JWA Puts Jewish Women’s History “On the Map”
There is no guide to physical landmarks in Jewish women’s history – until now. Today, the Jewish Women’s Archive launches On the Map, an innovative, interactive tool that will literally put Jewish women “on the map.”
There is a human impulse to connect with history in a physical way, one that compels us to build monuments that mark the place of historically significant stories. Traditionally, these have been the stories of “great men.” Many important stories—women’s stories—go unheralded. The Jewish Women’s Archive wants to know, “Where are the landmarks that tell the stories of Jewish women?”
A user-generated map hosted on jwa.org, On the Map will showcase significant places in Jewish women’s history, including sites both marked and unmarked, familiar and obscure. Users can put their own stamp on history by clicking on a location and adding a photo and their description of the new landmark. Through this crowdsourcing initiative, we become our own historians, mapping history as we discover and create it. The Jewish Women’s Archive, the world’s leading source on Jewish women in North America, is excited to add this innovative tool to its growing collection of resources on Jewish women.
