Pink world bouquet

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Rosa Welt-Straus with daughter Leonora "Nellie" 1893

Rosa Welt-Straus (born August 24, 1856 in Chernivtsi , Bukowina , † December 15, 1938 in Geneva ) was an Austrian doctor, association functionary, suffragette and feminist .

Life

She grew up with her three sisters Ida (1879–1950), Leonora (1859–1944) and Sara (1860–1943) as the daughter of Jewish parents. In addition to attending school, she was mainly taught by her father Sinai Welt (1834–1882) and Karl Emil Franzos . In 1873 she passed the Matura with distinction. The parents moved to Vienna to enable their daughter to study medicine. Since the University of Vienna refused admission, she studied in Bern from 1874 and received her doctorate there in 1878. Leonora and Sara also studied medicine, Ida chemistry. Back in Vienna, Rosa attended other lectures, especially ophthalmology, and sat in at the Rothschild Hospital . Then she worked in a maternity hospital in Dresden. In Vienna she worked as an employee for the Association for Advanced Women's Education. The family then settled in Geneva, from where Rosa Welt emigrated to America in 1882. She subsequently worked for many years as an ophthalmologist and surgeon in the eye clinic and the eye department of the women's clinic in New York. She married the businessman Louis Straus (1859-1907) in New York. Daughter Leonora "Nellie" (1892–1933) was born on May 16, 1892

In addition to her professional activity, Welt-Straus was active in the fight for women's suffrage in New York and supported the International Woman Suffrage Alliance (IWSA) founded by Carrie Chapman Catt , Marie Stritt , Anita Augspurg and Käthe Schirmacher (from 1926 International Alliance of Women ). In 1904 she took part in the first congress of the IWSA as a member of the American delegation. As a result, she regularly attended the organization's congresses.

In 1919 Welt-Straus settled in Palestine with her daughter Nellie and, within two months of their arrival, was elected chairman of the Yishuv's (Jewish community of Palestine), the first nationwide newly established women's association, Union of Hebrew Women for Equal Rights in Erez Israel Position she held until her death. Presumably her contacts with the American movement and the IWSA were decisive for her choice.

In September 1919, the newspaper published Haaretz a letter, wrote in the World Straus of American Jewish women who participated along with other women in the struggle for voting rights for women in the United States and to be sure that in Eretz Israel , such Fight would not be necessary. Contrary to this assumption, the implementation of women's suffrage in their new home turned out to be lengthy and difficult. In July 1920 Welt-Straus traveled to London to attend the meeting at which the Women's International Zionist Organization (WIZO) was founded. Later that year she represented the Union of Hebrew Women for Equal Rights in Erez Israel at the International Woman Suffrage Alliance (IWSA) congress in Geneva. She represented the IWSA in international committees and took part in all congresses.

As an experienced member of the IWSA, Welt-Straus was a representative in the Geneva Mandate Committee and in the coalition of nine international women's organizations founded by the League of Nations . The aim of this coalition was to find a solution to the citizenship problems of many women around the world, whose citizenship after their emigration depended on men in the countries in which they now lived. This problem was of additional concern in Palestine, as married working women could not apply to the British administration for their families to join Palestine because only their husbands' employment was recognized, not their work. The appeal by the Union of Hebrew Women to the mandate authorities was rejected on the grounds that under Jewish law, a woman's salary belongs to her husband. In 1926 the Charedim (ultra-Orthodox Jews), opponents of women's rights who had preferred not to stand for a referendum, left the Yishuv parliamentary assembly in Palestine (1920-1949), and an official statement was made that year ( ratified by the Mandate Government in 1927), in which it guaranteed "equal rights for women in all areas of life in the yishuv" - civil, political and economic.

Welt-Straus spent her last years with her family in Geneva. In 1938 she was buried in the Jewish cemetery of Veyrier in the Swiss canton of Geneva .

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h i Jewish Women's Archive: Rosa Welt-Straus . Retrieved January 14, 2020
  2. ↑ a b c d e Ariadne - Austrian National Library: Women in Movement 1848–1938. Pink world . Retrieved January 14, 2020
  3. ↑ a b c d Find A Grave: Dr Rosa Welt Straus . Retrieved January 14, 2020
  4. ^ A b Mary RS Creese, Thomas M Creese: Ladies in the laboratory II. West European women in science, 1800–1900 , p. 174
  5. ↑ a b Ruth Kark, Margalit Shilo, Galit Hasan-Rokem (ed.): Jewish Women in Pre-State Israel. Life History, Politics, and Culture , p. 225
  6. ↑ Deborah Bernstein (Ed.): Pioneers and Homemakers: Jewish Women in Pre-State Israel . Suny Series in Israeli Studies, State University of New York, 1992, ISBN 978-0-7914-0905-3 , p. 272. Retrieved January 15, 2020
personal data
SURNAME World bouquet, pink
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian doctor, club official, suffragette and feminist
DATE OF BIRTH August 24, 1856
PLACE OF BIRTH Chernivtsi , Bukovina
DATE OF DEATH December 15, 1938
Place of death Geneva , Switzerland