In Search of Jewish Women: My Travels into Light

Nashim Art Editor Judith Margolis writes: A survey of feminist activity in America for the last five decades will reveal that, while history was being made on our behalf, Joan Roth was often there with her camera, taking iconic photographs of women celebrating victories and mourning losses. At National Women’s Conferences, reproductive rights rallies, women’s marches, vigils and demonstrations, Roth framed for posterity the likes of Bella Abzug, Betty Friedan, Gloria Steinem, Shirley Chisolm, Alice Shalvi and Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Meanwhile, another body of work was also coming into being. Fueled by a fierce desire to search out and learn about the lives of Jewish women living far from the familiar centers of North American modern life, Roth, armed only with her camera and her curiosity, traveled to Ethiopia, Yemen, Morocco, the former Soviet Union, eastern Europe, South America, Bukhara and India. With determination and grit, Roth found ways to go to places she had never been and to find and communicate with women with whom she often did not share a language. Sometimes travel arrangements were organized by Jewish communal organizations and institutions in the U.S. or the destination country. But mostly Roth arranged and paid for her trips on her own. With disarming modesty, she related to me, while we were preparing this article: