The history of Orthodox women’s organizations in America is as old as Orthodox settlement on these shores. The earliest groups were created as auxiliaries, sisterhoods, and benevolent societies of synagogues and religious schools for boys. Yet, their work went far beyond service to their host-and primarily male-institutions. The women’s groups modeled themselves on the chesed societies of Orthodox men in American and Europe, as well as on the Protestant women’s societies of that time. Indeed, the Orthodox women’s sisterhoods often borrowed the conventional Protestant title, “female benevolent society”.
Orthodox women assumed the responsibility of aiding the downtrodden in their own communities. Phrases such as “to care for the indigent” or “to help our needy country-people become self-supporting.” could be commonly found in their charters and mission statements.
The ladies auxiliaries took special interest in helping women. The Benevolent Hebrew Female Society of Congregation She’arith Israel in New York, the first congregation to be established in North America, included in its charter the task of “succoring of the indigent female.” Widows and other women in need were the natural focus of the women’s groups. Help for pregnant, birthing, and nursing mothers was a popular agenda for many of the groups in an age when maternity was perceived as a major upheaval in a woman’s life.
Religious orphans became the special concern of Orthodox women’s groups. They formed their own orphanage societies to prevent these children from being placed in “Americanizing” orphanages where they would lose their religious identity. Helping to make a wedding for a bride and furnish her house were common tasks of women’s societies. This was particularly important after the mid-1880s, when, in response to marriage restrictions on Jews in several European countries, large numbers of single Jewish women immigrated alone to America in search of marriage partners. The Orthodox women also formed female chevra kadisha associations. In a letter “to the ladies of Jewish persuasion of congregation She’arith Israel”, the rabbi recommended that they create a woman’s chevra kadisha, adding that “separated by peculiar laws and customs of the rest of mankind, there are none who can appreciate our situation, ascertain our wants or gratify our sympathies so readily as those of our own race and persuasion.”
Other tasks undertaken by Orthodox women’s auxiliaries were visiting the sick, setting up burial societies, creating support networks for bereaved family members, feeding and clothing the poor, supplying kosher food to the elderly and infirm, and raising money for synagogue improvement projects. Some Orthodox women’s groups, modeled after Reform ladies auxiliaries, expanded their services beyond members of their own faith or immediate community. The Sisterhood of Congregation Orach Chaim in Manhattan, for example, stated that its general purpose is “to help the poor of the surrounding neighborhood. Activities include providing religious instruction for 400 children of the poor as well as supplying clothing to the needy children and creating mothers’ sewing circles.” According to the records of one Orthodox sisterhood, activities included “Probation work in the Night and Day Courts with delinquent girls, Cooperation with reformatories and rescue homes.”
Although the Orthodox women’s associations often ran purely social events commonly associated with sisterhoods, their main focus was on helping others. Many of their charters resonate with verses from rabbinic sources emphasizing the different elements and supreme value of gemilut chasadim.
In the process of doing good, Orthodox women gained a great deal from their local female associations. Sisterhoods served as vehicles of socialization for women who had suffered the loss of extended family relationships that had nurtured them in Europe. These societies and auxiliaries created a substitute family framework in which immigrant women learned to become Americanized, democratized, and acculturated. They learned to run for office, hold elections, vote democratically, pay dues, keep budgets, take minutes, draft bylaws, and follow organizational procedures. In an era in which wives were given weekly allowances by their husbands, never signed checks or held joint bank accounts, these were tremendous steps forward. These competencies served them in good stead a generation or two later when they began to form the national women’s organizations of the 20th century. Additionally, through the camaraderie of their shared work, the women also learned about fashion and techniques of child rearing that contributed further to their acculturation.
The turn of the 20th century witnessed a change in the local women’s groups. The Orthodox men’s groups increasingly began to federate into national organizations, and the women’s auxiliaries, which until then had acted quite independently, were asked to join them. Joining the national groups posed a challenge to Orthodox female autonomy and independence. In some cases, the women were absorbed into the new organizations, making important contributions, but no longer holding primary leadership roles. In other cases, Orthodox women decided to maintain or form separate organizations. It was these independent national women’s organizations, some synagogue-based, others Zionist in orientation, that had the greatest impact–on the women themselves and on the Orthodox community. We shall briefly examine the origins and development of several of these organizations.
The Mizrachi Women’s Organization of America (now AMIT), the largest Orthodox women’s organization, with a current membership of over 40,000, was founded by Bessie Gotsfeld (1888-1962). Bessie, as she was known to all, spent the early years of her marriage in Seattle, Washington, where she met and was influenced by Rabbi Meir Berlin, a founder of Mizrachi, the modern religious Zionist movement. Returning to New York in 1919, she became active in establishing women’s Mizrachi groups in Brooklyn. The women of these loosely linked groups wanted to work jointly on projects, and in 1924, they formed Achiyos (Sisters of) Mizrachi.
