This International Women’s Day (8th March), we celebrate the remarkable Jewish women with Manchester roots whose contributions helped make the world we know today. The role of Jewish women is often overlooked when we consider the forces that shaped modern Britain and the wider world. Looking back at a rich and varied history, we recognise the lasting influence of the pioneering women who called Manchester home.
Although Rebecca Sieff was born in Leeds in 1890, it was Manchester that made her. Her father was Michael Marks – who co-founded Marks & Spencer in 1903 – and the family settled in the city where Rebecca attended Manchester High School for Girls before going on to study English Literature at the University of Manchester.
In 1918, Rebecca was elected to the Council of the English Zionist Federation. That same year, she established the South Manchester Women’s Zionist Society. Then, in 1920, she persuaded the international committee of Women Zionists to form the Women’s International Zionist Organisation (WIZO), becoming its first president. WIZO remains one of the world’s largest women’s volunteer organisations to this day.
Rebecca Sieff was not alone. Jewish women were far more deeply embedded in British civic and political life than many people realise. Following the emancipation of middle-class women towards the end of the 19th century, many women became politically involved, contributing greatly to the public good, and Jewish women were a key part of this process.
There were Jewish suffragettes and members of specialist female trade unions such as the Women’s Garment and Tailoring Union. Jewish women in Manchester were also central to the Victoria Jewish Hospital – the first Jewish-sponsored hospital to be built in Britain. In October 1909, it was Sarah Laski who chaired the first national conference of Women Zionists – held in Manchester – at which it was agreed that all groups working for the welfare of women and children in Palestine should come together under a single body.
The movement for women’s suffrage, spearheaded by Mancunian Emmeline Pankhurst, also had a strong Jewish element. Founded in 1912, the Jewish League for Woman Suffrage was the only Jewish organisation in the world devoted solely to winning both parliamentary and religious enfranchisement for women. Non-militant and non-partisan, it had over 300 members by 1913 and distributed Yiddish-language leaflets to reach Jewish immigrant communities. Elsewhere in England, Henrietta Adler – daughter of Chief Rabbi Hermann Adler – became one of the first two women elected to the London County Council in 1910 and was awarded a CBE in 1934 for her work in public life.
Politics wasn’t the only sphere in which Jewish women made an impact. Maisie Mosco, born in Oldham in 1924, did it through storytelling. A teacher who spent part of the Second World War educating illiterate soldiers, she went on to edit the Jewish Gazette – Manchester’s own Jewish newspaper – from the late 1940s and wrote radio plays for the BBC. But she is best remembered for her Almonds and Raisins trilogy, a sweeping saga of a Jewish family who flee persecution in the Russian Empire and build a new life in Manchester. Drawing on her own family’s history, the novels offer an intimate window into the immigrant experience – the fear, the hope, and the determination to belong.
Manchester’s Jewish women built their own organisations, stood for election, went on strike, marched for the vote, and wrote the stories of their people that needed to be heard. This International Women’s Day, their legacy deserves to be celebrated. Jewish Women’s Week has become an established annual UK-wide house-to-house collection, raising £12 million since 1947. The campaign focuses on the impact of war on women and children. As Israel reels from the impact of October 7th and conflict on all fronts, it’s now suffering further from the war with Iran.
With your support, WIZO can continue to rebuild lives and impact the futures of women and children deeply affected by the conflict. If you would like to volunteer to be a Jewish Women’s Week collector, please contact central@wizouk.org or call 0207 319 9169.
