Life

Helen Broza Helped Israeli Women Fly

By Chana Pollack March 6, 2014

Forward Association

Welcome to Throwback Thursday, a weekly photo feature in which we sift 116 years of Forward history to find snapshots of women’s lives.

Fresh off the boat in this photo — specifically the liner LaGuardia arriving in New York in November 1949 — is 27-year-old Helen Broza. She was the first Israeli Defense Force Women’s Corp officer responsible for women serving in the newly formed Israeli Air Force. London-born, and a resident of Tel Aviv for 14 years, Broza was then assigned diplomatic service duties as secretary to the military attaché of the Israeli embassy in Washington. Though women served in the IAF, it took until 1996 and a court battle for women to be permitted to train as pilots and until 2001 for the first female fighter jet pilot to graduate from the IAF.

Chana Pollack is the Forward’s archivist. Contact her at [email protected].

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

The coming year promises to be filled with more complex and historic developments. We are entering an era where independent, fact-based Jewish journalism will be more important than ever. We need to be ready for whatever 2025 will bring, and with your help, we can be.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO