If you’re mourning the end of Mrs. America, you’ll want to devote an afternoon to this.
The phrase “the personal is political” is used so often that it can seem denuded of meaning; slowly and painfully, “Mrs. America” revives it.
Bella Abzug, who represented Manhattan as a feminist congresswoman, might get a street corner named after her in her native West Village.
Elissa Strauss didn’t realize when she was young that all her role models were men. She wants to know why no one taught her about Gloria Steinem or Bella Abzug.
Want to hear what Hank Greenberg had to say about anti-Semitism? Or Bella Abzug’s views on sexual discrimination? Now that AJC’s oral history library is online, you can.
“Big Hats and bigger opinions, she knew ‘This woman’s place is in the House—the House of Representatives,’” Rabbi Ruth Abusch-Magder tweeted on May 2, the launch day for Jewish Women’s Archive’s “#jwapedia: Tweeting the Encyclopedia” project. By doing so, she sent a link to the article about Bella Abzug in the online “Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia” hurtling out into cyberspace to be clicked on, opened and read by her many Twitter followers.
As fellow Sisterhood blogger Chanel Dubofsky wrote here, today marks the 90th anniversary of the passage of the 19th amendment, which gave American women the right to vote. And we have a great Jewish woman, Rep. Bella Abzug, to thank for making this day a holiday. Back in 1971, at Abzug’s urging, Congress declared August 26 “Women’s Equality Day.” Read the text, and context, of the declaration here:
I’ve been loving the coverage of Elena Kagan’s youthful challenge of her rabbi over her right to have a bat mitzvah. I love it because it confirms what I’ve always believed — that the chutzpah of young girls is not just pre-teen attitude but a sign of inner strength and a harbinger of great things to come (and I say this not only in a self-serving way as a former obnoxious girl-child or as the mother of a burgeoning one).