Brief Biography of Marcia Freedman
A photo published in the Jerusalem Post of a person trying to throw water at Marcia Freedman.
Born in Newark, New Jersey in 1938, Marcia Freedman earned a BA from Bennington College and an MA from the City College of New York.(1) In 1967, while pursuing a PhD in philosophy, she moved with her family to Israel, just after the Six-Day War. In the early 1970s, Freedman taught philosophy at Haifa University and a course on women in western philosophy at Oranim College. After a brief return to the United States in 1971, she brought her burgeoning interest in and experience with American feminism to Israel.(2) As one of the leaders of the feminist movement in Israel, and as the first woman (and first openly gay person) elected to the Knesset (Israel’s national legislature), Freedman fought many uphill battles advocating for women’s rights at a time when men in the Knesset did not take women or women’s issues seriously. During her tenure in the Knesset from 1973 to 1977, Freedman worked tirelessly to bring feminist consciousness to the forefront of Israel’s parliament. Among her many accomplishments, she worked to reform Israel’s restrictive abortion laws, opened the first battered women’s shelter in Israel, and co-founded the (now-defunct) Women’s Party. In 1981, Freedman returned to the United States where she continued to raise awareness of Israel and feminist issues. Between 1997 to 2002, she embarked on another series of extended stays in Israel, after which she became the founding president of Brit Tzedek v’Shalom, the American Jewish Alliance for Justice and Peace.
Marcia Freedman’s papers are split between HFI and Brandeis. The two collections follow the different stages of Freedman’s life and work as an important figure in Jewish feminist history.
Description by Jeff Hayes, MLIS candidate at the University of Alabama and Archives & Special Collections intern.
Notes: (1) knesset.gov.il; (2) The American Jewish Peace Archives