My Life as a Radical Jewish Woman: Memoirs of a Zionist Feminist in Poland

Puah Rakovsky was born into an observant Jewish family in Bialystok in 1865 and given both a religious and a general education. Fluent in several languages, she began her career as a translator and later trained as a teacher. A strong advocate for women’s education and equality, Rakovsky went to Mandatory Palestine in 1920, where she helped establish the Women’s International Zionist Organization (WIZO) as well as a vocational school for girls. She settled there permanently in 1935 and wrote her memoir, which provides a feminist perspective on Polish Jewry. She died in Haifa.