Published: 11 January 2021
Last updated: 5 March 2024
“THE FAMOUS ARE RARELY significant and the significant are rarely famous,” says Jeff Gottesfeld, author of No Steps Behind, a children’s book about real-life Jewish feminist Beate Sirota Gordon. Gordon, who was born in 1923 in Vienna to Russian-Jewish parents, was only 22 years old when she helped write women’s rights into the modern constitution of Japan.
Gottesfeld calls Gordon “the most significant feminist of the 20th century you may have never have heard of”.
Drawing upon her values along with her knowledge of Japanese language and culture — as well as her inherent chutzpah — in 1946 Gordon found herself the only woman “in the room where it happened” — in this case, where American officials, led by General Douglas Macarthur, rewrote Japan’s constitution as part of post-World War II democratic reforms.
Gottesfeld, a writer of numerous books and TV scripts, was deeply moved by Gordon’s story after reading her obituary in The New York Times in 2013. While he knew it would be a challenge to communicate her story to a young audience, “It’s the most inspiring and unlikely story I’ve ever encountered,” he says.
Gordon spent most of her childhood in Japan, and had a deep understanding of Japanese language and culture. Her family moved there when she was five, when her pianist father, Leo Sirota, was offered a position in Tokyo.
Gordon’s daughter, Nicole, a lawyer and the director of the executive master’s program in public administration at New York City’s Baruch College, told Kveller that Sirota was offered a similar position in Austria on the condition that he converted to Christianity. He declined.
FULL STORY Jewish feminist Beate Sirota Gordon changed women’s rights in Japan forever (JTA/Times of Israel)
Photo: Beate Sirota Gordon at American Japanese Festival in 1938. (Beate Sirota Photo Gallery/JTA)