The concept of a national religious women’s movement was a bold idea for Orthodox women at the time. The women wanted complete autonomy over the funds they raised and full jurisdiction over their projects. Although initially there was opposition from the male Mizrachi leadership regarding control over these funds, the women prevailed, maintaining their independence. National Mizrachi Women’s Organization of America was formally constituted in 1925. Among their initial projects were vocational high schools for girls. Most of the Mizrachi Women’s projects in Israel were aimed at supporting disadvantaged children, and after the Second World War, many who had survived the camps rebuilt their lives in Israel at children’s villages supported by AMIT, such as K’far Batya. The goal of the organization was also to make women productive, creative, equal members of society, and therefore, quality education for girls became a priority. It is noteworthy that the great Torah teacher Nechama Leibowitz first came to prominence through Mizrachi Women which employed her in its institutions for several decades, beginning in the early 1950s. Today, AMIT runs a large network of educational and social service projects throughout Israel.
In contrast to AMIT, the national religious Zionist organization, Emunah, first took root in Israel and only later was transplanted to America. In 1947, following the UN vote on partition, the women of the Religious Women’s Workers Party of Israel (Irgun Hapo’alot) recognized the need to form an alliance with Diaspora Jewry. Its chairperson, Tova Sanhedrai, traveled to America for support. Rejected by several women’s organizations, she then organized a core group of individual American women who agreed to a partnership, and the Hapo’el Hamizrachi Women’s Organization, (later renamed Emunah Women) was formed.
Most of Emunah’s projects of the last half-century have focused on social service, welfare, and education in Israel. But like most other women’s organizations, over its lifetime it has expanded its original agenda. A recent and unique project has been the Torah Arts School in Jerusalem at which girls study dance, theater, and the visual arts in a Torah framework. Emunah has also developed a Holocaust Resource Center in the United States.
Women’s Branch of the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations in America (UOJCA) is the national organization of Orthodox synagogue sisterhoods. The UOJCA was founded in 1902 as a men’s organization, but by the 1920s all of its constituent synagogues had individual sisterhoods. In 1923, at the initiative of seven women from New York City sisterhoods, including the most prominent rebbetzins of the time, Women’s Branch was formed.
Although each sisterhood remained independent, allowing for differences among individual congregations and rabbis, the national group undertook projects larger in scope and in keeping with its mission: to unite and strengthen all Orthodox Jewish women and to spread the knowledge of traditional Judaism. Many of its earlier projects are not widely known or properly credited. One such project dealt with kosher food supervision. To make it easier for Jewish homemakers to observe kashrut, Women’s Branch convened a kashrut committee to answer questions about kosher food. Out of their own pockets, the women paid a rabbi to investigate products and factories, and they worked diligently to persuade companies to use kosher ingredients. This was the beginning of nationalizing the kosher food industry, and from this project grew the Kashrut Division of the UOJCA. In the 1920s, Women’s Branch raised the funds to build a boys’ dormitory at Yeshiva College and to create a post-high-school Hebrew Teachers Training Institute for Girls, later renamed Teachers Institute for Women, and absorbed into Yeshiva University.
Women’s Division of Young Israel was also formed to augment the work of its parent body, the National Council of Young Israel. But in the case of Young Israel, women were part of the parent body itself. Founded in 1912 by “15 visionary men and women,” the synagogue-based National Council of Young Israel was organized to counter the era’s challenge of assimilation and to attract young people by creating “a palatable synagogue experience that was user friendly to new immigrants and their subsequent generations.” Young Israel was actually the first national group to recognize women in leadership roles. Its charter–which long predates feminism and relates to the gender-inclusive origins of the Young Israel movement–allows women to hold office up to and including the vice presidency of its constituent synagogues.
Over the years, men and women’s roles became more separate within the Young Israel community, and branch sisterhoods were established throughout the country. Finally Women’s Division was formed to unite and serve the branch sisterhoods. An early project was the college kosher kitchen program, which was designed to make a traditional way of life easier to follow on campus. Distinctively, the Women’s Division of Young Israel specifically harnesses the energy and talents of its rebbetzins. “The Rebbbetzin’s Letter” is now published five times a year as a rotating guest column and is sent out to membership along with “The Rabbi’s Letter.”
Other Orthodox women’s national organizations include Yeshiva University Women, N’shei Chabad (Lubavitch Women), N’shei Aguda (Aguda Women), and Women’s Division of Sha’arei Tzedek. 2 All of these organizations similarly had to adapt to changing community needs, both in Israel and in the United States. All have redefined themselves, evolving specific goals and programming to meet changing societal needs and the needs of diverse memberships. A large challenge today to sisterhoods and national women’s organizations is the decline in membership as growing numbers of Orthodox women have joined the workforce.
The stories of the formation and early development of Orthodox women’s philanthropic and service organizations offer an important window into the lives of pioneering Orthodox Jewish women in America. These stories also inform and inspire those of us in the very newest organizations–such as JOFA–that build on their work. Orthodox women’s organizations of today, whether a century or a decade old, must constantly reinvent themselves to meet the new urgencies of our times. There is no other choice.