Week of March 3

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March 3, 1995

Lynn Gottlieb publishes "She Who Dwells Within"

March 4, 1957

Hilde Bruch publishes "The Importance of Overweight"

March 5, 1935

Brothel-keeper Polly Adler jailed

March 8, 1971

Lyricist Dorothy Fields inducted into the Songwriters' Hall of Fame.

March 9, 1959

Ruth Mosko Handler Unveils Barbie Doll

 

March 3, 1995

Lynn Gottlieb publishes "She Who Dwells Within"

Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb's She Who Dwells Within, which she describes as "a practical guide to nonsexist Judaism," was published on March 3, 1995. Drawing on Gottlieb's own experiences as well as on traditional and feminist midrash (stories that comment on Biblical texts), the book combines thoughtful essays on gender and Judaism with new rituals for the important moments in Jewish women's lives. The title is taken from a translation of the word Shekhinah, traditionally understood as the feminine manifestation or aspect of God.

Born in Pennsylvania, Gottlieb earned her B.S. at Hebrew University in Jerusalem before studying at Hebrew Union College and the Jewish Theological Seminary. While in New York, she became involved in early Jewish feminist circles. Because JTS did not at the time admit women to its rabbinical program, Gottlieb was privately ordained in 1981 by three rabbis, becoming the first woman ordained within the Jewish Renewal movement.

Even before her ordination, Gottlieb had found a niche as a rabbi, serving as the spiritual leader of a deaf congregation in Hollis, New York. She later incorporated sign language, along with music and storytelling, into her unconventional pulpit work and touring performances. Following her ordination, Gottlieb helped to build Congregation Nahalat Shalom in Albuquerque, NM, at the request of a group of unaffiliated Jews there.

Gottlieb remained at Nahalat Shalom for over two decades, building a community that emphasized work for peace, nonviolence as a spiritual practice, earth-based spirituality, interfaith work, and music. She has been particularly active in building ties between the Jewish and Muslim communities, as a co-founder of the Muslim-Jewish Peace Walks and by giving joint lectures with Muslim leaders.

In 2004, Gottlieb left her Albuquerque congregation and moved to California to pursue her interfaith work as director for Interfaith Inventions Peace Camp, an organization that seeks to bring together children and adults of diverse faiths to promote understanding and respect.

Sources: Lynn Gottlieb, She Who Dwells Within, (San Francisco, 1995); http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/Gottlieb.html; Jewish Women and the Feminist Revolution, jwa.org/feminism/index.html?id=JWA030.

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March 4, 1957

Hilde Bruch publishes "The Importance of Overweight"

When The Importance of Overweight was published on March 4, 1957, Hilde Bruch was already a leading childhood obesity researcher. Her work was among the first to bring the dangers of excess weight in children to public attention. Born in 1904 and raised in a small German town, Bruch originally wanted to become a mathematician. An uncle convinced her that medicine was a more practical career for a Jewish woman, and she earned her doctorate in medicine at the University of Freiburg in 1929. After giving up her academic career for private practice in response to anti-Semitism within the university, Bruch fled Germany altogether in 1933, immigrating to England. After a year in London, she moved to the United States, where she began working at Babies Hospital in New York City.

Bruch began researching obesity in children in 1937. Her work in this area would prove to be groundbreaking. Yet she left this research in 1941 to study psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins University. Returning to New York in 1943, she established a private psychoanalytic practice and joined the faculty at Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons. While at Columbia, she published Don't Be Afraid of Your Child: A Guide for Perplexed Parents (1952).

In New York, and at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, where she joined the faculty in 1964, Bruch's research increasingly focused on the underlying causes of anorexia nervosa. She published both scholarly and popular articles on eating disorders, schizophrenia, and psychoanalysis, and continued to see patients until her 80th birthday. Her collected work, published as Eating Disorders: Obesity, Anorexia Nervosa and the Person Within in 1973, is still considered a definitive work on the subject. Bruch died in Houston in December, 1984.

Sources: Jewish Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia, pp. 192-193; Joanne Hatch Bruch, Unlocking the Golden Cage: An Intimate Biography of Hilde Bruch, M.D. (Carlsbad, CA, 1996).

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March 5, 1935

Brothel-keeper Polly Adler jailed

When Polly Adler died in 1962, she was probably America's best-known brothel keeper. She had come a long way from her hometown of Yanow, Belarus. Born in 1900, Adler studied with her village rabbi and initially hoped to attend the gymnasium (high school) in Pinsk, but her father had other plans. In 1912, he sent her to live with friends in western Massachusetts, where she did housework to earn her keep while attending school to learn English. When World War I cut off communication with her family, including the monthly stipend her father had been sending, she moved in with cousins in Brooklyn.

At 17, Adler was raped by the foreman in the shirt factory where she worked. After an argument with her relatives over her subsequent abortion, she moved out on her own in Manhattan, where she continued to work in a factory. In 1920, Adler fell in with a bootlegger, who paid for an apartment where Adler, in return, secured women for the gangster's friends. It was the beginning of a long career managing prostitutes. She was arrested for the first time in 1922, ending her alliance with the bootlegger. After her release, Adler attempted to open a legitimate lingerie business, but it soon failed.

