Jewish women

Blue Thread is a YA novel set in 1912 Portland, and follows the main character—sixteen-year old Miriam Josefsohn—in her discovery of, and growing involvement in, the women’s suffrage movement. This isn't just historical fiction though—along with fighting for women’s suffrage, Miriam travels through time using a prayer shawl handed down through the women in her family that contains blue thread from Joseph’s Coat of Many Colors to encourage the Daughters of Zelophehad to petition Moses for women’s right to inherit land in the absence of a male heir. It’s in the Torah! Well, kind of.

Activist, poet, mother, writer, Jewish woman, pacifist—it’s hard to pick what defined Grace Paley. Born in the Bronx in 1922, Paley went on to publish award winning works of poetry and fiction, to be an active member of both the anti-war and women’s movement, to teach writing at Sarah Lawrence, and used her poetry as a weapon well into her eighties. Here are just some reasons why Grace Paley was a badass...

Credited with inventing the family sitcom, a successful, decade-spanning career in television and radio, author of over 10,000 scripts, and a mother on-screen and off, Gertrude Berg is "the most famous woman in America you've never heard of."