Meet the Jewish Women At the Heart of FX’s ‘Mrs. America’

FX’s newly released Mrs. America portrays the battle between the second-wave feminists who aimed to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) and conservative Phyllis Schlafly who strongly opposed their agenda and organized the “STOP ERA” campaign. The series documents the stories of these women who shaped the women’s liberation movement—several of whom happened to be Jewish. Here’s a bit about each: Gloria Steinem Gloria Steinem (Rose Byrne) is a leader and spokeswoman for the American feminist movement and was head of the movement to ratify the ERA. Steinmen co-founded Ms. magazine and the Women’s Media Center and continues to advocate for women’s equality issues. Steinem’s father was Jewish and the son of immigrants from Wurttemberg, Germany and Radziejow, Poland, according to the Jewish Women’s Archive biography of Steinem (written by Moment columnist Letty Cottin Pogrebin). Steinem’s paternal grandmother,...

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Pew Survey Reveals Americans’ Limited Holocaust Knowledge

Less than half of Americans can answer basic questions about the Holocaust, according to a new Pew Research Center report. The report, released just before the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, examines the results of a survey testing Americans’ religious knowledge, which included five basic questions about the Holocaust. The results revealed that most Americans associate the Holocaust with the attempted annihilation of Jewish people: They know approximately when the Holocaust happened and what Nazi-created ghettos were, but less than half know how many people were killed during the Holocaust or how Hitler came to power. Four of the questions were also included in a separate Pew survey of U.S. teens ages 13 to 17. Like adults, teens know more about the general timeline of the Holocaust than the specific death toll. Becka Alper, primary...

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