Six remarkable Jewish women you’ve probably never heard of

Barbra Streisand, Gal Gadot and Noa Tishby are all Chutzpah Girls. So are Golda Meir, Anne Frank and Queen Esther. But dozens of other women – many of whom you’ve probably never heard of – feature in the recently-published Chutzpah Girls.

The book shares the stories of 100 daring Jewish women, whom authors Julie Silverstein and Tami Schlossberg Pruwer have chosen because they “shaped history, rewrote the future, and helped create a better world”.

Each story is accompanied by an original portrait by a female Jewish artist.

The trailblazing group of 100 features only one Australian woman: flamenco dancer and choreographer Annalouise Paul. (Look out for TJI’s forthcoming article about Annalouise and the intersection between flamenco and Jewish culture.) The Australian launch of Chutzpah Girls, to be held in Sydney in March, will include a performance by Annalouise Paul and actor Joanna Weinberg.

Here’s a peek at some of our favourites.

1. Batya Sperling-Milner: Inclusion Activist (United States)

Batya Sperling-Milner was born blind, but she was determined to read from the Torah on her bat mitzvah. This posed a problem: although Batya had learned Hebrew braille, the Torah is not just read – it is sung – and there is no braille system for cantillation (trope), the accents above or below letters which show how a word should be chanted.

Batya didn’t want to simply memorise her Torah reading; she wanted to read and sing like anyone else would. Her parents sought the help of an Israeli software engineer, who created braille characters for the trope markings. But Batya faced another obstacle: for centuries, (male) rabbis upheld the value of seeing the Torah while singing it. Batya and her mother, a female rabbi, studied the existing Jewish law and argued for change. Batya’s rabbi agreed and on her bat mitzvah, Batya chanted the Torah using her braille text.

In doing so, Batya has forever changed Torah reading for the visually impaired. “Reading from the Torah is amazing. I don’t think anyone should be denied that,” she says.

2. Houda Nonoo: Ambassador (Bahrain)

Houda Nonoo grew up in a small Jewish community in the Islamic Kingdom of Bahrain. Her childhood was filled with friends of different religions and backgrounds. Houda never had to hide her Jewishness, and she and her friends respected each other’s differences, celebrating holidays like Pesach, Ramadan and Christmas together.

As an adult, Houda created and led the Bahrain Human Rights Watch Society to help improve the rights of women, children and domestic workers. She also served as Bahrain’s first Jewish female lawmaker in the government’s highest legislative body. Later, she was appointed as Bahrain’s first female ambassador to the US, the first Jewish ambassador to be appointed from an Arab country.

In Washington DC, Houda built bridges between people, culture and religions. She initiated an inaugural interfaith Iftar (the evening meal eaten during Ramadan); the first ever hosted by a Gulf country. With the signing of the Abraham Accords peace treaty between Israel, the UAE and Bahrain, Houda continues to promote coexistence, and she helped found the Association of Gulf Jewish Communities.

“A culture of peace and collaboration in the region is no longer a wish but a necessity for a prosperous future for all,” she says.

3. Lala Tamar: Artist/Musician/Language Activist (Israel)

Lala Tamar was born in Israel to a Moroccan mother and Brazilian father. Her early life was a symphony of language and music, with Portuguese, Arabic and Hebrew melodies seamlessly woven together.

In her early 20s, Tamar discovered Haketia: the language and culture spoken and practiced by North African Jews. Haketia was a blend of Darija – the Moroccan Arabic her mother spoke –  and the Portuguese her father’s family spoke. “All of the parts of me came together in Haketia,” she says.

Tamar embarked on a mission to resurrect this nearly forgotten language. She spent hours scouring the archives of the National Library of Israel and Hebrew University for recordings of Haketian songs, and lived in Morocco to study traditional Moroccan music and Darija. Tamar is now the first modern artist to record a contemporary album entirely in Haketia.

But Tamar is not only preserving Haketia – she hopes to reinvent it, and her music blends Moroccan glam, Ladino pop, and Haketia world fusion. Today, she travels around the world, promoting the sounds of Haketia and Moroccan Darija, and she was thrilled when Galgalatz – Israel’s most popular radio station – played one of her songs.

Tamar has succeeded in bringing Haketia out of the archives and back to life. She similarly encourages others to fulfil their dreams. “Sing your song”, she says.

4. Moran Samuel: Paralympic Champion (Israel)

Moran Samuel was a talented young basketball player: she’d played the sport since she was nine and earned a spot on Israel’s youth national team. During her military service, she was part of a special program for top athletes, enabling her to keep playing basketball while serving in the Israeli air force.

But Moran’s life changed instantaneously when she suffered a rare spinal stroke, paralysing her from the waist down. Yet she continued to tell herself she was still strong and powerful. After months of rehabilitation, Moran joined the Israeli national women’s wheelchair basketball team.

At the suggestion of her partner, Moran also tried rowing. Despite the challenges that came with limited mobility and raising a family of three young children, Moran worked hard and became a world champion rower, a three-time Paralympian, and two-time Paralympic medallist. She was also Israel’s flag-bearer at the opening ceremony of the 2020 Paralympic Games in Tokyo.

Once, after winning a race in Italy, the event organisers didn’t have a recording of Hatikvah. Moran asked for the microphone and proudly sang the Israeli national anthem from her wheelchair as she received her medal.

“Our ability to recover depends on how we speak to ourselves”, she says. “Positive self-talk can help you become your own inspiration”.

5. Roya Hakakian: Writer-Journalist (Iran/United States)

Roya Hakakian grew up in Tehran, and her family was part of Iran’s very small Jewish population. Roya was 13 during the 1989 Iranian Revolution, which led to the establishment of an Islamic Republic. Her family initially remained in Iran and as a teen she found comfort from the repression in writing.

Six years later she sought political asylum in the United States. It took Roya some time to find her voice and write in a new language but she began speaking out about her life in Iran, being forced to leave, and not having the freedom to read, write and voice her opinions.

Roya is now a writer and the author of several books including a memoir, ‘Journey from the Land of No’, about her childhood in pre-revolutionary Iran. After losing and then regaining her freedom as a woman and a Jew, Roya considers that the greatest gift to be the space to think freely. “Judaism fosters free-thinking and individuality,” she says. “This is too rare in the world today”.

6. Sheyna Gifford: Space Doctor (United States)

As a child, Sheyna Gifford dreamed of being an astronaut. She studied astrophysics at university, but when several loved ones became ill, Sheyna became interested in the health sciences. She decided to take a different orbit to the stars – as a space doctor.

Sheyna was the crew doctor on NASA’s year-long simulated Mars mission on a remote slope of volcano in Hawaii in 2023-24; responsible for monitoring the daily health of her five crew members. With a built-in communications delay to the outside world simulating real-life conditions, Sheyna’s responsibility to provide emergency care carried greater risks.

On simulated Mars, Sheyna continued to live a Jewish life; baking challah on Fridays using the yeast she’d kept alive all week, and switching on her electric Shabbat candles (since fire wasn’t permitted) on Friday nights.

As she did so, Sheyna thought about the millions of Jews throughout history who had managed to keep Shabbat. Their courage inspired Sheyna to be part of another seemingly impossible mission: to help humans find a path to Mars and return home healthy. “Make your life a story worth telling,” she says.

This is an edited extract from Chutzpah Girls: 100 Tales of Daring Jewish Women, by Julie Silverstein and Tami Schlossberg Pruwer (The Toby Press, 2024), available now at Golds Sydney and Melbourne and on Amazon.

The Australian launch of Chutzpah Girls will be held in Sydney on Sunday 16 March. Book tickets here.