, and diverse notions of what being a Jew means, America’s Jewish women left deep imprints on their families, communities and the nation they call home.
"America's Jewish Women: A History from Colonial Times to Today" is available through local booksellers Eight Cousins Bookshop and Bookshop.org.
Author, professor, and Patrick Clendenen Chair in Women’s and Gender History at American University in Washington, DC, Pamela Nadell is a recipient of the university’s highest faculty award, Scholar/Teacher of the Year. Past president of the Association for Jewish Studies, she has also received the American Jewish Historical Society’s Lee Max Friedman Award for distinguished service to the profession. Pamela won the 2019 National Jewish Book Award for Book of the Year.
In partnership with the Falmouth Jewish Congregation, Worcester JCC, and Jewish Book Council.