Creating a Storm Jewish Women in the World of Arts and Culture

Here Isabelle Seddon reveals the astonishing contributions made by British born Jewish women in the arts during the twentieth century. Some of the women you will meet here were well-known in their fields such as singer Amy Winehouse, and others whose names are less familiar, but whose contributions to their fields are no less notable such as Rebecca Solomon, a painter of social injustices. The intersection of gender, Jewishness, social status and education links the experiences of all of the women featured in this volume, across their varied cultural outputs and contributions from acting to musicianship, writing to art, sport to cookery. The persecution of the Jews across the ages, including the Holocaust, is one of the factors that ties many of these highly accomplished women together. This, alongside the legacies of immigrant and refugee backgrounds, motivated and inspired them to shape British culture in remarkable and fascinating ways.

Isabelle Seddon trained as a journalist and counsellor/drama therapist and is currently a blue badge tourist guide of London. She received a Doctorate of Philosophy from Southampton University, where she is a Parkes Institute Visiting Fellow. Her publications include East End Jews and Left Wing Theatre (Vallentine Mitchell, 2020) and Intrepid Pioneers: Jewish Women in the Public Arena (Vallentine Mitchell, 2024).

Contents
Acknowledgements
Foreword by Dame Maureen Lipman DBE
Introduction
Chapter 1: Theatre
Miriam Karlin OBE
Fenella Fielding OBE
Claire Bloom CBE
Eleanor Bron
Tracy Ann Oberman
Chapter 2: Writers
Naomi Jacob
Gerda Charles
Bernice Rubens
Anita Brookner CBE
Linda Grant
Naomi Alderman
Charlotte Mendelson
Chapter 3: Popular Singers
Alma Cogan
Helen Shapiro
Elkie Brooks
Pauline Black OBE DL
Amy Winehouse
Jessie Ware
Plate Section
Chapter 4: Classical Musicians
Myra Hess DBE
Fanny Waterman DBE
Natalie Clein OBE
Chapter 5: Artists
Rebecca Solomon
Hannah Gluckstein (Gluck)
Rachel Lichtenstein
Chapter 6: Sport
Dorothy Levitt
Sheila van Damm
Angela Buxton
Chapter 7: Cookery And The World Of Food
Judith Montefiore
Florence Greenberg
Evelyn Rose MBE
Nigella Lawson
Conclusion
Endnotes
Bibliography
Index