Introduction: A Special Issue on Women and Gender

As we sit down to write this introduction on August 18, the nation is commemorating the 100^th anniversary of women's suffrage in the United States. Films, exhibitions, lectures, newspaper articles, and conferences throughout the country are telling the stories of white women's struggles to attain the vote in 1920 (including the stories of Jewish and gay women whose activism was central to those struggles), as well as the often-forgotten stories of Black, Native American, Asian American, and Latina women whose struggles to vote continued for decades afterwards. All the Democratic women in the House of Representatives attended the State of the Union address in February 2020 wearing white to commemorate suffrage activists' dress. President Donald Trump marked the anniversary by pardoning Susan B. Anthony for her conviction for voting in the election of 1872—a pardon that historians agreed would have infuriated Anthony.

This special issue of American Jewish History devoted to the subjects of women and gender was initially designed to commemorate this centenary. There have only been two special issues of AJH devoted to Jewish women: one in 1980, and then another in 1995. When we first considered creating this special issue in 2017, we assumed that we might offer some brief reflections on Jewish women's roles within the women's movement, while also showcasing new historical scholarship on Jewish women and gender.

Yet we find ourselves in a very different political moment from the one we imagined in 2017. The nation's celebrations of the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment are notably muted. To the credit of historians and the nation, the troubled history of the woman's suffrage movement—much of which acquiesced in the failure to enforce the Fifteenth Amendment and deserted women of color in their struggle to gain the vote—as well as the vocal racism and antisemitism of suffrage activists like Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, have figured prominently in this year's commemorations. Celebrations of women's suffrage now routinely acknowledge the racism that stained that victory.

The crises that have rocked the nation this summer—and indeed for the past four years—have muted celebrations of all kinds. The coronavirus pandemic that has killed over 175,000 Americans thus far, and infected millions more, has disrupted the daily functions of the nation, complicating any sort of group activity. The health crisis has also exacerbated inequities relating to race, class, and gender, prompting national soul-searching. The mass protests against police brutality and systemic racism sparked by the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis on May 25, 2020, have roiled the nation, demanding fundamental change, accountability, and social justice in housing, policing, and healthcare, but also in journalism, the arts, and academia. The national mood is not one of celebration or commemoration, but instead of conflict, trauma, and protest.

And indeed, for at least the past four years, conflict, trauma, and protest have been hallmarks of national women's politics in the United States. Beginning with the leaked "Hollywood Access" tapes during the campaign of 2016, continuing with the popularization of the #MeToo movement in 2017 and then the dramatic Senate hearings of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh in 2018, stories of sexual harassment and assault on women in places both privileged and marginalized have become part of the landscape of national media and politics. American Jewish communal life has experienced its own version of these processes, with revelations about sexual harassment by prominent Jewish men, particularly sociologist Steven M. Cohen and philanthropist Michael Steinhardt. Ongoing calls for accountability, justice, and fundamental change to systems of gender and racial hierarchy have radically shaped and changed our national landscape, and this communal world, in only a few short years.

In this context, our special issue on Jewish women and gender took on new meaning. We felt that we could not simply publish new literature on Jewish women and gender, with perhaps a brief salute to Jewish suffrage activists like Gertrude Weil and Maud Nathan, without engaging in broader reflection. Of course, as historians we always know that...