Jewish Women’s Federation
The Jewish Women’s Federation (Jüdischer Frauenbund or JFB) was founded in 1904 by Bertha Pappenheim as a religious organisation for Jewish women. She helped to unify Germany’s various Jewish social work groups in Germany into a central council (ZWST). She advocated strongly against the trafficking of women, shocking the very conservative Jewish community which did not want to acknowledge the problem or their own involvement in it. Bertha worked with Protestant and Catholic women’s groups to run the “Bahnhofsmission” to help poor girls arriving from Eastern Europe. She also campaigned for women’s right to vote and to be elected onto the boards of the Jewish community, and she was instrumental in bringing together Jewish women’s organizations from around the world to set up what is now the International Council of Jewish Women.