The Jewish Woman

Bertha Pappenheim was a founding and leading figure of the Jewish feminist movement in Germany. She grew up in a well-to-do religious home in Vienna and as a young woman was successfully treated by Joseph Breuer for psychological problems. Sigmund Freud’s discussion of her case—as “Anna O.”—immortalized her in the history of psychoanalysis. In 1889, she and her mother moved to Frankfurt, where she immersed herself in social work. In 1902, she created Weibliche Fürsorge, a Jewish social welfare organization for women and run by women, and, in 1904, the Jüdischer Frauenbund. She was particularly active in the campaign against the international trade in Jewish women for prostitution. She also wrote short stories, a series of insightful travelogues about her trips through Jewish communities from Eastern Europe to Palestine, and penetrating reflections on individual and communal ethical life and its challenges in modern society. Quite unusually for the time, she combined her feminism with a continued commitment to traditional Judaism.