10 Jewish Women Badder Than Taylor Swift
By Aiden Pink December 5, 2017
When Twitter user @xnulz asked followers whether they could “name a b**** badder than Taylor Swift,” she likely didn’t anticipate that her post would go viral and receive over 10,000 replies.
Name a bitch badder than Taylor Swift ??? pic.twitter.com/AkSyQBUIME
— Nutella (@xnulz) November 10, 2017
Many of the answers mentioned historical figures of some renown:
Hedy Lamarr. Austrian-Jewish star of prewar nudie pix. Left her abusive, Hitler-loving arms-dealer hubby in ‘30s, became Hollywood star, invented wifi and the Soda Stream in her spare time. https://t.co/QAENTxsaGE
— Alex de Campi (@alexdecampi) December 2, 2017
Hannah Szenes was a paratrooper during WWII from British Palestine, dropped into Hungary to help smuggle out Jews. She was captured and tortured. She never revealed any information to the Nazis. She was executed by firing squad. Her poetry survives. https://t.co/O8I9ZpJ42Y
— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) December 4, 2017
Dr. Ruth Westheimer @AskDrRuth was smuggled out of Germany at the start of the Holocaust where her parents were killed. At 4’7” she trained as a sniper by the Palmach & was seriously wounded in action during Israel’s war of Independence. Went on to become a leading expert on sex. https://t.co/TBPMqy3wRw
— RandomNewsFeedThing (@RandomNewsFeedT) December 4, 2017
Other historical figures were more obscure, but no less impressive:
Franceska Mann was a Polish/Jewish ballet dancer who upon arriving at Auschwitz concentration camp stripped naked, started dancing seductively, until an SS officer drew close enough for her to pull his pistol, shoot him dead and wound a second Nazi before being murdered herself. https://t.co/DiuOpYCAgB
— Patrick S. Tomlinson (@stealthygeek) December 3, 2017
Annie Kopchovsky accepted a wager to be the first woman to cycle around the World in 1894 – she was Jewish in a very anti-Semitic era, 5’3”, and hadn’t ridden a bicycle until a few days before the trip. She made it in 15 months, self-funded. https://t.co/hArSposOmj
— Ben Cooper ????????? (@bencooper) December 2, 2017
Vera Atkins, a Jewish woman, got herself a job as an administrator for the Nazis in Romania. She sent all the information she gathered directly to Winston Churchill, then escaped and led the British SOE recruit female codebreakers. https://t.co/4ln326YILb
— Emily Zanotti (@emzanotti) December 4, 2017
Hadar Cohen, a 19-year-old Israeli border policewoman who gave her life for the state of Israel, fighting off 3 Palestinian terrorists equipped with guns, knives, and pipe bombs. Despite being shot in the head, she managed to fire at the terrorists before losing consciousness. https://t.co/I2JrOwrSgM
— The Colonel (@Colonel95) December 4, 2017
And some respondents shared their own family stories:
I had a great-aunt who escaped a concentration camp after being shot and left for dead in a ditch full of bodies and survived the rest of World War 2 living in a refrigerator box in someone’s basement. https://t.co/f5gJvHZtsE
— Brohibition Now (@OhNoSheTwitnt) December 3, 2017
My grandmother escaped Iraq when she was 19 y/o with her baby, after her father was executed for being Jewish, got to Israel where she didn’t speak the language and had nothing but her clothes she was wearing. She had 12 kids in Israel, 50+ grandchildren. https://t.co/bwDxkFlp7o
— Hen Mazzig (@HenMazzig) December 4, 2017
My great aunt Wanda, with a 1 year old at home, Jewish, smuggled herself back INTO Nazi Germany in the boot of a car to rescue her mother. They left on last train out, stopped by border guard who took their wedding rings as payment. Both lived long happy lives in Surrey.
— Meryl O’Rourke© (@MerylORourke) December 2, 2017
Do you have other examples? Let me know by emailing pink@forward.com or on Twitter, @aidenpink
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