Learn about the Jewish women you don't know (and some you do) with JWA's encyclopedia
It is a twitter experiment... teach people about important Jewish women in 140 characters or less.
A variety of influential Twitter users, individuals, organizations, rabbis and more, have volunteered to help tweet the Encyclopedia of Jewish Women using the hashtag #jwapedia
So how are we finding women to write about?
When you look at the overwhelming amount of information there is in the Jewish Women's Archive encyclopedia, it is enough to make your head spin.
With 1,700 biographies, 300 thematic essays, and 1,400 photographs and illustrations, how do you start finding interesting women to learn about?
For me, once I stopped being overwhelmed, I started by choosing subjects that were of interest to me, close to what I normally tweet about, that would also intrigue my followers to learn more about someone. JWA makes this easy because they have tags sorted by keyword, time period and countries on the front page.
I browsed through topics and tags and easily found people I never heard of!
For example, do you know about Bessie Louise Moses? No?
She is the founder of the first birth control clinic in 1927 and a pioneer in women's reproductive health. She paved the way for so many others in women's health and I'm thrilled to be able to learn about her through the Jewish Women's Archive encyclopedia.
There are thousands more out there like her that you would be amazed to learn about.
You can follow along on Twitter, and participate if you are so inclined, by searching for #jwapedia or contacting @jwaonline for more information
So drop in to the encyclopedia, and tell me... who did you learn about today?