Following that failure, Adler returned to her career as a madam, opening a series of bordellos in New York City that catered to upper-class clients. Eventually, she opened an establishment in Saratoga Springs, New York, a popular summer retreat. In addition to New York's fashionable upper crust, her clients included gangster Lucky Luciano. Although she was frequently arrested, the charges were usually dropped; she went to jail only once. A police raid on March 5, 1935, resulted in a sentence of 30 days imprisonment, of which Adler served 24 days. Although her arrests and her connections with the underworld were well known, Adler managed to maintain a glamorous image that lasted until her final arrest in 1943. When the last set of charges was dropped, Adler gave up her business and retired to Burbank, California, where she finally completed high school and then enrolled in Los Angeles Valley College. In 1953, she published a best-selling memoir, A House is Not a Home, which was later made into a movie. She lived in Los Angeles until her death on June 9, 1962.

Sources: Polly Adler, A House Is Not a Home (New York, 1953); Jewish Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia, pp. 16-17; New York Times, March 20, 1935; May 11, 1935; June 11, 1962; September 2, 1964; Chicago Tribune, September 22, 1964.

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March 8, 1971

Lyricist Dorothy Fields inducted into the Songwriters' Hall of Fame.

The ten people inducted into the Songwriters' Hall of Fame in its first induction ceremony on March 8, 1971, included some of the most well-known names in American music: Duke Ellington, Ira Gershwin, and Alan Jay Lerner. The only woman in the group was Dorothy Fields, who over half a century wrote lyrics to more than 400 songs. Born in 1904 and raised in New Jersey, Fields was the daughter of Lew Fields, half of the well-known Weber and Fields vaudeville team. Though Lew Fields discouraged his daughter from pursuing a theater career, Dorothy Fields eventually became one of Broadway and Hollywood's most prolific lyricists.

Fields got her start writing songs for revues at New York City's Cotton Club. Collaborating with Jimmy McHugh, she wrote the lyrics for "I Can't Give You Anything But Love," "On the Sunny Side of the Street," "I'm in the Mood for Love," and "Don't Blame Me," all in 1928. Shortly thereafter, she was asked to write lyrics for a song Jerome Kern was adding to the score of the film Roberta. The song, which became "Lovely to Look At," was the beginning of a long collaboration between Fields and Kern. In 1936, they won an Academy Award for the song "The Way You Look Tonight," from the film Swing Time.

Fields also collaborated with such well-known composers as Irving Berlin and Cy Coleman, and with her brother, Herbert Fields. In all, Fields wrote lyrics for 19 Broadway musicals and 25 films. Among the musicals for which Fields wrote songs are Annie Get Your Gun, Sweet Charity, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Up in Central Park, and Seesaw. She died of a heart attack on March 28, 1974.

In a field in which the names of Jewish men from George and Ira Gershwin to Richard Rodgers and Stephen Sondheim are ubiquitous, Fields made her mark with some of the American musical theater's most memorable songs. A recent New York Times article quoted Sondheim's observation that Fields "wrote the way people talked... she did not distort syntax very often, the way Lorenz Hart and Ira Gershwin did." According to this article, many of today's prominent lyricists cite Fields as "one of the best practitioners of the art."

Sources: Jewish Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia, pp. 433-435; New York Times, March 29, 1974, January 7, 2007.

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March 9, 1959

Ruth Mosko Handler Unveils Barbie Doll

At the International American Toy Fair in New York on March 9, 1959, inventor Ruth Mosko Handler unveiled one of the most loved, emulated, and criticized toys of the 20^th century. The Barbie Doll, named after Handler's 15-year-old daughter, rocketed the Mattel company to nearly overnight success and became an icon of American culture.

Although Barbie has been roundly condemned by feminists as promoting an unrealistic body shape to young girls, Handler originally conceived the doll as a way for girls to imagine their futures as adult women. "I believed it was important to a little girl's self-esteem," she later said, "to play with a doll that has breasts." The development of the doll was also influenced by Handler's daughter's preference for adult paper dolls over the baby dolls that then dominated the toy market.

Although it was Mattel's first big success, the Barbie Doll was not the beginning of Handler's career as an inventor. While working at Paramount Studios in Hollywood, Handler first went into business with her husband producing picture frames. Mattel, named for Handler's husband and a business partner, was incorporated in 1945. In its early years, the company produced a toy ukulele and toy guns; it was among the first to market toys directly to children, sponsoring a year's run of the Mickey Mouse Club television show. After the runaway success of Barbie, the company added Ken, named after Handler's son, and later additional dolls named for Handler's grandchildren.

After losing a breast to cancer in 1970, and leaving Mattel in 1975, Handler turned her attention to helping other breast cancer survivors. Unhappy with the available breast prostheses, she invented her own, which she sold through a new company called Nearly Me.

Handler received numerous awards for her accomplishments. The Los Angeles Times named her Woman of the Year in Business in 1967, the United Jewish Appeal named her its first "Woman of Distinction," and the Toy Industry Hall of Fame inducted her in 1985.

Ruth Mosko Handler died in 2002. Although often a subject of satire and social criticism, Barbie lives on, with more than 100 million sold annually. Professional outfits and ethnic Barbies have updated the original, but the grown-up doll continues to entrance both young girls and older collectors.

Sources: Ruth Mosko Handler, Dream Doll: The Ruth Handler Story (Stamford, CT, 1994); http://www.ideafinder.com/history/inventors/handler.htm; Jewish Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia, pp. 591-592; M.G. Lord, Forever Barbie: The Unauthorized Biography of a Real Doll (New York, 1994); Los Angeles Times, December 12, 1967, December 15, 1967; New York Times, April 29, 2002.

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